Guest Blog: Forgotten Decade
By Alun Gibbard
The Forgotten Decade: Political Upheavel and Industrial Strife in 1980’s Wales by Gwynoro Jones and Alun Gibbard.
This is a powerful and relevant reminder of the pain and turmoil of a decade that changed many of our communities forever, of the roots of still current inequalities, and of the obstacles that our political system places in the way of progressive change. It also benefits from being the account of an engaged and passionate witness.
Geraint Talfan Davies. Chairman Institute of Welsh Affairs 1992-2014.
The 1980s - a decade of considerable upheaval and change which saw industrial tension during the Miners Strike, social unrest and riots on the streets, seismic political changes and Cold War nuclear tension. This book is a chronological account of political, economic and social events that unfolded in that decade.
Margaret Thatcher won the General Election on 4 May 1979, the day the Eighties began. The Conservatives were creating their new order. Labour had to respond to the electoral failing and the damage done to them by a series of strikes. From this Labour unrest, the SDP was formed, the first major new party in British politics for decades.
Former MP Gwynoro Jones left the Labour party to join the SDP at its beginning, becoming Chair of the SDP in Wales. Alun Gibbard worked for BBC Wales News throughout the decade, reporting on all the major events covered in this book. He is now a full-time author.
The main section of The Forgotten Decade is a year-by-year account of the 1980s, from the 1980 of Thatcher’s early days through to the 1989 of the fall of the Berlin wall, political and social changes in Wales are documented, with extensive use of newspaper cuttings from Gwynoro Jones’ personal archive. This section is bookended by a look at the decade leading up to the 1980s and an analysis of what has happened in the decades since the ’80s.
This is a timely book. The story it tells has a strong resonance with the political and social climate of today.
This book provides us with an informative and eyewitness account of unfolding events of The Forgotten Decade of Welsh political evolution. Written in a semi-diary style the book is ideal as a memory jogger for those that lived through this period themselves or for historians or the general readers who wish to learn exactly what was happening at the heart of Welsh politics in the 1980s. Professor Russell Deacon
Alun Gibbard has been a full-time author for the past 13 years. He has published 35 books, mainly non-fiction, but one Welsh language novel also. His work deals with sport, politics and popular culture. The one thread that runs through each is his love of social history. His most recent book was co-writing the story of former Wales First minister Carwyn Jones. He has twice been short-listed for the British Sports Book awards, the most recent for his criticaly acclaimed biography of Carwyn James. His next book will be Whose Wales? The battle for devolution and nationhood 1880-2020, a joint project with former MP, Gwynoro Jones. Prior to writing, he worked in TV and Radio for 26 years.
Gwynoro Jones is a former Welsh politician and, at the age of 27, served as Labour MP for Carmarthen in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he was a senior education administrator, and then in the early 1990s, headed a school inspection and training company for 18 years. As a politician, he is best remembered for three titanic election campaigns with Gwynfor Evans, the then Plaid Cymru Lead.