Pages from memory

the long version

Born in Betws, near Ammanford in Carmarthenshire, James ‘Jim’ Griffiths was the youngest of ten children from a traditional working class mining family. The political beliefs associated with a family of their social class were instilled from a young age. His father, an active local political radical, along with such influential political figures as Keir Hardie who had moved to the surrounding area, provided the political backdrop for one of the most influential Welsh politicians of his age. His autobiography Pages from Memory recounts the formative years of his life and acquaints the reader with the highly charged political climate at the time in the south Wales valleys and indeed across Britain as a whole. It stretches from his earliest memories in the 19th century to 1966, when he stepped down as Secretary of State for Wales. His account is primarily political, shaped by his deeply socialist beliefs, and is communicated in a combination of non-fiction text, notebook entries, letters and pictures. Yet his account is relatively restrained in his criticism of his opponents, other than calling them the ‘enemy’ he is surprisingly uncritical of the ‘Tories’ and Liberals, indeed often respectful of their positions.