Sabbatical Blog 7: 42 Years

Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences

I last met Russ Thomas 42 years ago.

I had shared a house with Russ during my final year at university, in Plasturton Gardens, a wealthy western garden district of Cardiff.  What brought us together in no 22 Plasturton Gardens in 1972 was Voluntary Service Overseas. Before taking up employment in the Welsh Office Russ had returned from the Sudan where he had been employed as a teacher; at the same time I was in the process of making an application to join VSO at the end of my postgraduate year. Years later the social media network Facebook  brought us together. About a year ago Russ contacted me by phone, one thing led to another and we agreed to meet up in Cardiff for 24 hours after the URC General Assembly 2014 had completed its business.

Talking to Russ again, reflecting on our careers, families and grandchildren the conversation reminded me of the last scene of Alan Bennet’s comedy-drama The History Boys (2006) set in the mid-80’s. Hector had died and the final scene changes to an empty hall with only the eight working class boys of Cutler’s Grammar School groomed for Oxford and Mrs Lintott present. She recounts the futures of the eight boys. They had entered a variety of careers. Akthar is a headmaster, Crowther a magistrate, Timms the owner of a dry cleaning chain who took drugs at weekends, and Dakin a tax lawyer. Lockwood had entered the army and sadly died as a result of friendly fire; Rudge became a builder, Scripps a journalist, and Irwin had stopped teaching and had become a maker of TV history documentaries. Finally, Posner reveals he had become a teacher who followed in Hector's footsteps, with a similar style and teaching methods.

Like the history boys it was now our turn to tell our stories, what had we made of the dreams and plans we discussed whilst drinking beer listening to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, penniless idealistic students in a back storey student garret forty odd years ago? Looking back the sixties and early seventies were crazy years; we lived through a counter revolution in social norms about clothing, music, drugs, dress, sexuality, formalities, and schooling, and the relaxation of social taboos especially relating to racism and sexism. The “Hippy” flower power years saw the anti Vietnam movement, Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Apollo 11, a Labour government, the deaths of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, a cultural revolution in China, Simon and Garfunkel, the construction of the Berlin Wall, and in Africa where Russ and I worked with VSO a time of radical political and social change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.

Undoubtedly the changing cultural norms of our society influenced our thinking – so did our Christian family background. Both Russ and I came from non-conformist families – (Russ’s brother the late Revd. Sion Thomas was a Welsh Congregational Minister in the Swansea District). During our conversations it transpired that Russ had stayed with the Welsh Office throughout his career, responsible for promoting Welsh interests in the environment, education and the arts then later preparing for the transfer of powers to the National Assembly of Wales. At the top of his career he had become a private secretary to the Secretary of State for Wales John Morris (1974-79), now Barron Morris of Aberavon, Lord Lieutenant of Dyfed and Knight of the Order of the Garter (2003).

In one of George Eliot's lesser-known novels, Felix Holt, we are given a stirring and enigmatic line: "Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: We are saved by making the future present to ourselves." Russ and I now have grandchildren, I wonder how I can convey to them something of the great debt we owe to our parents, grandparents, inspiring politicians, activists, the lovers and dreamers, musicians and artists that shaped our lives. For Russ it was the safeguarding of a Welsh way of life, its culture, identity and language that inflamed his heart with passion. For me as a post war baby it was a dream to shape the way our cities, towns, villages and countryside are developed and built, helping to regenerate socially-deprived areas and creating new jobs. Both of us in our own way would see this as building up the Kingdom of God.

I left Cardiff and Russ with a song in my head which my Newcastle based choir, Inspiration sing from time to time – from Munchener Freiheit’s 1988 album (a German pop and rock band) Fantasy:-

The hopes we had were much too high;

Way out of reach, but we have to try.

The game will never be over,

Because we're keeping the dream alive.

And I would like to think that some of the dreams we had as students all those years ago have, by God’s grace, come to fulfilment in our separate lives.

Ray Anglesea

Sabbatical Blog 7:  42 years: Cardiff

8^th July 2014