So as well as being buttonholed by politicians desperately wanting to get your vote you may also find yourself buttonholed by a BBC Wales journalist equally desperate to get your views on the general election.

Our programmes including Wales Today, Newyddion 9, Radio Wales, Radio Cymru and our online and social media services in English and Welsh are all going to be on the tour and we want to know what you think, and what you want from your politicians.

What is on your mind? Does this election feel like a sea change in UK politics or do you feel untouched by the process?

This is your chance to get involved.

We have already been to Barry and Carmarthen. The next stop is Tregaron. Week two sees the tent turn up at Connah's Quay, Llandudno and finally Cardiff in time for the BBC One Wales leaders debate on Friday, May 1, at the Sherman Theatre. And while the tent makes its slow journey from one location to another, we’ll be taking the opportunity to feature other areas across Wales.

We are doing this because in one of the most unpredictable general elections in living memory, we think it's important that you - the voters - have all the information you need to make informed decisions and are given the chance to have your views heard.

And, if you can’t join us on the tour, there’s plenty more campaign coverage to choose from, led by BBC Wales’s team of presenters and political experts, Dewi Llwyd, Bethan Rhys Roberts, Nick Servini, Aled ap Dafydd, Vaughan Roderick and David Cornock. Add in plenty of expert analysis from specialist correspondents from across Wales, including Steffan Messenger, putting younger voters at the heart of his reporting throughout the campaign.

Reporting and analysis of the campaign is underpinned by a comprehensive digital service, offering individual pages covering stories and candidate information from all of the Welsh constituencies.

A few election facts

• Turnout at the 2010 general election in Wales was around 64.7%, slightly lower than the UK-wide figure of 65.1%
• That was the first time in the post-war era that Wales had had a lower turnout than the UK as a whole
• Turnout generally is considerably lower than the peaks of the 1950s
• While the decision to vote is of course a personal one, our hope is that our election coverage will help you understand the issues

Tent facts

• Our election tent is 10m x 10m and is inflated by two cold air fan blowers
• It takes around an hour to lay out ready, then four minutes to fully inflate
• It needs 60 x 20kg ballast bags to keep it safely anchored
• We'll cover 457 miles as we take it around Wales

I hope you get the chance to visit the tent at one of the named locations and take the opportunity to get involved, I also hope you are able to listen, to watch or to read our coverage.

Callaghan was born in Portsmouth on 27 March 1912 where his father was a Chief Petty Officer in the navy.

In the hungry thirties money was tight so although he had the ability, there was no real chance of the young Callaghan ever going to university. Instead he sat and passed the Civil Service Entrance Examination.

In 1931 Jim Callaghan, then working in Kent for the Inland Revenue, became a member of the Labour Party, quickly moving on to become a full-time Union official.

When war came in 1939 he enlisted in the navy as an ordinary seaman but was commissioned from the lower deck in 1944.

Soon after, he was diagnosed with TB and admitted to Haslar Hospital. When he recovered he went, first, to the Admiralty, then to the Far East.

Encouraged by Labour academic and writer Harold Laski to stand for Parliament, Callaghan was given permission to return to the UK to contest the Cardiff South seat in the 1945 'khaki election' (a national election heavily influenced by wartime or postwar sentiment.).

He won the constituency from the sitting Conservative MP by 6,000 votes.

In a lengthy 42 years in the House of Commons, Jim Callaghan served in several ministries. The first of these was the Ministry of Transport where he was instrumental in creating things like zebra crossings and an increased use of cat’s eyes reflectors on the roads.

Over the next 20 years he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.

His time as Chancellor was not easy or comfortable as he had to deal with a significant balance of payments deficit and oversee the devaluation of the pound.

As a consequence, he and Roy Jenkins exchanged posts and Callaghan became Home Secretary.

In this position he was responsible, rightly or wrongly, for taking the momentous decision to use troops to support the police force in Northern Ireland.

Jim Callaghan also stood for election as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, forcing the ever-redoubtable George Brown to a second ballot.

Following the death of Hugh Gaitskell he ran for the leadership but lost out to Harold Wilson and, thinking his moment had passed, settled for Cabinet posts.

When Harold Wilson suddenly resigned in 1976, Jim Callaghan decided to stand for the leadership once again.

He defeated five other candidates and on 5April 1976 he became leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister.

Almost from the start Callaghan's was a minority government and as a result he was forced to deal with other, smaller parties, notably creating the Liberal-Labour pact of 1977-78.

It was a time of industrial disputes and economic hardships and Callaghan's Labour administration soon became unpopular.

Following a motion of no-confidence in the wake of a referendum over Scottish devolution, a General Election was called. Labour duly lost the May 1979 election, the vote that saw Margaret Thatcher come to power for the first time.

Following Labour's defeat, Jim Callaghan remained as leader of the Labour Party until the following year when he retired quietly to the back benches. His place as leader was taken by another Welsh Member of Parliament, Michael Foot.

Callaghan retired as a Member of Parliament in 1987 and left the constituency he had held all his Parliamentary life.

He was elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Callaghan of Cardiff and devoted himself to his interests of rugby and tennis. He also found time to write his autobiography Time and Chance.

