Welsh history
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Good turn out for today’s Dic Penderyn Commemoration which took place at the entrance to Cardiff market where he was hanged in 1831.The event honoured not only Penderyn, but the late Councillor Charlie Gale and Welsh volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, especially Alun Menai-Williams who died last month and Bob Peters.The event was hosted…
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The Western Mail ran my tribute to Alun this week. It is here .
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Alun Menai-Williams, one of the last remaining British veterans of the Spanish Civil War, died yesterday.He was 93.Alun lived a remarkable life. As a medic in Spain, as an RAF policeman in World War 2, as a loving family man who rarely talked about his experiences.And then after his wife died in 1998 he wrote…
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Pierrepoint, a film about the most prolific British hangman of the last century, opened this month.It contains by all accounts a remarkable portrayal by Timothy Spall of the man who executed an average of 18 people a year between 1932 and 1956.Albert Pierrepoint saw himself as part of the state machinery. His role, he believed…
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For those interested in Welsh links to the Spanish Civil War, there is an article on Alun Menai Williams in April’s Military History magazine which is now in all good bookshops (as they say).I’m presently working with Alun on a book about the Battle of the Ebro. It’s a follow up to his engrossing memoir…
