Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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David Ivon Jones (1883-1924): the African from Aberystwyth
Although he was a legendary organiser in South Africa — where he was an early advocate of racial unity, and he was finally buried with honours in Moscow — it is in his native Wales that this hero needs recognition, writes ROBERT GRIFFITHS
A well-armed ‘worker-commando’ unit of trade union miners during the 1922 Rand revolt in South Africa
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WHEN the body was brought to Moscow on Saturday June 14 1924, it was received by deputations from the Soviet government, the Red Army, Russian factories, the Comintern, the Youth International and many of the world’s new-born communist parties.
The four Communist Party representatives from Britain carried a wreath on which was inscribed: “To the memory of a great South African fighter.”
Except that the dead man was not South African at all. He was a Welsh-speaking native of Aberystwyth in Cardiganshire, a former preacher in the town’s Unitarian chapel and an ex-correspondent for the West Wales Gazette.
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