Jim Callaghan died on 26 March 2005, just ten days after the death of his wife Audrey.

Having been brought up as a Baptist, Callaghan certainly believed in a nonconformist work ethic. He was a tireless constituency MP, an indefatigable Cabinet Minister and a Prime Minister who had the misfortune to take the reins during a very turbulent time in British history.

Jim Callaghan may not have been Welsh but he certainly followed in the footsteps of another Welsh MP who rose to the top in government, David Lloyd George - and deserves to be remembered.

On 30 May 1929 she became the first woman MP in Wales when she won the Anglesey seat for the Liberal Party. Over the next few years, with her father's political star waning, she took the lead in the small band of Lloyd George Liberals in parliament, speaking regularly on issues such as agriculture, Welsh affairs and, increasingly, the rights of women.

Megan Lloyd George was born on 22 April 1902 and was brought up, largely, at 11 and 10 Downing Street when her father was firstly chancellor of the exchequer and then prime minister. Until the age of four she spoke only Welsh and was at least partly educated by Frances Stevenson, Lloyd George's long-standing mistress.

In 1919 Megan accompanied her father to the Paris Peace Conference after the end of the First World War and witnessed international affairs first hand. She became a fervent opponent of appeasement, the policy that, arguably, enabled Hitler to come to power in Germany.

As a Liberal MP, Megan Lloyd George was outspoken and forthright. In 1931 she refused to support the National Government of Ramsey MacDonald but this did not affect her popularity and she continued to hold the Anglesey seat until 1951. In the 1940s and 50s she campaigned vociferously for a Welsh Assembly and for the appointment of a secretary of state for Wales.

As the 1940s drew to a close it was clear that Megan Lloyd George was moving further and further to the left in her political views and stance.

Despite this, in 1949 she was appointed deputy leader of the Liberal Party, one of only 12 Liberal politicians in the House. Then, in 1951 she lost her seat to Cledwyn Hughes and, to many, it seemed as if her political career was over.

In 1955 Megan Lloyd George (Lady Megan Lloyd George as she had then become, following her father's enoblement in 1945) joined the Labour Party and two years later fought a by-election at Carmarthen.

She won the seat and remained MP for the town until her death. Many thought she might gain cabinet office but Megan remained a backbencher where she could give full rein to her views.

Always conscious of her Welshness, in the words of the Encyclopedia of Wales, was Megan who "Invented the concept of a 'national region,' the concept that gave rise to the Broadcasting Council for Wales."

Megan Lloyd George died from breast cancer at Pwllheli on 14 May 1966. She was 64 years old. Inheriting her father's mantle as the champion of the people was never going to be easy but, with skill and determination, it was something she managed.

Her career as a politician was considerable but nothing could ever quite match her achievement in becoming Wales' first woman MP.

He attended Shrewsbury School before studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Pembroke College, Oxford, and became president of the Oxford Union.

After graduating Heseltine co-founded a property empire. He was conscripted in 1959, and became a Second Lieutenant in the Welsh Guards, but left National Service the same year to stand as a Conservative candidate in Gower, a safe Labour seat.

He failed to win in Gower, and again in 1964 in Coventry North, losing both times to Labour. With his political career on hold, Heseltine built a housing estate in Kent and founded the magazine publishing company Haymarket.

In their early days the businesses were far from profitable, and Heseltine was beset by debts until 1967, when a stake in Haymarket was sold to the British Printing Company. The company grew a portfolio of profitable magazines, and Heseltine, who still owned a large shareholding, became a multi-millionaire.

Despite his early political setbacks, Heseltine was elected to parliament in 1966, winning the safe Conservative seat of Tavistock. After the constituency was abolished he was elected to represent Henley from 1974 until his retirement in 2001.

Heseltine was a charismatic, combative politician, and from a young age harboured ambition of leading the Conservative Party and becoming prime minister. He became a government minister after the 1970 general election, and served as Shadow Industry Secretary during the Conservatives' period in opposition from 1974-79.

A particularly notorious incident took place during a parliamentary debate in 1976 during a Commons debate on Labour government proposals to nationalise the shipbuilding and aerospace industries. Labour won the vote and sang the Red Flag in celebration; incensed, Heseltine took the ceremonial mace from the table in front of the Speaker, and brandished it at his Labour opponents. The incident led to widespread ridicule in the media, and Heseltine acquired the enduring nickname Tarzan.

In 1979 Heseltine joined Margaret Thatcher's cabinet as Secretary of State for the Environment, and from 1983-86 was Secretary of State for Defence. His cabinet career ended in 1986 over the Westland affair: unable to agree with Thatcher over the future of Britain's last remaining helicopter manufacturer, Heseltine stormed out of a cabinet meeting and announced his resignation to surprised reporters outside Downing Street.

Heseltine remained a vocal critic of Thatcher, and in 1990 challenged her for the Conservative Party leadership. He was unsuccessful but the fragmentation of support for Thatcher within the cabinet led to her eventual resignation.

• Listen to Michael Heseltine on BBC Radio 4's Meeting Myself Coming Back (2011)

Heseltine returned to the cabinet in a series of posts under John Major, becoming Secretary of State for the Environment, President of the Board of Trade, First Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister. This period marked his transition from political firebrand to Tory grandee.

