0:00:06 > 0:00:10Elaine Morgan is 92 years old, and is one of Wales's best-loved authors.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16Born into a Rhondda mining family, she has been a top television writer,
0:00:16 > 0:00:19feminist icon, scientific rebel
0:00:19 > 0:00:22and an award-winning newspaper columnist.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27There was a time when the writer was king and she was one of the stars.
0:00:27 > 0:00:33If you saw that name on a script then you really wanted to do it.
0:00:35 > 0:00:36I turned the first page
0:00:36 > 0:00:41and from then on my life literally did change.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43There was no going back.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46I'd go along with that, too.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49I imagine her sitting at a desk
0:00:49 > 0:00:53and looking into the middle distance and conjuring up thoughts.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56She is a lone operator.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01Elaine Morgan is both sweet and sharp,
0:01:01 > 0:01:03rather like a sugar-dusted acid drop.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09Last year, Elaine published her latest book.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12Knock 'Em Cold, Kid is her autobiography.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15The engrossing tale of a unique life and body of work.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19This programme tells the story of that life and that work
0:01:19 > 0:01:22and looks at what inspired it.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27She has that honour that people have bestowed upon her,
0:01:27 > 0:01:32she's not just Elaine Morgan, she's "our Elaine".
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Elaine Morgan was born in November 1920,
0:01:59 > 0:02:01in Hopkinstown near Pontypridd.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08She spent most of her long life only a stone's throw from her childhood home.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12It was a place that shaped her life and her outlook on the world.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Tel-L- Kebir...
0:02:17 > 0:02:21I am not quite sure what it means
0:02:21 > 0:02:26but it was the name of a battle in Egypt,
0:02:26 > 0:02:33but we called it Telly-keeper, it sounds like the keeper of a telly, which was kind of suitable.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42I remember we lived all the time in the kitchen
0:02:42 > 0:02:47because we could only afford to have a fire in one room,
0:02:47 > 0:02:51and we went into the middle room for posh occasions.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59There were hard times, compared to what most of the country had,
0:02:59 > 0:03:07but if you hadn't seen most of the country you weren't aware of that, so it felt OK.
0:03:09 > 0:03:14Elaine was an only child, and lived with no fewer than four adults.
0:03:14 > 0:03:19Her mother, Olive, and father, Billy, and Billy's own parents.
0:03:19 > 0:03:24In hard times, it was an unusual and very beneficial start in life.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30Elaine was always, I think, from the beginning, exceptional.
0:03:30 > 0:03:36Even amidst the relative poverty she had quite a cosseted upbringing.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38Her father was a craftsman,
0:03:38 > 0:03:41he drove the fan in the engine in the Great Western Colliery,
0:03:41 > 0:03:44and even when he was unemployed at the end of the '20s
0:03:44 > 0:03:47because their grandfather and grandmother lived with them,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50there were two sets of dole coming into the house
0:03:50 > 0:03:51and there was an allotment.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54Elaine says she was never really aware of poverty.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00My father was very popular because he could mend anything that got broken.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05And he was careful not to charge more than people could afford.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10So sometimes, it was just a packet of fags or something like that.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17My mother was very intelligent, and she made all my clothes
0:04:17 > 0:04:20so that I didn't look poor.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23I felt quite posh.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Elaine shone at junior school,
0:04:28 > 0:04:31and at the age of 11 she had her first breakthrough.
0:04:31 > 0:04:36The Western Mail was to publish a story she had written
0:04:36 > 0:04:39and pay her the handsome sum of one guinea.
0:04:39 > 0:04:45This is chapter one of the story I wrote called Kitty In Blunderland.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49"It was the end of the most wonderful day in Kitty's life,
0:04:49 > 0:04:53"and she was lying on her back on top of a pile of sweets
0:04:53 > 0:05:00"riding on Uncle Bob's hay cart. She had spent a whole week at the farm..."
0:05:00 > 0:05:02I have a sense of this girl, Elaine Floyd,
0:05:02 > 0:05:06in the streets observing things, looking at things.
0:05:06 > 0:05:07Looking out at them.
