Word: bevans
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...miners lived in a segregated world of their own. He began to carry a big chip on his shoulder. Once a supervisor asked him why he did not take off his jacket while he worked. "There's nothing in the Mine Act that says I have to," snapped Bevan...
...soured early and permanently on the idea of opportunity in a capitalist society. A former boss of his remembers Bevan as a young miner in the Welsh seams. "He was a bad little brat," that man recalls. "He'd lie down right there beside the tubs rather than do one stroke over what was absolutely necessary to earn his minimum wage. Aroused other lads to do the same. 'Why should we sweat our guts out to fill capitalist bellies?' he'd say. You could do nothing with...
...Dreadful One." Bevan wandered up & down the Welsh valleys, talking to the workers. Sometimes as many as 20,000 would come to hear him, singing hymns as they approached. "Nyrin is a king among men," they said in the Welsh valleys. But others whispered: "He is a dreadful one. He'd stop at nothing...
...Bevan's mates collected pennies and shillings to send him to London's Central Labor College. For the first time, Bevan saw the world beyond the Welsh hills. He loved it. He plunged into a crowd of young people who had read, who could talk. They were fascinated by his exuberance, his brash charm, his wit. Bloomsbury apartments, Chelsea studios and Mayfair drawing rooms reverberated with the laughter which came from him in torrents as he threw back his massive head. But he remained true to Tredegar; he nourished his hatreds...
Back home after two years, he was elected checkweighman and disputes agent for his union. During the General Strike of 1926 he first showed his political mettle. In Tredegar the General Strike is still known as "Bevan's Siege." "They had the whole town in a straitjacket," recalls a Tredegar shopkeeper...