After the Conservatives' defeat in 1997 he declined to stand again for the party leadership. He was made a Companion of Honour in Major's resignation honours list, and upon his retirement from the Commons in 2001 was given a life peerage as Baron Heseltine of Thenford, Northamptonshire.

Despite a low political profile he remained politically active. His maiden speech in the upper house didn't take place until 2011, when he gave details of an audit of the UK's industrial performance he has been asked to lead by the Treasury.

In 2008 Michael Heseltine took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home, in which he explored his Welsh family history.

Saunders Lewis

It was exactly 50 years ago this year, on 13 February 1962, that the writer and political activist Saunders Lewis delivered a radio lecture on Tynged yr Iaith - the Fate of the Language.

In itself that might seem interesting but hardly world shattering. Except that the lecture was a seminal moment in Welsh history, one that triggered the formation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh language Society) and, ultimately, the creation of much of the bilingual policy and material - forms, documents, road signs and so on - that we now have in Wales.

Even Welsh language radio and TV services owe a huge debt to Saunders Lewis' crucially important broadcast, made on what was then the BBC's Welsh Service.

Saunders Lewis was born on 15 October 1893, the son of a Welsh minister who, although he was born in Cheshire, was raised in a Welsh speaking family. He went to Liverpool University, where he studied English, but his studies were interrupted by World War One. He served in the South Wales Borderers, returning to university after the war to finish his degree.

Patriotic and hugely conscious of his Welshness, Lewis became a lecturer at Swansea University in 1922 and three years later, along with men such as HR Jones, was instrumental in founding Plaid Cymru, the National Party of Wales. He was president of the party from 1926 until 1939.

He was a writer of great skill and range, producing novels, critical studies (including one of William Williams, Pantycelyn), essays and poems. In the main, however, he considered himself to be a dramatist, producing no fewer than 21 different plays, although his real mission and purpose was, arguably, to alter the course of Welsh history.

Lewis was a writer who produced work with a highly intellectual element - something which later added fuel to the charge of elitism in his writing and views - working mainly from history and legend. He became a Roman Catholic in the early thirties and took up a stance of opposition to what he regarded as "Godless communism."

He was certainly opposed to socialism and even the pacifism that he encountered in the 1930s was suspect in his eyes. As far as he was concerned, the main purpose of politics was to defend civilisation - a nation or a people without traditions, he believed, was in danger of disintegration.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that his views would lead him to extreme action. In 1936 he took part in an arson attack on the government bombing range at Penyberth in North wales.

Penyberth was a military range that had been established despite half a million Welsh protests and which, due to strong objections from local people in other parts of the United Kingdom, had already been rejected in Northumberland and Dorset. In the eyes of many it had been imposed on the Welsh by an uncaring government that had little understanding or recognition of Wales as a nation.

Saunders Lewis, DJ Williams and Lewis Valentine were sentenced to nine months imprisonment for their part in the affair and Lewis was dismissed - before the guilty verdict was returned - by Swansea University. Such was the strength of feeling, however, that the three Welshmen were greeted by a crowd of nearly 15,000 when they returned to Caernarfon after their release.

He continued to write, working as a journalist, farmer and teacher, but returned to academia as a lecturer in Welsh at Cardiff in 1952. His greatest moment came, however, with his radio broadcast, almost exactly 10 years later.

Tynged yr Iaith was basically an appeal to Plaid Cymru members living in predominantly Welsh speaking areas to give up what Lewis thought were useless or futile electoral campaigns to send MPs to Westminster. They should concentrate, instead, on creating an atmosphere where all forms of government, local and national, were impossible without the use of the Welsh language. He predicted the decline and death of Welsh unless there was a campaign to rescue it.

Consequently, at that year's National Eisteddfod, some members of Plaid Cymru - many of them young - decided to establish a Welsh language movement or society, separate from Plaid. Since 1962 the Welsh Language Society has achieved much. It has been an important element in establishing the whole concept of bilingualism and the saving of the Welsh language. The Welsh Language Acts of 1967 and 1993 also owe much to this pressure group.

And, of course, it can be argued that none of this would have happened had it not been for that one crucially important radio broadcast by Saunders Lewis in 1962. Nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, he died on 1 September 1985.

Saunders Lewis remains an important cultural figure in Wales, having been voted number 10 in a 2005 poll to establish the 100 greatest Welshmen of all time.

Radio Cymru has been celebrating the Fate of the Language lecture over the last week and will continue to do so next week with a series of special lectures. All the content in the links below are Welsh language content.

• Extract from The Fate of the Language.
• Radio Cymru Lectures
• The background in full
• Profile of Saunders Lewis
• Read the BBC Wales History feature on the Welsh language and civil disobedience (English language content)

Neil Kinnock was born in 1942 in the coal mining town of Tredegar and later gained a degree in industrial relations and history at Cardiff.

Lord Kinnock made the remarks about his background at a Welsh Labour party conference just before the 1987 general election, saying it was not the lack of talent or strength which held people back, but opportunity.

But now, in a new series of the family history programme Coming Home that begins tonight on BBC One Wales, Lord Kinnock learned that a great-uncle of his had a very privileged start to life, as he attended an exclusive public school in Surrey.

