Armistice Day: Centenary

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, 100 years after the Armistice was signed, it is an interesting commentary on the diversity of this Chamber as well as on the unanimity in what I am sure we will say in the coming few hours that I, the grandson of a south Wales miner, should be following the grandson of Earl Haig.

I want to reflect on the impact of the sacrifice in the First World War on the eastern valley of Gwent, which used to be Monmouthshire. It is a valley that includes Cwmbran, Pontypool and Blaenavon and which was, 100 years ago, made up almost wholly of men who worked in the collieries and in the steelworks. Over the last four years, a very good friend of mine who had been a local councillor—Stuart Cameron—has been compiling month by month a register of those who perished in the war. That has come to an end, and we now know that, over those four years of the war, in a valley whose population was much less than it is now, 1,300 men perished. A whole generation of young men in that valley was decimated. It is ironic that 1918 was the highest year for casualties: some 317 men died in that last year of the war.

Almost every single family was affected by that war, more than by any other conflict before that. That was, of course, because of conscription. Many men had to go to war because of national service, and others went because they volunteered. From those 1,300 men to whom I referred, 37 families lost two sons and five families lost three sons. The family of Henry and Elizabeth Williams of Pontnewydd had seven sons who fought in that war and three were killed. Of those seven sons, one was a steelworker and six worked underground.

Most of them joined up with the 2nd Battalion The Monmouthshire Regiment and the South Wales Borderers, but many others as well. Some 65 of those who died were in the Royal Navy, despite the fact that the south Wales valleys were not naval areas. That included a relative of mine who was killed in the Battle of Jutland. Six served in the very young Royal Air Force. This coming week, the Royal Welsh Regimental Association of Torfaen, of which I am president, will play a significant role locally and beyond that. The Cwmbran and District Ex-Servicemen’s Association has been chosen to represent south Wales, among others, at Ypres, in the coming celebration and commemoration there.

Four women from my valley died in the First World War. One was in the RAF and the other three were nurses. The Minister touched on what happened afterwards: the life of women changed dramatically. In 1918, they received the vote, although my grandmother—because of her class—had to wait another 10 years before she was able to vote. It has often struck me that I actually knew my grandmother; she did not really have the opportunity to cast that vote until she was in her 50s. More than 100 senior and significant medals were won by the men of Torfaen and I pay tribute to them.

It is quite interesting that the war began with enormous enthusiasm and euphoria. The Reverend Williams was the rector of the parish of Panteg in the eastern valley. Through his sermons and his speeches, he encouraged the men of the valley to sign up. It is said that by 1918, he was a broken man because of the shock of the fates of so many young people whom he had urged to sign up to fight in that war.

The men of the eastern valley were commemorated 100 years ago this weekend. The church bells rang in our valley churches, as they will in this great city, but the hooters of the factories and the steelworks, and the whistles of the locomotive collieries, also celebrated the end of that war. It is significant that during this debate we will hear many stories of ordinary men, and sometimes women, who lost their lives in the conflict.

The services held 100 years ago this week, and those to be held this week, are not just for those who died but for those who came back as well: those who were injured, psychologically and physically, and indeed for all the men, women and children who remained at home. Tragically, of course, two decades later it all happened again. The significance of this week should be that when we look back at history, as we must, we learn those lessons. We did not learn them in 1938-39 in quite the same way as perhaps we can today, but we can still remember those men, and sometimes women, whose courage inspires us and whose sacrifice is still undoubted.