Welsh Towns

Welsh Towns at War: 2. Porthmadog (3x2)

: 26, 2014

Eddie Butler uncovers extraordinary tales of tragedy, triumph and everyday spirit in Welsh towns that were changed forever by World War One. In Porthmadog he learns of the sea captains marooned in German ports with their cargo of slate and discovers how the quarrying industry in nearby Blaenau Ffestiniog was nearly wiped out as Britain turned itself into a war machine. He reveals startling footage of the sinking of a Porthmadog ship by a German U-boat. And he meets the grandson of former premier David Lloyd George, the local boy made good, who became known as The Man Who Won the War. Eddie visits the Trawsfynydd home of Hedd Wyn, the Poet of the Black Chair, who is a symbol today for the suffering and loss of a generation of young men. But he also celebrates the unsung foot soldiers who fought and died at the Western Front or at Gallipoli on the Turkish coast. And he unearths a unique collection of photographs taken in Porthmadog in 1918 that depicts a society on the cusp of a transformation.