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The election of Michael Foot

Michael Foot was born in 1913, and stood as the Labour Party candidate in Monmouthshire in 1935. He was not elected but did win the seat of Plymouth Devonport in the 1945 election, only to lose it again in 1955. After the death of Aneurin Bevan, he won the seat of Ebbw Vale in a by-election in 1960, and became active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) during the 1960s.

He was leader of the Labour Party between 1980 and 1983.

This cartoon refers to his victory in the Ebbw Vale By-election in 1960.

The drowning of Capel Celyn

In 1956, Liverpool Corporation published a proposal to flood 800 acres of land, and the school and village of Capel Celyn near Bala, in order to create the Tryweryn Reservoir. Spirited protests were held, commencing with a protest march by 70 Capel Celyn villagers in Liverpool, in November 1956. The protests came to naught, however, and the bill allowing the flooding of the valley was passed in 1957, and in 1965, after all the residents had left, the Tryweryn Reservoir was officially opened.

This cartoon refers to the official opening of the reservoir in 1965. By John Jones.

Establishment of Welsh television

Wales received its first television pictures in 1949 from a transmitter in Sutton Coldfield. In 1952, a transmitter was opened in Wales at Wenvoe. On this occasion, Megan Lloyd George spoke of the need for a separate television service for Wales to allow for Welsh language programmes to be broadcast.

The first Welsh language television programme was transmitted from the Baptist Chapel in Cardiff in 1953, but BBC Wales television was not established until 1964.

This cartoon refers to the appointment of the Governor of BBC Wales.

Aberfan

On 21 October 1966, 144 people, including 116 schoolchildren, were killed in a disaster at Aberfan, Glamorganshire. A tip of coal waste, which had been made unstable by rain, slid down the mountain, burying the village school and 12 houses.

An enquiry held into the disaster blamed the National Coal Board (NCB) for failing to manage the tip and ignoring warnings of a problem. Some NCB officials, including its chairman, Lord Robens were criticised individually in the report. Despite this, Robens' resignation was refused, and he continued to chair the NCB until 1971.

Unemployment

The 1940's after the end of the Second World War was a time of austerity, and shortages of food, clothing and beer, were part of everyday life. Because of a change in the Lend-Lease scheme, by which Britain had borrowed from the USA during the war, the economy worsened and by 1947 1.75 million people were out of work. This unemployment affected the industrial areas, such as the valleys of south Wales.

This cartoon portrays south Wales unemployment, along with other problems facing the government, as squatters in the New Britain house.