0:05:07 > 0:05:12The Elaine Floyd who reads books that even adults are not reading.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14The little girl who will grow up to translate,
0:05:14 > 0:05:15adapt other people's words.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19In a way, it is almost as if she has always been an observer,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23somebody who regards and then comes back to tell us.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27Later in life, as a professional writer,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30Elaine drew deep on her upbringing.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34Adapting the novel How Green Was My Valley for television,
0:05:34 > 0:05:35she knew first-hand
0:05:35 > 0:05:38all about the hard knocks of a mining valleys' upbringing.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55- Hello, Mum.- What happened?
0:05:55 > 0:05:57Nothing, I am a bit stiff, that's all.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04That's it. How many were there?
0:06:04 > 0:06:09- Five.- I wish I could lay my hands on them. I'd have them flat if they were the size of a house!
0:06:09 > 0:06:13You're lucky there's nothing broken. You willing to go back there tomorrow?
0:06:13 > 0:06:17- Yes, Dada.- Right. You going to hide from them or stand up to them?
0:06:19 > 0:06:24It is the big ones he is in with, didn't you hear him telling you?
0:06:24 > 0:06:28- You want your head read, talking to him like that.- Stand up to them!
0:06:28 > 0:06:29That's it.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33And from tonight, you shall have a penny for every mark on your face,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36sixpence for a nosebleed. And a shilling for a black eye.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Gwilym!
0:06:38 > 0:06:42Ah, go on! He'll be running rings around them in a month or six weeks.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48By the age of 18, Elaine Floyd was the star pupil at her secondary school,
0:06:48 > 0:06:54and in October 1939 she was ready to take a huge step.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58Away from the Valleys and into a very different world.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07Elaine Morgan and I both went up to Oxford at the same time.
0:07:09 > 0:07:10We were both reading English.
0:07:10 > 0:07:15And she had the scholarship, which was called an exhibition.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18So she was marked out, if you like, from the beginning,
0:07:18 > 0:07:19as one of the clever ones.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27We knew she came from a mining background,
0:07:27 > 0:07:29she made no secret of it.
0:07:31 > 0:07:33But we all got on extremely well.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37It was a wonderful three years, even though it was wartime.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42Elaine's Oxford career had started badly.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45When she first visited her college for an interview
0:07:45 > 0:07:48it was assumed that she had come for a job as a maid.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50But once she was in her stride
0:07:50 > 0:07:52the girl from Hopkinstown flourished.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58I found it, to my relief, much easier than I had expected.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03I thought most of it would be over my head, but most of it wasn't
0:08:03 > 0:08:07over my head, I could understand what they were on about.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11And I could understand what the books they give us
0:08:11 > 0:08:14were on about quite well. I was good at words.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19I found out if you had enough cheek it was OK.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25Oxford also gave Elaine the chance to work on her creative writing.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Albeit, unofficially.
0:08:28 > 0:08:35Elaine and I once... We were having a tutorial, Elaine was reading her essay,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38"De-dum-de-dum-de-dum" quoting things,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41and the tutor said, "Just a minute, Elaine."
0:08:41 > 0:08:45And snatched her copy of Milton from her shelf,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48"Tell me the reference for that."
0:08:48 > 0:08:52"Oh, dear," said Elaine, "I'm afraid I don't have it."
0:08:53 > 0:08:56"I will leave a note in your pigeonhole."
0:08:56 > 0:08:57"Yes, we won't waste time now."
0:08:57 > 0:09:01When we came out of the room at the end of the tutorial,
0:09:01 > 0:09:04Elaine turned to me and she said,
0:09:04 > 0:09:09"I am not quite sure what I'm going to do now, you see, I was making them up."
0:09:11 > 0:09:15As ever, Elaine's experiences fed into her work.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18Her first television series A Matter Of Degree,
0:09:18 > 0:09:21was the story of a Valleys girl who goes to Oxford.
0:09:23 > 0:09:29Four decades later, she returned to the theme in her BAFTA winning adaptation of Testament Of Youth.
0:09:31 > 0:09:35- About the piano... - Well?- It is beautiful.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39But I can't help thinking that the money you spent on that and my music lessons
0:09:39 > 0:09:43would have been enough to pay for my fees in a University, Father!
0:09:43 > 0:09:46We are back to that old tommyrot, are we?
0:09:46 > 0:09:48Why is it tommyrot, why?
0:09:48 > 0:09:52You got your head full of silly ideas from one or two dried up spinsters from St Monica's!
