Tribute to Gwilym Rhys Edwards
Society members attending our last weekend school were saddened to learn of the death of one of our most stalwart supporters and friends, Gwilym Rhys Edwards. Here is the tribute to Gwilym delivered at the school by Winston Roddick, now the chairman of the Society.
” had been a life long member of the Liberal Party and its successor the Liberal Democrat Party. He had been living in Caernarfon since the fifties and was a member of the Party through his local association. He was a regular visitor to the Liberal Weekend schools and its successor the Lloyd George Society weekends.
Gwilym was born in Llanfihangel Gennau’r Glyn in Cardiganshire. He won an open scholarship to Bristol University but the outbreak of War and his conscription into the army prevented him taking it up. .From Sandhurst he was sent to India with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and then to Burma where he was wounded twice. The second wound was to the head. He lost his eye.
After demobilisation, he became a student at Aberystwyth where he met Mair They were married 57 years this year. For two years, he shared digs with Emlyn Hooson or Emlyn Bach as he called him and that too proved to be an enduring friendship made at Aber. I wonder if in those days students were chosen to share digs only with those with whom they were politically compatible. When Emlyn and Gwilym were last here together, they were heard discussing the merits of their respective hearing aids.
Gwilym became a history master at Caernarfon Grammar School (as it was then known) were I was a pupil. I well remember my first lesson with him. He began by saying ‘history is bunk’. It won’t surprise you to know that to this day he is affectionately known amongst all his pupils and ex-pupils as Edwards Bunk. He and Desmond Treen introduced rugby to the school and to the town of Caernarfon. He would be very proud of Caernarfon Rugby club today which this season, as it has in previous seasons, is championing League Division one North.
Mrs. Edwards wrote to me shortly after Gwilym’s funeral in these words
“When he first took an interest in the Liberal cause in Caernarfon, he met your mother, a lovely gentle lady, and the local branch members, all five of them. The five of them would sit in the Liberal Club stuffing envelopes with literature and waiting for the recruits who never came” You need real strength of conviction to stick to your Liberal principles if you live in Gwynedd or Meirionnydd. The Plaid vote there is so strong and the number of Liberals so small. But Gwilym knew what it was to be amongst the few. His experiences had taught him to stick to his hopes, beliefs and aspirations no matter what the odds and to appreciate life and opportunity.
I last saw him on Remembrance Sunday last November at the Cenotaph on Caernarfon Town Square, standing to attention, wearing his medals and his well known Burma Hat. He was laying his wreath on behalf of the veterans of the Burma Star Association. As the Recorder of Caernarfon, I have attended every one of those ceremonies since 2000 and at every one of them I saw Gwilym marching up to the cenotaph to lay his wreath in remembrance of his brave and courageous colleagues.
At his funeral serviceon January 19th a friend spoke these words about him
“Many will testify to the pleasures he brought them. He was . He enjoyed the sound of the lashing waves at Dinas Dinlle and the site of the snow capped peaks of Eryri. On the afternoon on which he died he had been sitting at home looking out into his garden and admiring his wild pheasants. He remarked
There is a great English saying which goes something like this. “Nothing is worth while for long unless some mind kindles in communion with our own and which shows that the things which are infinitely precious to us are likewise precious to another mind.” Our Liberal principles were infinitely precious to Gwilym. He loved attending these weekend schools. He knew he would be in the company of friends whose minds kindled in communion with his own.
Can I please ask you to stand for one minute in his memory?
