MP honours father on centenary
7th November 2011
Aberavon MP Dr Hywel Francis will be marking the centenary of his father’s birth with a presentation to the South Wales Miners’ Museum. Dr Francis’ father was the leader of the South Wales Miners union in the 1960s and 1970s and the first chairman of the Wales TUC.
Dr Francis said,
‘My father was born over a hundred years ago this year and I am presenting a collection of his lamps and other memorabilia to the South Wales Miners’ Museum at the Afan Country Park next Saturday 12th November.
I have long admired the educational work of the Miners’ Museum and I feel it is fitting, as its President, to make this presentation as it is located in the heart of my constituency of Aberavon.
My father saw the miners’ lamp as highly symbolic: it represented for him and miners the world over international solidarity and the struggle for knowledge and enlightenment.
Forty years ago at the Porthcawl Miners’ Eisteddfod which he did so much to nurture he presented miners’ lamps to all the Welsh British Lions who had returned triumphant from New Zealand.’
Dr Francis concluded,
‘I hope this important collection of lamps, programmes, badges and other historical material will help remind the younger generation in South Wales of our proud past.’
The presentation will be attended by Tyrone O’Sullivan, leader of the Tower miners and Councillor Ali Thomas, leader of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. They were both friends of Mr Francis who died in 1981.
Photograph of the late Dai Francis (4th from left) showing a miner’s lamp to the Welsh members of the successful British Lions rugby team of 1971. Included in the photo are Gareth Edwards (2nd right) and coach, the late Carwyn James (3rd right).
