Wyn Griffith and David Lloyd George

Wyn Griffith (born this day, 30th August 1890) is best remembered for Up to Mametz, his memoir of his time in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and the 38th (Welsh) Division's part in the capture of Mametz Wood. He wrote the book for his children, and it was only published after his friends Herbert Read and Storm Jameson learnt of it. There is an excellent article "Llewellyn Wyn Griffith and the London Welch" by Jonathon Riley on the website of The Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion.

His 1935 childhood memoir Spring of Youth was described by reviewers as having "a sort of Wordsworthian psychology behind the pages" and being "delicately conceived, and executed with an artless deftness". It was written in English, although Welsh was Griffith's first language, and he writes of going back to a time "when I had no country, to a time when I did not know that I spoke Welsh ... My world was all the world, my speech the only speech used by men. At a later date I began to learn English, and thus to be aware of Wales and of Welsh ..." 

David Lloyd George was of course another who wrote in English, but for whom Welsh was his first language, and I think perhaps for both of them this may account for some of the distinct power of their expression. 

Lloyd George contributed a Foreword to the first edition of Spring of Youth, sadly not included in the later editions I have seen. He comments "The literary riches of Wales are to English readers a fountain sealed. But from time to time one of our sons arises with the art to convey in the English tongue some hint of the sensitive, poetic quality of Welsh thought and feeling. Wyn Griffith's Spring of Youth is a work of this order."

It is an exceptionally well-written book, moving without being mawkish, perhaps the closest parallel I can think of is Laurie Lee's Cider With Rosie (a lifelong favourite), and it deserves to be as widely read. 

Reading Ulysses

I've started on James Joyce's Ulysses. I've long enjoyed Anthony Burgess, and he was a great admirer of Joyce, so I suppose it was inevitable. I'm not trying to spot every reference, or look up every obscure word, but just to read it like any other story book. Analysis can come later, if I fancy, and my old copy of Burgess's Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader will no doubt come in handy. 

I see fiction as entertainment and escapism - you're not going to discover the meaning of life, or your place in the Universe, or anything else "deep and meaningful" from it. If you want Truth go outside and it's right there in front of you. But if you're lucky you'll find a book that just takes you out of yourself for a while. It might be Burgess, it might be Biggles. And, if you're into that sort of thing, and it grabs your interest, then you can look into all the allusions and quotations and places and everything else in it, and fair play to you.

And is it as hard a read as we are told? Well, I've only read the first six episodes so far, and no, it isn't. I am cheating - but only slightly. RTE made a full-cast reading a few years ago, that is to say a reading of the text, not a dramatisation, but with a full cast doing all the different voices. Play the dramatisation along with reading the book, and it'll help you along. But I do find I gradually tune out the sounds, and listen to the text in my head instead, and I am enjoying it.

Damian Collins on David Lloyd George, Tuesday 12th May 2026

As part of the Fleet Street Quarter Festival of Words 2026 Damian Collins, author of Rivals in the Storm: How Lloyd George Seized Power, Won the War and Lost his Government, and a speaker at this year's Cymdeithas Lloyd George / Lloyd George Society meeting, will be in conversation with Richard Rhys O'Brien, long-standing Society member and biographer of Dame Margaret Lloyd George. They will be asking the question "Today, with crises at home and around the world, do we need leaders like Lloyd George who are unafraid to find unorthodox ways to take on important challenges?"

The event is on Tuesday 12th May, at Temple Church, and is sponsored by Cymdeithas Lloyd George / The Lloyd George Society. Signed copies of Rivals in the Storm by Damian Collins and The Campaigns of Margaret Lloyd George by Richard Rhys O'Brien will be available.

For further information and to book your place see here.

I hope to see you there! 

"But I walked home through the rain crying..."

On Sunday 12 April 1908 David Lloyd George was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was less than five months after the death of Mair, his eldest daughter and best-beloved child. Her death, aged 17, was probably the worst personal loss of his life. He cursed god, when not denying him altogether. For months he was liable to burst into tears at the unexpected sight of a picture of her in a friend's house, and he refused to return to live at the home they had shared, sleeping instead in his office at the Board of Trade where Willie Clark, his private secretary, would keep an eye on him, fearful for his sanity and his safety.

Following the advice of his old friend, and political foe, A. G. Edwards the Bishop of St Asaph, he found some relief in work. As President of the Board of Trade Lloyd George was promoting the creation of the Port of London Authority, and was also often called upon to mediate trade disputes - settling a cotton strike on the day after Mair's funeral, for example.

But to return to the 12th of April. Frank Owen, in Tempestuous Journey: Lloyd George, His Life and Times writes:

"Long and hard indeed Lloyd George had been labouring in these latter months. In the press of his work, he had found solace, or at least for a time, forgetfulness. He seemed to become again the same kind of man that he had been, though larger. A great tomorrow was promised to Lloyd George.

But the sorrow abided within. The evening of the day in April that he went to Buckingham Palace to see the King, on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, he wrote to his brother, William, describing the kindly welcome he had received. 

"But I walked home through the rain crying, because I knew my little Mair would not be there to receive me." 

And another new Lloyd George Book!

A very welcome arrival this week - Paul Spackman's Lloyd George - Welsh Radical, World Statesman, published by Barnthorn Publishing. The first full-length "life" for many years, it is the result of seven years research, and aims to give a more holistic portrait of the politician and the man.

Paul's approach is to "explore the specific and distinctively Welsh roots and influences" that shaped Lloyd George. He highlights the social reforms that laid the foundations of the Welfare State, Lloyd George's vital replacement of Asquith in the Great War, his treatment of Germany at Versailles, the Irish settlement, and the years after his all from power, with his development of creative and practical policies to address the great problems of the 1920s and 1930s. Lloyd George's legacy - and popular misconceptions of it - are re-examined, and Dame Margaret's important role is given proper attention.

It's a big book - over 700 pages, but then Lloyd George, for all his physical shortness, was a big man. Aneurin Bevan called him "a bigger man than Churchill", and in his parliamentary tribute "the most iridescent figure that ever illumined the British political scene". I shall read it with great pleasure and interest.