A PACKED Morning Star meeting at the National Eisteddfod heard tributes paid to communist and Welsh language campaigner Gareth Miles on Thursday evening.
Panellists paying tribute to Mr Miles’s life and work included TUC Cymru’s Ceri Williams, former MP Cynog Dafos, professor and author Jane Aaron and peace campaigner Sian Howys.
Welsh communist Catrin Ashton told the meeting that Mr Miles’s family were in the audience and the paper had organised the event to pay tribute to his life and work, including his time on the Star’s management committee.
Former Plaid Cymru MP and Senedd member Cynog Dafis said he met Mr Miles in a pub with others who were unhappy with the nationalist party.
He said: “Gareth considered Plaid as a petit bourgeois party and joined the Communist Party in the 1970s.
“I was a bit naive at the fall of the Soviet Union. Gareth told me that it was not good news and I would like to tell him that he was right.”
Mr Williams told the meeting about Mr Miles’s work in the trade union movement, especially with Welsh teachers’ union Undeb Cenedlaethol Athrawon Cymru (UCAC) and the Writers’ Guild.
“Gareth joined UCAC as an organiser and worked hard to get the union to be more political and play a greater role in the international arena,” he said.
“Gareth became a writer and scriptwriter and joined the Writers’ Guild — and was instrumental in the campaign for the Welsh government to fund grants for young Welsh writers from the Books Council of Wales.”
Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths said the party had republished Mr Miles’s pamphlet on Socialism For The Welsh People for the Eisteddfod, along with some of his other works.
He said: “Gareth taught me Welsh and insisted I speak in the language so I can talk about political matters, but if I go into the countryside I cannot identify plants and trees in Welsh.”
Mr Griffiths said that the CPB would like to mark Mr Miles’s life and work with an annual memorial lecture in Pontypridd and would continue to pull together and publish his prodigious writing.
“I have also proposed that the party commission a new banner with images of famous communists including Gareth,” Mr Griffiths said.