0:09:52 > 0:09:55You will soon grow out of those ideas when you grow up
0:09:55 > 0:10:00- and the right man comes along.- When will you realise that I am grown-up?
0:10:00 > 0:10:05I am 18, I am not a little girl. I am 18, I am a woman!
0:10:12 > 0:10:16It was at Oxford that Elaine first showed a political side to her character.
0:10:17 > 0:10:22The official university Labour club was dominated by Communists.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26So Elaine helped to found the new Democratic Socialist Club.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28And soon, she was chairing it.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31Elaine Floyd enjoyed Oxford,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34she was the president of the Social Democratic Club,
0:10:34 > 0:10:37which was in a sense the Labour Club after Lloyd Jenkins
0:10:37 > 0:10:41and Tony Crosland, future Cabinet ministers.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44Elaine Floyd as a Cabinet minister in a future Labour government?
0:10:44 > 0:10:46Not unimaginable.
0:10:46 > 0:10:50Marriage and children and other things maybe changed that direction,
0:10:50 > 0:10:54but Elaine's political instincts from the off were humane,
0:10:54 > 0:10:56were central, were mainstream,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00and I think above all else she would have been able to communicate that
0:11:00 > 0:11:02to a greater British public.
0:11:02 > 0:11:06Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle, Elaine Floyd. Go for it.
0:11:06 > 0:11:13I was slow getting a political picture of the situation,
0:11:13 > 0:11:16but once I did, I thought, well,
0:11:16 > 0:11:22the people are going to change it to the Labour Party,
0:11:22 > 0:11:24not the Communist Party.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26Nobody is going to start a revolution here.
0:11:36 > 0:11:42After graduating from Oxford, Elaine returned home to the South Wales Valleys.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48It was here that she met the man who was to help shape the next chapter in her life.
0:11:51 > 0:11:57He was very tall, and dark, and good at expressing himself.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04And also, he was the first reasonable Communist I had ever met.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06Morien Morgan was a local from Ynysybwl,
0:12:06 > 0:12:11and had just come back from serving with the International Brigade in Spain.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15Elaine met him at a political rally in Pontypridd.
0:12:15 > 0:12:18A year later they were married.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22And married life began not in the tightly-packed streets of Rhondda,
0:12:22 > 0:12:24but in isolated, rural Radnorshire.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29It was right up on the top of a mountain,
0:12:29 > 0:12:31and it was miles away from any other house.
0:12:31 > 0:12:39And Morian would go away on Monday and come back on Saturday.
0:12:39 > 0:12:45And I was up there feeding chickens and milking the goat and so on.
0:12:46 > 0:12:53But I did have tons of time to myself and I started writing little stories
0:12:55 > 0:12:58about that kind of life and background.
0:12:58 > 0:13:04And I started selling them, so then I thought, "I am on my way now."
0:13:05 > 0:13:09Elaine's early work was published in newspapers and magazines.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13But then, her agent asked if she might fancy turning her hand
0:13:13 > 0:13:16to a new and rather unpopular medium.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18It is true at that time
0:13:18 > 0:13:21that some people thought television was beneath them,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23perhaps rather common.
0:13:23 > 0:13:28She was never pretentious like that, I think she saw an opportunity
0:13:28 > 0:13:30and she saw what was required.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34She was a writer, writers write.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38Nothing airy-fairy about it, that is what you do.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43You sit down and write and if the words don't work first time, you make them work the 100th time.
0:13:46 > 0:13:51She was really on the wild frontier with a few other people.
0:13:51 > 0:13:55So it was exciting. And I think that is what she enjoyed.
0:13:58 > 0:14:04It was new, I suppose, and unknown and not many people saw it.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06Not everybody in the country had a set.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10It was live and there were mistakes and things went wrong,
0:14:10 > 0:14:14there would be a few cameras in a few shots and it was just inevitable.
0:14:16 > 0:14:18The pressure was colossal,
0:14:18 > 0:14:21but it was attractive for young writers, it really was.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26Soon, domestic production line was established.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Elaine wrote longhand,
0:14:28 > 0:14:32and Morian would type it up, adding occasional critical notes.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37Elaine's star rose rapidly as she wrote single dramas and series,
0:14:37 > 0:14:40often dealing for the first time on television
0:14:40 > 0:14:43with the lives of ordinary people, especially women.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49Feeling more relaxed after your tea, are you?