In the programme, Lord Kinnock defends his political statement, in light of the discovery, and said: "Going to this school doesn't naturally convey the fact he had a good education."

Tracing a family history can reveal startling and occasionally uncomfortable long-forgotten facts about a family history. Lord Kinnock spoke to BBC Cymru Wales about his reasons for agreeing to take part in the programme. He said:

""Everyone is interested in their own background but very few have ever researched the details of who and where they came from.

"I've always been intrigued by the bits of my family history that I knew so I was glad to accept the invitation from Coming Home. I knew that Mike Churchill-Jones and the rest of the BBC Wales team of experts would do some real digging.

"The experience of Coming Home was fascinating. We tore around south and west Wales from Tredegar to Kidwelly and Brecon and then dashed over to Bristol before getting back to Cardiff.

"Some of what I saw and heard was familiar because, obviously, I've always been close to the valleys and to my family. I knew, of course, that I came from hard workers and fighters who surmounted great adversity and poverty. But there were several revelations about my grandparents and their forebears that were completely new to me.

"Since the story of the Howells and Griffiths and Herberts and Kinnocks that were my people is very similar to that of countless others of my generation and background I think that many might share my sense of discovery.

"I'm grateful to Coming Home - not least because the family tree that they gave me has deeply intrigued my grandchildren. After all, it's their story too!"

Read more about Neil Kinnock's experience on Coming Home on BBC Wales News.

If Coming Home has inspired you to take start tracing your family history, take a look at Cat Whiteaway's tips on the BBC Wales History blog.

Keir Hardy

James Keir Hardie was born in Holytown near Motherwell in Scotland on 15 August 1856. He was the illegitimate son of a domestic servant and a ship's carpenter who, in order to be close to his family, gave up the sea and attempted to earn his living in the shipyards along the Clyde.

Hardie had no formal education, the family's finances being so parlous that he was forced to take his first job - as messenger boy for the Anchor Line Shipping Company - when he was just seven years old. His parents taught him to read and write in the evenings and, in due course, the young Keir Hardie moved on to work in the coal mines of the area.

He was a devout evangelical Christian and supporter of temperance. Hardie became skilled at public oratory and soon his colleagues in the mines were looking on him as a spokesman in their disputes with management. The mine owners, on the other hand, saw him as an agitator and duly blacklisted him. Unable to work in the mines, Hardie quickly moved on to working for the miners' union.

In 1879 he was a delegate to the National Miners Conference in Glasgow and then became a miners agent. He was active in all the many strikes that took place in the closing years of the 19th century and he and his wife, Lillie Wilson, a fellow evangelical and temperance campaigner, actually ran a soup kitchen out of their own house.

Originally a Liberal, Hardie soon became disillusioned by the party's slow progress on reform and help for the working man. He decided to run for parliament as an independent for a Midlands constituency but finished last in the poll. Undaunted, he soon tried again. This time the scene of political battle was to be West Ham South in the east end of London.

Standing in a by-election where the Liberals decided not to field a candidate, in 1892 Keir Hardie was elected as an Independent Labour candidate for West Ham, defeating his Conservative opponent by 1,000 votes. In 1893 he formed the Independent Labour Party and, as its leader, spent the next two years agitating for better conditions for working people.

In 1894, after a colliery explosion at Pontypridd killed 251 miners, he asked that a message of condolence for the families of the dead should be added to the congratulations being sent by parliament to the crown on the birth of the future king, Edward VIII. When this request was refused Hardie stood up and delivered a vitriolic attack on the monarchy. The house was in uproar.

Keir Hardie lost his seat in the 1895 election and duly spent the next five years laying the foundations of the future Labour Party. He was a fervent supporter of female emancipation, a friend of the Pankhursts and was actually arrested during one Suffragette meeting. He was never prosecuted, however, as the government was too concerned about the effect on the public should the leader of the Independent Labour Party end up in jail!

Hardie returned to parliament in 1900, the first MP of the Labour Representation Party. In 1906 the name of the group was changed to the Labour Party, with Keir Hardie as its first leader. He resigned this position in 1908, being replaced by Arthur Henderson, but continued to serve as MP for Merthyr and Aberdare.

He continued to battle for the oppressed and under-privileged all his life, and was a staunch supporter on home rule for India and of bringing to an end all forms of segregation in South Africa. When World War One broke out in 1914 he was, as a pacifist, firmly opposed to the war and to the jingoism that accompanied it. His efforts to bring the conflict to an end were, however, totally unsuccessful.

His work in helping others had, by now, worn him out and on 26 September 1915 he suffered a series of strokes and died. Hardie was buried in his native Glasgow but has never been forgotten in Merthyr and Aberdare where he is still revered as Britain's first truly socialist MP.

There is an interesting footnote to the story. Keir Hardie became MP for Merthyr and Aberdare on 2 October 1900. Eighty-three years later, on 2 October 1983, Neil Kinnock became leader of the Labour Party, the party that Hardie had been instrumental in founding. Perhaps that day, the 2 October, has a significance only the Labour Party understands.

