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The Chartists

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Radio Times

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Radio Times Article June 1981

To be posted shortly, when the Beeb approve the use of! (But they are DREADFULLY SLOW in replying to my request for permission!). 

So, after a year of waiting here's the article. I never did get a reply; if they ask I'll remove the following content!

Folk Charter

 

The feelings of the 5,000 militant colliers as they marched on Newport on a fateful day in November 1839 are echoed in their descendants' more than a century on, stirred by the words and music of a folk group bonded together unexpectedly by what they have created.

 

Wynford Jones was awakened to the fervour of the day through reading local history. As he travelled on the bus through Tredegar in Gwent, near his home, his mind's eye saw the men marching down to Newport, ' I was really moved and thought it would be good to write something,' he recalled. ' I never realised for one moment what would happen.'

 

The Chartist movement fol­lowed the creation of the People's Charter in May 1838. It was the outline of an Act of Parliament drawn up by the committee of the London Workingmen's Association and six MPs embracing six points of radical reform; universal (male) suffrage, annual Parliaments, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, payment of MPs and abolition of property qualifica­tions for MPs.

 

In South Wales the movement seemed to mean almost every­thing to every   workingman and when Parliament rejected the Chartist National Petition by 235 votes to 46 in July of 1839, the militant side of the movement came to the fore.

 

In September plans were made for a national rising, but something went very wrong and there was only token support for the men of South Wales. But no one could halt the demonstration of the angry colliers and foundry men.

 

 

The early dawn saw the angry Chartists As they marched with all their will; Lacking the east contingent 

They pressed on down Stow Hill.

Turning in the Westgate Courtyard, They hail with confidence. 

' Give' us' up the Chartist prisoners 

Or face the consequence '.

 

The March

wynford jones

 

 

 

Three columns met outside Newport, but as they marched to the Westgate Hotel the-soldiers were waiting for them. Many of the marchers were killed; many more lay injured. The leaders, John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones, were arrested, then tried for high treason and sentenced to death, although, after public outcry, the sentence was altered and they were transported.

 

Wynford took his idea to a friend, Geoff Cripps, organiser of the Islwyn Folk Club, at the Ynysddu Hotel near Newport. Geoff, the operator of a mobile bookshop for the Welsh Arts Council, had lectured on the Chartists for the Welsh Education Association and he seized on it with enthusiasm.

 

In came other singers from the folk club Geri Thomas, a special education teacher; Remo Lusardi, a cafe proprietor: Russell Jones; and John Mann, a fireman, later replaced by Laurence Eddy.  They worked on the idea as a project for the folk club for a special performance near the anniversary of the rising in 1979 with an invitation to the public, and local MP Neil Kinnock.

 

Wynford wrote five songs, Geri wrote another, and a poem by Chartist leader Ernest Jones was set to music. The performance was linked together with narrative to convey the colour, the excitement, the optimism of the men as they marched. Then came the big night.  People just went bananas over it. Neil Kinnock raved about the performance and we just felt stunned, said Geri. 'I think we knew then we weren't going to finish with it.'

 

They call themselves The Chartists and dress up to look authentic; although their intention is not to act the characters, the mood tends to take them over. This summer they will be appearing at several folk festivals in the area and their ambition is to bring out a record of their performance.

 

The live act, with beautiful, haunting melodies and strong, rousing songs provided by a variety of instruments - guitars of all kinds, concertinas, whistles, mandolins, autoharp, synthesizer, glockenspiel - has lost none of its spontaneity and bonds the men involved with an unseen link.

 

Like the Chartist movement itself, the act they have created means different things to each one, or all things to all of them. To Wynford and Geoff it's the history; to Russell, Lawrence and Remo it's the music and the aura; and to Geri it's political and ancestral because, as he will proudly tell you, on 4 November 1839, his great-great grandfather, Isaac Thomas, lay wounded in the Westgate Hotel after marching down the valley; with his fellow Chartists.