The Pontfadog Oak

Starting exactly 1200 days ago, this blog now arrives at its 100th post. A hundred years ago saw three momentous events take place in the Principality. On 14th October 1913, 439 men perished in the Senghenydd mining disaster. It remains the biggest mining disaster in Wales. It devastated the local community and was followed a fortnight later by a hurricane in various parts of South Wales. With winds in excess of 160mph, four more people were killed. The man who go on to become the first and, thus far, only Welsh prime minister, was David Lloyd George. In 1913, he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the then Liberal government. It became clear in 1913 that he had bought shares in Marconi at a favourable price from the then Attorney General Sir Rufus Isaacs. Clearly, corruption in politics is not the new phenomenon we sometimes think it to be. Although he would go on to become the Liberal Prime Minister, his coalition was mainly propped up by Tories and the stain on his character left an indelible mark. The Liberals were never the same force again after the election of 1922. How the tables turn. A century later, we now have a Tory coalition being propped up by the Liberals.

Of course, all these events were happening a year before the Great War in which nine million lives were needlessly lost in the most brutal of all wars. The whole of Europe was in a state of flux leading up to that fateful shot in Sarajevo a year later. Vienna was still the cultural capital of Europe and by sheer coincidence housed six men of great future significance within walking distance of each other. Was this chance of were they just all attracted to the cultural charm of the Danubian gem? Either way, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Josip Tito, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung all resided there in 1913 and for all we know took their coffee in the same coffee house. It is truly remarkable to reflect on their collective and respective contributions to our history books. The founder of the Red Army with his own interpretation of Marxism, Trotsky was the true intellect behind the Russian revolution. Ousted from Russia by Stalin in a power struggle in 1929, he was later assassinated in 1941. Arguably, Stalin was one of the most ruthless men to walk this earth. The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn gives a graphic account of life under the Georgian monster. We will never know the exact number who lost their lives during the purges and in the gulags but estimates vary between 3 and 60 million. A Yugoslav nationalist hailing from Northern Croatia, Tito wasted little time in creating Yugoslavia in the aftermath of the Great War. History tells us that not everyone was happy with that decision as evidenced by the further attrocities which took place there in the 1990s. I don't even need to write about the legacy of Hitler because his actions were so evil, they serve as a constant reminder to us all about what happens when the bigots and extremists get their hands on power. While these four revolutionaries were sowing the seeds of their future ideas, Freud and Jung were trying to work out what made us all tick. Nobody has yet worked that one out and perhaps they never will.

The gales which blew here in Denbigh last night might not have reached the 160mph speeds of 1913 but they were still very frightening. I read with great sadness today that the oldest documented tree in Wales had fallen victim to its gusts. The Pontfadog Oak was said to date from the year 802 and measured just shy of 13 metres in diameter. It is claimed that Owain Glyndwr the last Prince of Wales gathered his troops there before going on to defeat Henry IV in battle. He may have won the battle, but he lost the war and by 1412 he disappeared never heard of or seen again. The Welsh continue to seek autonomy within the Union and would do well to pause and reflect on their history. Economically, Wales is more reliant on Westminster than ever before and although it has been granted certain powers of self government, can scarcely hope to exist independently until it re-balances its top-heavy public sector with a more aspirational private sector. Whether or not this is realistic is doubtful. The coal mines of 1913 are now gone along with the steam ships and steam railways which depended on them so it is time to seek industries new or the future will, like the slate, be grey.

The Pontfadog Oak saw lots of change during its 1111 years and I reflected on how different life must have been when that acorn first took root in the ground near Chirk. In the end, it wasn't man who brought about its demise. 1913 may well have been a momentous year but in the end, the cruel, late winter of 2013 was truly the straw which broke the camels back. But what a magnificent life it had and what a hatful of stories it could tell - if only it could.