Dic Penderyn's gravestone in Aberavon

Thanks to things like the hated truck shops (an arrangement in which employees are paid in commodities), food was always in short supply and now money was also a problem. Debts spiralled out of control as women sought to feed their families and men seemed helpless to solve the problem.

In Merthyr Tydfil there were serious riots in the streets and, on 3 June 1831, a mob ransacked the building in the town where court records of debt were being stored. In the eyes of those in charge this was not a spontaneous upsurge of emotion but a carefully planned and deliberate act.

In a desperate bid to restore order the authorities sent in a detachment from one of the Highland Regiments stationed at Brecon. When the soldiers fired into the unarmed crowd that had gathered outside the Castle Hotel 16 people were killed.

Although no soldiers had been killed in the affray, one of them - a man called Donald Black - was stabbed in the leg. The weapon used in the assault was a bayonet attached to a gun, presumably a weapon dragged off one of the soldiers in the scuffle.

Private Black was unable to identify his attacker but a young man called Richard Lewis, known throughout the town by his nickname Dic Penderyn, was arrested and charged with the assault.

Arrested with Dic was his cousin, Lewis Lewis. He was well-known to the authorities as an "agitator" and was certainly someone who was heavily involved with the organisation of the riot.

Young Dic, however at just 23-years-old, had limited involvement and was there, more as a spectator than a participant.

Richard Lewis, or Dic Penderyn, had been born in 1808 at Aberavon and had come to Merthyr in 1819 when his father found work in the mines. Richard was always known as Dic Penderyn after the village of Penderyn near Hirwaun where he lodged .

He was literate and reasonably well-educated, thanks to the Sunday School movement, and quite why he should have been singled out for arrest on that fateful day in June 1831 has never been made really clear.

Yet singled out he was. The result of the trial was a foregone conclusion and both men were found guilty and sentenced to death. Lewis soon had his sentence commuted to transportation as, despite his involvement in starting the riot, it became clear that he had actually saved the life of a special constable by shielding him from angry rioters. Dic, however, was doomed.

Despite numerous appeals for a reprieve - and the presentation of a petition with 11,000 names attached - the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, a man well known for his traditional and severe view of wrong-doing, refused all appeals for clemency. It was a strange decision as there was clearly little or no proof that Dic Penderyn was involved in the assault.

Nevertheless, in the eyes of authority, justice had to be done and, perhaps more importantly, had to be seen to be done. The execution would be an example to others.

Dic Penderyn was duly hanged outside Cardiff gaol, on the gallows that then stood in St Mary's Street - the site of the execution is now the St Mary's Street entrance to Cardiff Market. According to legend, Dic's final words were "Oh Lord, this is iniquity."

Legend also states that Dic's young wife was pregnant at the time and the shock of her husband's arrest, trial and subsequent execution caused her to miscarry.

Thousands grieved and lined the route as Dic's coffin was taken from Cardiff to Aberavon where he was buried. If Melbourne and the rest thought that the young man would soon be forgotten they were greatly mistaken.

In many respects the execution of Dic Penderyn was a fairly minor moment in Welsh history but, in his death, in his martyrdom, the young miner became a symbol for those who tried to fight and resist oppression, wherever it was to be found.

He became a working class hero, a folk hero, who has remained in the minds and the affections of all Welsh people.

Interestingly, many years later, a man by the name of Parker confessed on his deathbed that he had been the one to stab Private Black. He had then fled to America to avoid justice. Another man, James Abbott, also confessed to having lied on the witness stand. None of it did any good for Dic Penderyn, of course, as he had long been dead.

These days Dic is remembered as a true Welsh martyr. A book by Alexander Cordell published in the 1970s, The Fire People, kept his name alive and in 1977 a memorial to the town's famous son was unveiled outside Merthyr Library by the general secretary of the TUC. It was, perhaps, the least that could be done.

David Lloyd George

When the offer of an earldom came from Winston Churchill on the morning of 18 December 1944, Lloyd George was, at first, undecided as to whether or not he should accept. He had, after all, always regarded himself as a man of the people. After sleeping on the problem he finally cabled back the simple message "Gratefully accept." He was to become 1st Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor but, in the event, did not live long enough to enjoy the honour.

Lloyd George and his second wife, Frances, had moved into his house Ty Newydd outside Llanystumwy in September 1944. He was old and ill, clearly suffering from cancer. He had, in effect, come home to die.

David Lloyd George had been born in Manchester on 17 January 1863. The family moved to Pembrokeshire when David's father, William George, became ill and, after his death, moved again, this time to Llanystumdwy in north Wales. Here the young David fell under the influence of his uncle Richard Lloyd - so strong was the relationship that the young man even added his name, Lloyd, to his own.

He qualified and worked as a solicitor and, almost inevitably, moved into the political arena. On 13 April 1890 he became Liberal MP for Caernarvon Boroughs, winning the seat by just 19 votes. He made his political name by his opposition to the Boer War, being instinctively on the side of any small nation that was in danger of being oppressed by a larger one.

