Vale-based Plaid Cymru AM Chris Franks is pressing for an exhibition of the diaries of legendary Barry journalist who exposed one of Stalin’s worst atrocities in the 1930s to be staged in South Wales.
Gareth Jones trekked across Soviet Ukraine, then officially off limits to Western journalists, to report on the Holomodor, the famine that killed millions of people. He was later banned from the USSR and murdered by bandits in China but was posthumously awarded the Ukrainian Order of Freedom in 2008.
Chris Franks wrote to Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones after reading that Mr Jones’ diaries were being put on view at Cambridge, where he studied between 1926 and 1929. He asked whether the diaries could be loaned from Trinity College, Cambridge, for display in Barry.
In his response, the Minister said: “Any loan from Trinity College would be dependent on Barry Library being able to provide conditions for the display of archival material which met recommended professional standards, particularly in terms of security and environmental control.
“My officials in CyMal: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales division have been in contact with the staff of the Vale of Glamorgan library service to discuss the matter. The library staff are aware that there is local interest in Gareth Jones and that an exhibition may be popular. However, they are concerned over their ability to meet the exacting professional standards required for the exhibition of archival material.
“In the light of these concerns, they are proposing to explore the possibility of working in collaboration with Glamorgan Archives, which does have the facilities and expertise to undertake small exhibitions in their new premises in Leckwith, Cardiff, to address the matter.”
Chris Franks said: “Gareth Jones was a true campaigning journalist who was not afraid to report how peasants in Ukraine were starving while the Soviet regime exported grain to the West despite the terrible impact on his own life.
“The horror of Stalin’s action is one of the forgotten tragedies of the 20th Century and it would be great if people in his home town and across Wales could take a look at the historic diaries he compiled.”