0:14:54 > 0:15:00She saw opportunities to write about real lives,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05she knew how people lived in the town in Rhondda, Pontypridd and so on,
0:15:05 > 0:15:11all of this experience, all of her feeling for women
0:15:11 > 0:15:16and for other people, men included, comes through her own experience.
0:15:16 > 0:15:17It is true.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19What is the matter? Afraid to look?
0:15:19 > 0:15:23I can never see why you don't do that sort of thing in the bathroom.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27There's many wouldn't mind the chance, I'd bet. Why the bathroom?
0:15:27 > 0:15:32I get it, wives preserve your mystery.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35The secret of glamour is, never let Abbie know how it is done.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39If you don't know how it's done after 10 years of marriage,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41in a flat this size, you never will.
0:15:41 > 0:15:47She is a wonderful plotter, she is a very good storyteller, for a start.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50So nobody ever had to do any tweaking.
0:15:50 > 0:15:52Not a word. Not a word.
0:15:52 > 0:15:57You saw that name on a script, then you really wanted to do it.
0:16:00 > 0:16:01The decades rolled by,
0:16:01 > 0:16:05television became not just respectable but universal,
0:16:05 > 0:16:09and Elaine Morgan was one of its star writers.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14She penned some of the most successful series of their times,
0:16:14 > 0:16:19How Green Was My Valley paired Sian Phillips with film star Stanley Baker,
0:16:19 > 0:16:23in his final screen performance. It was a Welsh classic.
0:16:23 > 0:16:29- Oh, Bron, he's beautiful, he is. - There's another one half asleep by the look of it.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31Three o'clock last night before we got him off.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34Go on, he's exaggerating.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36If he is going to be sleeping at the wrong time
0:16:36 > 0:16:38you will have to go on nights like Owen.
0:16:40 > 0:16:45The quality of the dialogue, she knew how to write,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48especially about people from South Wales.
0:16:48 > 0:16:53She knew exactly the tune, the melody, the way we talk.
0:16:53 > 0:17:00And it required very little acting, actually.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14Elaine had a flair for storytelling and realism.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16But there was much more to her writing.
0:17:16 > 0:17:18Often, she used popular drama
0:17:18 > 0:17:22to tackle the issues closest to her heart and background.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25Funeral expenses for the Duchess of Cambridge, £180.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29Is her husband too poor to give her a decent burial?
0:17:29 > 0:17:31Hardly, hardly.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33Because the Exchequer has already handed over to him
0:17:33 > 0:17:37something in the region of £3 million!
0:17:41 > 0:17:47Mr Speaker, I have here a recent report
0:17:48 > 0:17:55revealing how thousands of hard-working, thrifty men and women
0:17:55 > 0:18:02are living lives of ceaseless toil in conditions of grinding squalor.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05And from this morass of misery and despair
0:18:05 > 0:18:08this discredited government simply averts its eyes.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14While presiding over the wealthiest country in the world
0:18:14 > 0:18:16it protests it cannot afford to do anything
0:18:16 > 0:18:19to relieve the suffering of the poor.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27Elaine Morgan was riding high,
0:18:27 > 0:18:30she won two BAFTAs and a host of other awards.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36Remarkably, she did it all from the South Wales valleys.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39It is where she felt at home, a place, she said,
0:18:39 > 0:18:42where people were valued for who they were,
0:18:42 > 0:18:44not for property or status.
0:18:46 > 0:18:51But then, her writing career took a very unexpected turn.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54Beginning in a rather unlikely place.
0:18:57 > 0:19:02It was the early 1970s and Elaine Morgan was paying her weekly visit
0:19:02 > 0:19:04to Mountain Ash Public Library.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08The book she picked up that day would change her life
0:19:08 > 0:19:10and the lives of millions of women.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14The Naked Ape was an international bestseller
0:19:14 > 0:19:16and had made a TV star of its author.
0:19:18 > 0:19:19It used human evolution
0:19:19 > 0:19:23to explain present-day society and relationships.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27But the housewife from Mountain Ash was having none of it.
