While diving through Criccieth
in Wales in the motorhome I was desperate for water. Cutlery crashed around in
a cupboard as I went over a small bridge too quickly. Bridges often span water
and this one did. I went down to the water’s edge with my 30 litre-tank. This
was the River Dwyfor and about a hundred metres up on
the riverside rests David Lloyd George, the only Welsh speaker to become Prime
Minister. He was voted the third greatest British prime minister of the 20th
century and named among the 100 Greatest Britons.
You don’t expect to find a PM buried by a river
do you but David’s childhood home is nearby, he used to play in this river as a
boy and knew the surrounding fields. I went to have a look, walking about fifty
metres up Maen-y-Wern Lane
which consisted of stone cottages to one side. On the left are hedges and
suddenly a stone archway appears and the grave is just there marked by a
boulder. He wanted to be buried in the ancient Welsh customer of being in land
over which cattle may graze. I saw a path running alongside the river and people
probably walked their dogs there though I doubt cattle will graze there.
A quick summary: he was born a long way from here
- in Manchester (and a long way from 10 Downing Street) in 1863 and raised by
his uncle who was a shoemaker lay preacher in North Wales. Aged 21 he was a solicitor
with this own practise, defending those that broke poaching laws. Rural Welsh
farmers and quarry workers loved him and this helped him become elected to
Parliament aged 27.
Up the tree he went and by 45 he was Chancellor
of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and he was one of the
main people who introduced reforms that lead to the current NHS. A world war threatened and as black clouds
brewed over Europe a vivid, highly energetic man was needed to put some steel
in the nation’s spine. Aged 52 David was Munitions Minister and he helped put
the power behind a knockout blow against Germany, demanding government didn’t
rest for a moment and ensuring a consistent flow of guns and shells were sent to
the Western Front. He became Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government
during the First World War. The newspapers and public loved him but he gained
many political enemies.
After the war he was a seminal player at the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that put Europe back into order. He remained
Prime Minister after the 1918 general election but not for long. The Liberals
split their support between David and Herbert Asquith and they lost to the
Conservatives. He became the Liberal party leader but liberalism declined and
he never held office again.
Dull politics aside he had five
children by his first wife Margaret (one child died at 17 as appendix was removed.)
He had a justified reputation as a womaniser and though publically was known as
The Welsh Wizard he was privately known as "the Goat". Aged 80 “the
Goat” married again to his secretary and mistress Frances Stevenson (to his children’s
regret.) He died of cancer aged 82 at his beloved home near this grave.
I climbed into the stonework to touch the boulder
as I might not come this way again. Under me was a man known as one of the
greatest Welshman who ever lived (even though he was born in Manchester.) This
link shows the funeral…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Wefxnk1BU
I quickly climbed off the grave as some dog
walkers were passing by and hoped they hadn’t been me by the boulder. Who’d
have thought the man under than boulder who often walked up this country lane as
a wee boy would become one of the "Big Three" (with Georges
Clemenceau of France and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson) who helped negotiate
the Treaty of Versailles with Germany after the biggest war the world had seen
so far?
I set off back to the motorhome to have a shower
after a morning walking in hot sunshine. Nearby I passed Highgate, the house
where David lived as a boy for sixteen years. I did a hearty salute and left.
You don’t find many prime minister’s by a river do
you?
Some footage of the grave is here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVaqmJAIno0
On the day of the
funeral…
He was brought up on a cart…
Just up the lane you turn left
through this arch and the grave is there…
He’d buried under this boulder…
Outside Highgate,
David’s childhood home…