Dafydd Elis-Thomas, who died today, is personally remembered by Martin Shipton

Martin Shipton

Some politicians – not enough – have hinterlands. Dafydd Elis-Thomas went a step further. His hinterland was at the front and centre of everything he did and stood for.

He was both an intellectual and a man of the people who was admired and liked by most of his constituents. It seems strange to write about him in the past tense. He was such a living presence – a true original.

I first met him in the mid-1990s, when I was working for Wales on Sunday. He’d stepped down from the House of Commons in 1992, controversially accepting a peerage, and was appointed chair of the Welsh Language Board. Unlike some who looked down their nose at Wales on Sunday when it turned rugby stars into celebrities, Dafydd understood the commercial need for a tabloid newspaper to be populist. He figured in its pages himself after his former partner, CND Chair Marjorie Thompson, mocked him in an article in Cosmopolitan over his taste for tailored suits. He was happy to defend his life choices in Wales on Sunday, and jokingly referred to me as a scruff in such a gentle way that I couldn’t possibly take offence.

Llywydd

When he became the National Assembly’s first Llywydd, I wondered whether he would be wasted in a role I naively assumed would amount to chairing meetings and gladhanding distinguished visitors. How wrong I was! He turned the role into a customised niche in which he drove forward devolution behind the scenes in a way many won’t have noticed, at a time when Welsh Labour was preoccupied with internal battles over the issue between its Assembly Members and MPs.

Very early on in the Assembly’s existence he outmanoeuvred Alun Michael, Tony Blair’s choice of leader for the institution, when Michael faced a no confidence motion. Not trusting the official legal advice he was given, he took independent advice that helped smooth the path for Rhodri Morgan, who had been cheated of the leadership in what amounted to a rigged election, to take charge.

Dafydd had other fallings-out as well, of course, including a spectacular battle with his deputy presiding officer John Marek that resulted in the two men not speaking to each other and in Dafydd moving out of his office. The conflict came to an end when Marek, who had left the Labour Party, was defeated in Wrexham at the 2007 Assembly election. I witnessed the hug given by Dafydd to the victorious Labour candidate when she arrived in Cardiff to take her seat: Lesley Griffiths.

Wit and charm

I always enjoyed meeting him – he was full of wit and charm, and it was a delight to be in his company.. Once, in the early 2000s, he took me for lunch in the Peers’ Dining Room in the Houses of Parliament. A few tables away was the Lord Chancellor, Lord Derry Irvine. Shortly before 2pm a flunky dressed in Ruritanian costume arrived to dress him in his robes for the start of the afternoon session in the House of Lords.

At the next table to where I was sitting with Dafydd were two very elderly peers attempting to communicate with each other. One was shouting and the other had an ear trumpet. It was like an episode from a Dickens novel. Dafydd nudged me, whispering: “Look at them!”. But immediately afterwards he nodded and smiled at them, as if their behaviour was perfectly normal.

For me, this episode illustrated the enigmatic nature of Dafydd-El: he was at the same time a detached, satirical observer while simultaneously happy to be an insider. I suspect he didn’t see this as a contradiction.

When given the opportunity, he was an exponent of the long lunch. I heard one story I’m sure was not apocryphal of a lunch in a French restaurant in Canton, Cardiff that lasted from lunchtime into the evening.

On another occasion, years later, I met him outside Wrexham station. I’d been covering the Plaid Cymru conference in Llandudno and was on my way back to Cardiff. It was a Sunday and there were engineering works on the line, with a rail replacement bus journey from Wrexham to Shrewsbury.

Dafydd-El and I greeted each other and we climbed on the bus, taking the front seats behind the driver. We agreed that having to change to a bus was a bit of a pain, but Dafydd quickly said, “Don’t worry!”. Like a magician, he produced from a bag a large assortment of antipasto, a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio, some plates and two proper wine glasses. We were set up for a typically pleasant, wide-ranging chat as we headed back south.

Biography

I’ve been chatting with Aled Eirug, the journalist and academic, who worked for Dafydd as an adviser when he was the Llywydd, and whose biography of Dafydd-El is due to be published this autumn. He told me: “Dafydd had an incredibly wide range of interests and expertise. Before being elected as an MP – something he didn’t expect to happen – he was a brilliant academic. As the youngest MP he was youthful, effervescent and exotic. He was very close to people on the left of the Labour Party, to the extent that some in Plaid thought he might jump ship.

“He was a very good Westminster politician and when he was president of the party moved Plaid to the left and tried to get it to go beyond a commitment to the Welsh language, which is what it was known for.

“It’s true that he was very cerebral, but it’s not something he wanted to show off. He was able to relate very well to his constituents, most of whom were Welsh speakers, and he had the amazing ability of being able to change his dialect according to who he was speaking to.

“By 1989 he was very committed to the European cause, and he told me that voting to come out of what is now the EU in the 1975 referendum was the greatest political mistake of his life.

“In the early years of devolution he was absolutely crucial in keeping the Assembly going at a time when, as Mark Drakeford has said, there was a very real possibility that the project could collapse.

“As the Presiding Officer he fought battles with civil servants who had no regard for devolution and he had to be aggressive at times. He had a good relationship with Rhodri Morgan and they worked well together. But if it wasn’t for Dafydd, I don’t think we’d have a Senedd building today. Rhodri wasn’t that keen on the idea of a purpose-built building. When the final vote took place on whether to go ahead with it or not, Dafydd made sure there was a model of the Richard Rogers-designed Senedd outside the old chamber in Crickhowell House. His message was: ‘You can either have this or the old computer room in Crickhowell House indefinitely’.”

His message worked.