0:19:27 > 0:19:28The more I read of this genre,
0:19:28 > 0:19:33the more I found that the fascination was being modified.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35I felt, this is all nonsense.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38These people are not thinking straight,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41they are not thinking or writing about the human race,
0:19:41 > 0:19:45only about the evolution of less than half of the human race.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48Namely, adult males.
0:19:51 > 0:19:57For Elaine, The Naked Ape wasn't objective science, it was a story,
0:19:57 > 0:20:00written about men, for men.
0:20:00 > 0:20:05Despite having no scientific training, she decided to take it on.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08She pored over the literature and finally
0:20:08 > 0:20:11came across the germ of an idea that seem to make much more sense.
0:20:11 > 0:20:17She even gave it a name, the Aquatic Ape Theory.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19To anybody studying human anatomy,
0:20:19 > 0:20:22there are some very odd things about the human body.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25One of them is, why do we have no body hair
0:20:25 > 0:20:30when every other animal you can think of on land has hair?
0:20:30 > 0:20:33Another is, why do we have layers of fat,
0:20:33 > 0:20:36why do we run to fat directly underneath the skin?
0:20:36 > 0:20:38The Aquatic Ape Theory
0:20:38 > 0:20:44suggests that there was a stage in the evolution of early man
0:20:44 > 0:20:49in which those ancestors were living close to lakes and water
0:20:49 > 0:20:52and spent a lot of their time in water.
0:20:52 > 0:20:57And that that is the reason why, amongst other things,
0:20:57 > 0:21:00human beings don't have body hair
0:21:00 > 0:21:05and are able to produce fat beneath their skin which keeps them warm.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09Elaine began to set down her thoughts in a book.
0:21:09 > 0:21:14It was a simple theory, but a radical one, and in Elaine's hands
0:21:14 > 0:21:18it put early woman at the very heart of evolution.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22In the age of women's lib, this was a call to arms.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26The 52-year-old mother of three from the Valleys
0:21:26 > 0:21:29was about to become a very unlikely feminist hero.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34The Descent Of Woman was an evolutionary bombshell,
0:21:34 > 0:21:38but it is also a seminal feminist work.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40What Elaine so deftly does
0:21:40 > 0:21:45is to take on the pomposity of the establishment,
0:21:45 > 0:21:49of established truths about evolution
0:21:49 > 0:21:52and the way that women and men behave,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55and what explains the way they look
0:21:55 > 0:21:59and the differences, so-called, between them.
0:21:59 > 0:22:04And she punctures these myths with this blistering wit
0:22:04 > 0:22:07which is just an absolute joy to read.
0:22:09 > 0:22:14The Descent Of Woman raced to the top of the bestseller list, and not just in Britain.
0:22:22 > 0:22:24Elaine toured America three times,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28appearing on national television and radio.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30And giving as good as she got in debates.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Who is the enemy?
0:22:33 > 0:22:36The American woman does have difficulty pinpointing the enemy,
0:22:36 > 0:22:38cos if she points her finger at me
0:22:38 > 0:22:42I will bite it off and lick the tip, because I'm not her enemy.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44I have never met an American woman,
0:22:44 > 0:22:47including the American liberation women, who say,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49"We are out to put men down."
0:22:49 > 0:22:53'Elaine's work basically took the blinders off'
0:22:53 > 0:22:58and it had a profound impact on millions of people around the world.
0:22:58 > 0:23:03This was a book that was translated into over 25 languages,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06and you read one page of this book
0:23:06 > 0:23:09and it is no surprise why it had such an impact.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14The scientific establishment was less enthusiastic, though.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18And the Aquatic Ape Theory was shot down in flames by the experts.
0:23:18 > 0:23:23Why do you think critics take such exception with your theories?
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Obviously, all of the scientific establishment
0:23:26 > 0:23:28will find it very inconvenient
0:23:28 > 0:23:31if they have been wrong from the word go.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35But Hopkinstown's finest was never one for giving up.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39It is certainly the case that 56 years ago
0:23:39 > 0:23:42there were stuffy scientists
0:23:42 > 0:23:47who thought that seeking popularity amongst the great unwashed
0:23:47 > 0:23:49was not something that was intellectually respectable,
0:23:49 > 0:23:51grubbing around for cheap popularity.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53So when someone comes along
0:23:53 > 0:23:56who hasn't got ostensible scientific qualifications,
0:23:56 > 0:23:58who hasn't been through the mill,
0:23:58 > 0:24:00hasn't done the hard work, there is a resentment.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03There she was, a writer, a playwright,
0:24:03 > 0:24:05distinguished television playwright,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08who was suddenly moving into this area.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10It is a remarkable thing that Elaine,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12once she got her teeth into it,
0:24:12 > 0:24:14she simply couldn't let it go.