Soon the Liberal Party realised that it was safer having this charismatic and wonderful orator on the inside, rather than waiting on the fringes where he could cause any amount of political carnage. Consequently, he was brought into the Cabinet, becoming President of the Board of Trade in 1906. When Herbert Asquith became Prime Minister, Lloyd George replaced him as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Lloyd George, of course, is famous for his People's Budget of 1909. Contrary to popular belief, he did not introduce old age pensions (that had already been done by Asquith) but he was responsible for the introduction of state support for the sick and infirm. During World War One, he was, by turns, Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and, finally, in 1916, Prime Minister. In each of those roles he was hugely successful, a dynamic and thrusting leader who, by his example and energy, did much to actually win the war.

He had much to contend with during his years as leader of the wartime Coalition Government, not least representing Britain at the Versailles peace talks of 1919. It was, in no small degree, thanks to him that the Treaty of Versailles was not a great deal more vindictive in its terms. Desperate to achieve peace in Ireland, Lloyd George also presided over the Anglo-Irish Treaty when, along with Michael Collins, the Irish Free State was created. In hindsight it was a flawed solution but in the immediate post-war years it is hard to see what else could have been done.

Lloyd George's political life was one of huge success and a fair degree of scandal. He was accused on "insider dealing" during the Marconi Scandal of 1913, when he was, at best, economical with the truth in his responses to Parliamentary questions. And, of course, the taint of selling honours in return for funds for the Liberal Party followed him to the grave.

As the 1920s progressed Lloyd George and a Liberal Party that was, in no small degree due to the man himself, split into warring factions, gradually lost power and influence. By 1944 he was clearly "yesterday's man" as the growing Labour Party pulled away so many working men and left wing intellectuals. Always something of a ladies man, however, Lloyd George retained his charisma and appeal right to the end.

Barbara Jones was, in 1944 and 1945, a Wren, serving in the naval base at Pwllheli. On their days off she and her friends would go to the river close to Llanystumdwy where they would sit and throw stones into the river:

"Sometimes this rather short man with grey hair would come and chat to us, ask us where we were from and what not. He used to wear a black trilby and a black cape - it had seen better days, that cape. He was our little old gentleman. Then we heard that Lloyd George had died. All the photographs were in the papers and we thought 'Oh gosh, that's our little old gentleman.'"

It had been announced, in January 1945, that Lloyd George would not be present in the House of Commons for some time because of a severe case of the flu. He was 82 years old and the announcement fooled very few. His cancer was growing - it could only end in one way. On 26 March it soon became apparent that the end was near and, with his family by his bedside, Lloyd George slipped into unconsciousness and died.

The funeral was a memorable affair. Lloyd George had always said he did not want to be buried in a cemetery or church yard and the spot chosen was the bank of the River Dwyfor, a place he himself had selected back in 1922. As Barbara Jones remembers:

"Those of us who used to talk to him went to the funeral. The coffin came up on a farm cart, pulled by an old dray horse. It had trails of leaves coming right over the cart, coming down over the coffin. I remember the colours because on the other side of the river there were two fields and they were a mass of colour. People were singing hymns. It was absolutely gorgeous."

Lloyd George was far from a conventional politician. He made mistakes but he achieved much during his long lifetime. And he is still the only Welshman to have ever risen to the supreme post in the British political system.

Pembroke castle

In Wales there was one man in particular who seemed to symbolise the turmoil of the age, supporting first parliament and then the king. He was the mayor of Pembroke, John Poyer.

Initially, at least, Poyer was devoted to the parliamentary cause. He was a rumbustious and temperamental man who, unfortunately, created a large number of enemies for himself in his relatively short life.

As well as being Pembroke's mayor, in the years running up to the outbreak of war he also commanded one of Pembrokeshire's Trained Bands, the groups of ordinary citizens who made up most of parliament's forces during the early months of conflict.

Parliament needed people like Poyer and his Trained Band because by 1642 all of south Wales had come out in favour of the king - apart from the towns of Pembroke and Tenby.

Over the next few years the war in Pembrokeshire was chaotic with first one side gaining the upper hand, then the other. John Poyer was in the thick of it all, manipulating, bribing and fighting to advance the parliamentary cause.

Many of his actions were high handed and, sometimes barely legal. At Michaelmas 1642, for example, Poyer, his term of office as mayor of Pembroke at an end, refused to stand down.

The new mayor had decidedly royalist leanings and there was no way Poyer was going to let him take control. He duly retained and held the position of mayor for the next six years.

Pembroke castle and town, under the command of Poyer and General Rowland Laugharne, quickly became a serious thorn in the side of royalist forces in Wales. So serious was the threat that the local royalist commanders declared that when they captured John Poyer they would put him in a barrel pierced by nails and roll him down hill into Milford Haven. John Poyer merely shrugged and commented that they would have to catch him first.

Thanks to the military skill of Rowland Laugharne and the adept political manoeuvring of Poyer, the parliamentary forces in Pembrokeshire were ultimately successful and in May 1646, with the surrender of Charles I to the Scots, the Civil War came to an end. Parliament had clear control of the country and now, it seemed, men like Poyer could enjoy the fruits of victory.

In Pembrokeshire, however, bad feelings continued to simmer. Poyer was called to London to answer charges of appropriating land and property in the county, to the value of £6,000. The charge eventually came to nothing but John Poyer was incensed that he should be called to task by parliament, the very people he had risked his life to champion.

For some time Laugharne's soldiers - like many other armies across the length and breadth of Britain - had been refusing to disband until they were paid arrears in wages.

Sir Thomas Fairfax, general of all parliamentary forces, now ordered Poyer to appear once more before a committee of accounts and to give up control of Pembroke and its castle. Poyer, an unruly and, probably, very dishonest man, refused and used the excuse of the unpaid soldiers. He would vacate the castle, he declared, when Laugharne's men had been given the wages they were owed.

And so the country slipped towards a second civil war. There were many other causes of this second eruption of civil war but men like Poyer and Laugharne - who had been solid supporters of parliament - now declaring for Prince Charles, the king's son. When parliament sent a large force under General Horton to deal with the south Wales rebels John Poyer simply declared:

"He, who feared neither Fairfax, Cromwell or Ireton, would be the first man to charge against Ironsides." (Quoted in Pembroke: For King And Parliament)

Unfortunately for Poyer and Laugharne, their army was defeated at the Battle of St Fagans on 4 May 1648 and the pair fell back on the fortress of Pembroke to lick their wounds and to take stock. Parliamentary forces soon appeared outside the town walls and a seven-week siege began. Soon no less a person than Oliver Cromwell himself arrived to take command of the besieging troops.

Poyer, like Rowland Laugharne, was tireless in the defence of the town, appearing on the walls, leading out sorties against Cromwell's troops. But inevitably, food and water began to run short and at the end of July the town surrendered. John Poyer, along with Laugharne and Colonel Rice Powell who had garrisoned Tenby against Cromwell, were sent to London for trial as traitors to the state.

A military court sat from 4-12 April 1649 and, at last, returned a guilty verdict. All three men were condemned to death for their part in the rebellion.

However, the council of state decided on leniency - only one man must die, his fate to be decided by a child who would draw lots to discover who would face the firing squad. Perhaps inevitably, the unlucky man was John Poyer.

Poyer had certainly created his fair share of enemies over the years and whether or not it was a rigged ballot will never be known. But it does seem strange for Puritans, who hated all forms of gambling, to be playing a game of chance with that most precious of commodities, a man's life.

Poyer's execution took place at Covent Garden on 25 April 1649.

Led to the place of execution by two troops of horse and three companies of foot, he made a short speech, confessing to having led a "loose life" but insisting that his loyalty to parliament had never changed. He was then shot, dying with the same courage and spirit he had displayed all his life.

John Poyer was a charismatic, contradictory and self destructive character. His final words were later taken by his family and used as a motto - "Son est contra me" (Fate is against me). It was a suitable epitaph, even though it could be argued that Poyer's fate was, ultimately, controlled by no-one other than himself.

Blue books

The report, known throughout Wales as the Treason of the Blue Books (all government reports being bound in blue covers), was the result of a motion put forward a year earlier by William Williams, the Welsh MP for Coventry.

He was particularly concerned about the lack of opportunity for poor children in his homeland to gain knowledge of the English language.

Kay-Shuttleworth, secretary to the Council on Education, wrote the terms of reference for the Enquiry in October 1846 and it is clear, right from the beginning, that education was only one of the government's concerns. From the 1820s to the late 1840s Wales had appeared to be the centre of major discontentment.

In the 1820s there had been serious disturbances in Tredegar and Merthyr while in Ceridigion there had been a virtual war over the issue of land enclosures.

From 1839 to the mid 1840s the the Rebecca Riots caused mayhem across mid and south Wales while in 1939 the Chartist march on Newport provoked huge worry and concerns in government circles. Clearly Wales needed to be looked at in some detail and to English officials and civil servants it seemed highly likely that, in the far west, sedition was being planned - in the Welsh language.

There is no doubt that education for poor children in Wales was inadequate - it was also inadequate in England!

There was desperate requirement for quality education for all, education that would, the government felt - long before the commissioners reported back - be predominantly in the English language. And central to this was the need to provide trained teachers.

The trouble came when the extra clause was slipped into the terms of reference, to look at the morals and behaviour of the Welsh people. Quite why this was inserted is not clear - certainly it could have little impact on the educational element of the report who could and would educate their charges efficiently.

Since the predominance of Welsh was one of the main reasons for the report it would have been reasonable to expect the commissioners appointed to oversee the inspections to have a knowledge of the Welsh tongue. Not so. Commissioners Lingen, Simons and Vaughan Johnson spoke no Welsh, were not even educationalists and, importantly, had no experience of the type of fervent non-conformity to be found in Wales.

A number of assistant commissioners were appointed and, by and large, these were the men who toured the schools, towns and villages. The questions they asked, the passages of literature (usually the Bible) they required children to read and the problems that were meant to worked out in the head of each child were framed in English - many of the school teachers had difficulty understanding them, let alone their pupils.

While the non-conformist Sunday Schools - where education was offered in Welsh - were, in the main, praised in the report, the ordinary day schools were certainly not. It was hardly surprising when pupils were expected to work out subtraction problems such as "Take 1799 from 2471," in their heads, with an answer expected within a few seconds. And the condition of the schools themselves was under equal scrutiny:

"The school is held in the mistresses house. I shall never forget the hot sickening smell which struck me on opening the door of that low, dark room in which 30 girls and 20 boys were huddled together."

But there were other issues of concern for the commissioners. They had also been charged with making a study of the moral state of the country and it was a task they were happy to carry out.

When looking at the morals of the nation the Anglican vicars, many of whom felt isolated and apart from the parish in which they lived, were quite content to help out with comments that were little more than a little condemnatory:

It is difficult... to describe in proper terms the state of the common people of Wales in the intercourse of the sexes. I believe the proportion of illegitimate children to the population in Anglesey, with only one exception, and that is also in Wales, exceeds that in any other county in the kingdom."

When the report was published it was scathing and sweeping in its findings. Welsh children were poorly educated, poorly taught and had little or no understanding of the English language. They were ignorant, dirty and badly motivated.

Welsh women were not just lax in their morals - many of them being late home from chapel meetings! - they were also non-conformist lax. To reinforce the power of the established church and to make English the required mode of teaching and expression in schools is the main thrust of the report.

Howls of protest were to be expected - and they duly came. Yet the sobriquet "Treason of the Blue Books" did not come into popular usage until seven years later when Robert Jones Derfel wrote a play called Brad y Llyfrau Gleision, or, in English, The Treason of the Blue Books. Derfel's play opens in Hell where the Devil decides that the Welsh people are too good and are becoming more godly by the hour thanks to the influence of non-conformity. He promptly hatches a plan to bring down this pure and godly people.

The play has shaped the opinions of many, even at this late stage. Many people believe the findings of the enquiry had been more or less decided before the commissioners even began their work. One thing is clear, however. The report gives us a fascinating snapshot of life in the 1840s and for a brief while, at least, it did manage to put education high on the political agenda.

Ultimately, however, the Treason of the Blue Books helped to create a view, a rather smirking and disrespectful view, of Welsh morals that has lasted until the 21st century. Publication of The Report of the Commissioners of Enquiry remains one of the most important moments in Welsh history, and it is questionable whether or not the Welsh language has yet managed to break free from the disapproval of the commissioners.

Phil Carradice investigates how Victorian Wales was scandalised by a government report into its schools and sexual morals in Blue Books and Red Faces on this week's episode of Past Master on Sunday 23 January at 5.30pm.

Sir Hugh Middleton ensured that the people of London finally got decent drinking water.

Sir Hugh was the sixth son of Richard Middleton, MP for the Denbigh Boroughs and governor of Denbigh Castle, and spent his childhood in the beautiful Clywd countryside.

He was born in 1560, right in the middle of Queen Elizabeth's traumatic and glorious reign, an age when Britain first achieved world, as opposed to European, significance.

His name is often spelled Myddelton, such variations in spelling being quite common at the time - no less a person than William Shakespeare even spelled his name in at least half a dozen different ways.

Hugh Middleton, in the fashion of most younger sons, had to leave home to make his way in the world and he decided to try his hand in London.

There he was apprenticed to a goldsmith - presumably his father paid the necessary fees for indentures - and in time became so successful that he was appointed Royal Jeweller to Elizabeth's successor, King James I.

As a successful businessman Hugh Middleton moved easily between London and Denbigh, becoming an Alderman and, eventually, succeeding his father as MP for the Welsh town.

He was not just a goldsmith: his interests and business concerns stretched into many diverse areas. He also traded as a cloth maker, a banker, a mine owner and as an engineer. It was in this last capacity that Middleton really made his name.

London had been, for many years, a stinking and filthy community where the infrastructure was incapable of dealing with or supporting the thousands who flocked to the city every year.

The lack of clean water - for drinking and for washing - was a major problem. The Thames was, literally, a floating sewer. Small wonder that disease was rife and that the plague visited almost every year.

Hugh Middleton became the driving force behind the plan to create a clean water supply for London. It was not his idea and he only became involved once the original designers found themselves in financial difficulties. However, once he was part of the project Middleton drove it forward with an almost raging intensity.

The plan was to construct something called New River, a culvert that would bring water from the River Lea at Ware to what was soon being described as New River Head in London.

This "new river" was dug out and constructed between 1608 and 1613, being 38 miles in length and used by people who lived on its route as well as householders in the city.

The project took both time and money. Much of this was provided by Hugh Middleton although the king - who had always been a supporter of the scheme - was also induced to lend a financial hand in 1612.

New River was finally completed and officially opened on 23 September 1613, giving Londoners their first clean water for dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of years.

Hugh Middleton was a true Renaissance Man. He was interested in art and literature and also, as well as his traditional business interests in London and his community work in Denbigh, he developed and ran lead and silver mines in Ceredigion.

He also found time to sire 10 sons and six daughters, their survival into adulthood - always a perilous process in the 17th century - undoubtedly being helped by the clean water supply that their father had created.

Sir Hugh Middleton was created Baronet in 1622, a clear sign of the position he held and his significance in Stuart England. He died on 10 December 1631 and was buried in London.

There is a memorial to Sir Hugh on Islington Green and several streets have been named after him in the capital - and in the small Hertfordshire town of Ware.

Yet surely the greatest memorial to this Welshman of drive and vision has to be the fact that, thanks to his efforts, the people of London finally got decent drinking water.

The system he created kept the capital supplied until the middle years of the 19th century. A far sighted man indeed.