0:24:15 > 0:24:17As Elaine passed retirement age
0:24:17 > 0:24:20the Aquatic Ape Theory became her main passion.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23She penned five more books about it
0:24:23 > 0:24:25and spoke at conferences all over the world,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29gradually moving the theory from the fringes into the mainstream.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32I ask people sometimes and they say,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35"Of course, I like the aquatic theory.
0:24:35 > 0:24:37"Everybody likes the aquatic theory.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40"Of course they don't believe it, but they like it."
0:24:40 > 0:24:42I say, "Why do you think it is rubbish?"
0:24:42 > 0:24:47They say, "Well, everybody I talk to says it's rubbish.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49"They can't all be wrong, can they?"
0:24:49 > 0:24:54The answer, loud and clear is yes, they can all be wrong.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57History is strewn with occasions when they've all got it wrong.
0:24:57 > 0:24:59LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:24:59 > 0:25:03And you must never be afraid to rock the boat,
0:25:03 > 0:25:06I go along with that, too. Thank you very much.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14But there was one last chapter of her career waiting to be written,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17and it brought her story full circle.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29Her writing began winning competitions,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32as she wrote in the Western Mail as a girl.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35And then, when she was I think 83,
0:25:35 > 0:25:40the Western Mail asked her to write a weekly column.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45The column was called The Pensioner,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48but she didn't really sound like a pensioner,
0:25:48 > 0:25:53she sounded like a Valleys woman who had something to say
0:25:53 > 0:25:56and wanted to say, and knew how to say it.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Over the next 10 years, Elaine would write every week
0:26:02 > 0:26:06on topics from the global recession to her son's wedding.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09From climate change to junk mail.
0:26:09 > 0:26:14And, as ever, she liked to stir things up.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18I thought that I was writing such common sense
0:26:18 > 0:26:21that it would hit everybody in the eye,
0:26:21 > 0:26:28but I got a lot of people who wrote back quite solidly saying,
0:26:28 > 0:26:29"You are wrong about this
0:26:29 > 0:26:32and you haven't read this and you haven't read this."
0:26:32 > 0:26:37Which is very good for me, of course. Because then I have to think again.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42In 2012, Elaine got her reward,
0:26:42 > 0:26:45when she beat journalists from all over Britain to become
0:26:45 > 0:26:50Regional Newspaper Columnist Of The Year at the age of 91.
0:26:50 > 0:26:56It's quite clear that Elaine valued her skill with simplicity.
0:26:56 > 0:26:58Getting to the nub of things.
0:26:58 > 0:27:03And look at all those columns, week in, week out. No jargon.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06No pointless slang, no words wasted.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08Each one was crafted.
0:27:08 > 0:27:13And for you, the reader, it was a gift.
0:27:13 > 0:27:19Something charming, attractive, meaningful, every week,
0:27:19 > 0:27:21at your table.
0:27:25 > 0:27:27Elaine Morgan still lives in Mountain Ash,
0:27:27 > 0:27:29overlooking the valley.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34In the summer of 2012 she suffered a heavy stroke
0:27:34 > 0:27:36but she continues to battle back.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39There is every sign
0:27:39 > 0:27:42that her extraordinary story is far from over.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45From Wales's greatest living lady of letters
0:27:45 > 0:27:48there might well be more to come.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52If we look at the path of Elaine Morgan's life,
0:27:52 > 0:27:53I'm sure of one thing.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56That from the off there was a steely core to it.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59She was energetic, she was ambitious,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02and she did what she wanted to do.
0:28:02 > 0:28:05She got an education in Pontypridd and in Oxford.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08She did write, she became, in a sense,
0:28:08 > 0:28:12that journalist that the little girl had said she wanted to become.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15I think that's a tremendous achievement.
0:28:15 > 0:28:17She is a great, great exemplar
0:28:17 > 0:28:20actually of what Hopkinstown would have wanted her to be
0:28:20 > 0:28:21all those years ago.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd