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This summer, from July 31 until August 7, the town of Ebbw Vale is due to play host to the National Eisteddfod of Wales.

It is not the first time Ebbw Vale has been chosen to accommodate a major social or cultural event.

This is the second time that Ebbw Vale has hosted the National Eisteddfod of Wales and inÌý1992 it hosted the Garden Festival, a celebration that attracted thousands of visitors over a short six-month period.

This year will undoubtedly see many more visitors to a town that has a proud and distinguished history.

Ebbw Vale is now renowned as a mining and steel-producing town but, for many years, this was a rural and rather desolate spot.

Sitting at the head of the Ebbw Fawr River, the town now has a population of over 25,000 but back in the 13th century, when the Norman invaders under first came to the area, there was no town at all, just scattered houses and the occasional farmstead dotting the hills and valley sides.

This part of what is now the county borough of was, for many years after the Norman conquest, an area inhabited only by sheep farmers who also, sometimes, turned their hands to the rearing of mountain ponies. And so it continued until the end of the eighteenth century.

Then came coal and iron!

Coalmines arrived first but when the Ebbw Vale Iron Works was founded in 1778 a town soon began to spring up around the engineering plant.

By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 the town's population had increased from the recorded figure of under 150 in 1881 to about 1200 - and all in the period of just thirty years.

As might be expected with such a population boom, conditions in the town - sometimes known as Pen-y-Cae in these early days - were primitive and crude. It was not until the second half of the 19th century, after the working day was shortened and the hated were abolished, that things began to improve.

The Chartist movement had a strong base in the area and, later, trade unionism was equally as important to the iron and steel workers.

Ebbw Vale even boasted its own Board of Health, a local precursor to the National Health Service, which was set up in the 1850s. It was a system that miner and future town MP Nye Bevan saw in operation and undoubtedly used as a blue print when he came to found Britain's Health Service in 1946.

In 1866, following national trends and demands, the Ebbw Vale Iron Company began producing steel. The company name was changed to the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Company and, under the relatively benign direction of men like Abraham Darby and Thomas Brown, began to develop and grow at a phenomenal rate.

The company managed to survive the Depression of the 1930s and, in the years after the Second World War, passed out of private ownership and was absorbed into the British Steel Corporation.

However, following the destruction of the mining industry in the 1990s, the writing was already on the wall for Ebbw Vale - as with much of Britain's industrial heritage - and the steelworks closed in July 2002.

The steel works may have gone but history and legends about the town and works live on.

It is said that 40,000 bricks from an engineering plant at Beaufort, a bare mile to the north of Ebbw Vale, were used to construct the in New York while it is a known fact that both the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Stockton and Darlington railway lines were built using steel from the Ebbw Vale works.

The National Eisteddfod of Wales has a noble and fascinating history.

That history can only be extended when the Eisteddfod returns to Ebbw Vale in the summer of 2010.

The Pavillion, at the National Eisteddfod 1958, held in Ebbw Vale

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The concert precession at the National Eisteddfod 1958 in Ebbw Vale

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The Chairing of the Bard at the National Eisteddfod of Wales

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The walk in Pembroke is part of the ±«Óãtv's Norman season.

You can listen to the interview with Phil as the pair discuss Wales' Norman heritage and their favourite Welsh castles.

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Seventy years ago, Hitler's planned destruction of the Royal Air Force was under way and the initial exchanges of the Battle of Britain already etched into history. As waves of German bombers and fighters attacked airfields and targets in the south east of England, events taking place west of Offa's Dyke proved just as intense.

From July 1940 Britain's cities burned as the Luftwaffe's incendiary bombs fell from Heinkel bombers and repelling the German threat was imperative to national survival. The main RAF bases in Wales included RAF Pembrey in Carmarthenshire, in the Vale of Glamorgan, RAF Hawarden and RAF Sealand near the Dee estuary.

As raids on Britain increased, RAF Hawarden and Sealand, situated just a few miles apart and separated by the River Dee near Deeside were integral cogs in the Battle of Britain - a fact underlined by aviation historian and author Mike Grant.

"They couldn't have won the Battle of Britain without RAF Sealand and RAF Hawarden and places like it," states Mike. "They were training stations, but sometimes whole squadrons were moved to these places to regroup. They would be on the alert. We were the back up service."

Throughout 1940, the whole of North East Wales was populated with a variety of aircraft, airmen and ground crews. As Liverpool was blitzed in July 1940, the land mass of North Wales came under the command of the RAF's 9 Group which incorporated Lancashire and parts of Cheshire.

Mike's co-author and fellow historian Derrick Pratt alludes to the ways and reasons North Wales became increasingly defended.

"It was a resting place," offers Derrick, "all the squadrons that came into Wales were battle weary...shot to pieces and farmed into back areas to maintain a defensive presence, but also to rest.

"The bombs that fell on Merseyside are as vital to the make up of the Battle of Britain as the bombs that fell on the East End of London," says Derrick. "9 Group, which was very late being formed covered north Wales and that wasn't formed until August 1940; half way through the Battle of Britain.

"However, it wasn't formed in response to the Battle of Britain," continues Derrick, "it was formed in response to the attacks on Liverpool. Airfields in France fell with France, and the Germans were gifted 30 to 40 French military airfields and instead of attacking via London and South East England (where 11 and 12 Group were waiting for them), they flew from France, across the English Channel and across the south West peninsular where hopefully they would be intercepted by RAF pilots."

The exploits of 11 Group have, historically, become the focus of memory. It was the airmen of this group and their planes that faced the brunt of the Luftwaffe threat during the summer and early autumn of 1940.

A couple of hundred miles away from the Kent airfields of Biggin Hill and West Malling some of that would win the Battle of Britain cut their teeth at Hawarden and Sealand.

"Since 1920, pilots trained in three ways," confirms Mike. "Trainees started off on a Tiger Moth and after your basic training, you'd move on to an elementary flight training school where you were taught the basics of flight. The first aircraft you would have been introduced to, would have been a Tiger Moth or a Miles Master.

"If you managed to survive the initial training, you would now know how to fly a fighter aircraft," adds Mike. "The type of fighters trainees commonly used were the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Trainees would then be transferred to an operational training unit, and if you were lucky enough not to have to travel far, you would pass over the river to Hawarden and fly Spitfires, or a Hurricane in the early days."

The training at Sealand and Hawarden was, in many ways, as dangerous as the combat that pilots were training for. Thousands of young pilots faced using the much more powerful Spitfires and Hurricanes for the first time, and many wouldn't make it.

"They were taught total aerobatics at Sealand and expected to do it with the Spitfires at Hawarden," adds Mike, "and, the horrific number of accidents involving our own aircraft...over 4,000 were damaged ranging from just the undercarriage to complete write offs."

"If you went into the elementary training school at Sealand, you would have been introduced to the Master, which was a duplicated, down-rated Spitfire or Hurricane. During the training the losses in this particular area were heavy; especially during night exercises where there were some horrific accidents."

There will be more insights into how the bombs and destruction affected Wales 70 years ago on ±«Óãtv Wales History, including Dewi Griffiths' personal recollections.

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Writer, presenter and history blogger will appear on the Roy Noble Show this afternoon (Monday 26 July) to talk about a walk around Pembroke that he has written as part of the ±«Óãtv's Norman Season which highlights the effect the Normans have had on our civilisation.

Pembroke was the most important Norman settlement in west Wales and is the perfect example of a fortified artificial borough.

After Pembroke castle was founded in 1093 as a simple motte and bailey structure the town grew rapidly. Although much of the Norman fabric has now disappeared, enough remains to fire the imagination.

Phil's walk is suitable for all the family and this relatively flat and gentle circular stroll around the town walls provides a fascinating insight into Norman life in Wales.

You can print out a map of the walk and download an audio guide to take with you on your walk. You can find both the map and the audio guide on this page.

If you're looking for family friendly activities to do this summer, take a look at the ±«Óãtv's Hands on History website. The site is full of fun Norman related things to do - including activity packs, animations and plenty of other walks to go on.

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The Roy Noble Show starts at 2pm on ±«Óãtv Radio Wales. You can listen live to Radio Wales by clicking here.

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Radio Wales presenter Dewi Griffiths was just eight years old when World War Two began.

Growing up in in the Rhondda Valley, Dewi remembers how family life centred around war reports on the wireless and how, as a young lad he knew the distinctive sounds of the enemy aircraft. Here he recounts some of his memories of the time.

I suppose my intense interest in World War Two began on day one - 3 September 1939, when, at the age of eight, I sat with my brother Bill, 12, and my mother in the living room of our home in Wyndham Street, Ton Pentre. My father insisted we all listen to the wireless as he tuned in for a special bulletin from London.

The announcer introduced the prime minister, , who spoke to us directly from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street, and he ended with these chilling words: "Consequently this country is at war with Germany".

That battery-powered wireless was never switched off after that. Every day, from September 1939 to August 1945, I heard all about the progress of the war - a conflict accurately described as "a world war".

Initially, the reports were all about the arriving in France to help them in their fight against the advancing German army, but Hitler's Panzer Divisions were strong and well-prepared.

The combined British and French forces were no real match, and so, by the spring of 1940, I was listening to reports about "the miracle of Dunkirk" when a third of a million allied soldiers were taken off the beaches in thousands of little boats to be taken to the safety of the south of England.

That's when the dreaded word "invasion" became part of every-day conversation.

It was at another family gathering when we all gathered around the wireless as my father switched it on to listen to the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, and it was then we heard his historic pronouncement: "The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

The speech ended with a typical "Winnie" rallying statement: "if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour!"

And of course, there were the newspapers, with the London dailies issuing maps of the south coast, pinpointing the places which were being bombed by the Luftwaffe providing the first reports that citizens had been killed.

The newspapers also began issuing leaflets with "aircraft recognition silhouette charts", and by my ninth birthday, in the middle of August, I was able to identify a , a , a , and a Messerschmidt.

We were also aware of the different sound made the engines of a German bomber - an oscillating drone produced by the different engine rotation speeds resulting in a distinctive "beat" frequency.

But we were far away from the actual danger at that time. The coal and steel industries just stepped up production, and buses took hundreds of women from the valley every day to work in the munitions factories in the Vale of Glamorgan.

And then we began listening to what the ±«Óãtv reporters referred to as "dog fights" - which was when I first heard about the icon of my wartime years - the Spitfire.

I wondered what it looked like, because we youngsters were kept busy with gas mask drill, air raid precautions, and getting to know the strangers amongst us: the evacuees who had arrived from London, the Midlands, and later the docklands of Cardiff.

Of course there was the Saturday morning "rush" - the local cinema putting on entertainment films for children - and it was at the Workmen's Hall in Ton Pentre that I first saw a Spitfire in flight, in the newsreel that came up between Hopalong Cassidy and Donald Duck.

From the moment I saw it on that big screen I was fired with an ambition to be a pilot in the RAF. The newsreel coverage of the dog fights caused more excitement in the youngsters than anything Hollywood could conjure up.

When father came up from the night shift at the local colliery, the first thing they asked about was "are we winning the battle?" Then before jumping into the tin bath in front of the fire it was across to the allotments to tend to the home grown vegetables, or check the eggs in the chicken coop.

And that's how it was. Day after day, hour after hour, we listened to the radio for reports, such as: "early this morning eight German planes were shot down over Kent - six of our aircraft failed to return to base!" Then it was to the chart on the wall where we put a cross on emblems of a Union Jack or a swastika.

We were fascinated too that the pilots defending our homeland were not just British, but came from all over the Commonwealth, and from the occupied countries in Europe. As September came, we heard that Churchill had supplied the RAF with more aircraft, and more importantly, replacement pilots.

As a nine-year-old I didn't know what the word "propaganda" meant, but I was aware that the news bulletins were telling us that more and more German aircraft were being shot down - and that the end was in sight. The end?

In September 1940 the war had hardly touched us in the valley, but we were fully aware that the people living in the south of England had been living through hell.

Then came the radio announcement - the strangest report for months:

"For the last 24 hours there have been no reports of any German aircraft in the skies over England."

So, they were right! The end was in sight.

And now, 70 years on, I still find it difficult to hold back the tears of gratitude and admiration whenever I hear the words of Winston Churchill:

"Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."

And those tears were running down my cheeks as I saw the Spitfire and the Lancaster fly over Cardiff Bay when I was a member of the ±«Óãtv Radio Wales broadcasting team covering the Armed Forces Day Commemoration Ceremony.

It was all quite thrilling - and I can't wait to celebrate the magnificent victory of the , driving out of North Africa after the famous turning point, El Alamein.

Watch highlights from the ±«Óãtv Wales Armed Forces Season.

View a slideshow of Armed Forces Day in Cardiff.

Dewi Griffiths is the presenter of the ±«Óãtv Radio Wales music programme A String Of Pearls. Listen to the latest programme.

A String Of Pearls can next be heard on ±«Óãtv Radio Wales on Sunday 22 July at 9.05am

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Thirty-five years ago today: the at Silverstone. A dashing young chap from north Wales sits in his Formula One car at the front of the grid. A Welsh speaker on pole position, a Welsh flag emblazoned on his crash helmet.

Thomas Maldwyn Pryce may not be a household name, but he was faster than most; and was one of Wales' greatest sportsmen you never heard of.

On this July day in 1975 amidst the girls, the celebrities, Ferrari, McLaren, Lotus, the historic tapestry of James Hunt, Stirling Moss, death-defying speed and derring-do, Tom Pryce, from Nantglyn, near in Denbighshire became the only Welshman ever to start from pole position in a Formula One Grand Prix.

The unassuming Pryce had previously graduated quickly from being a tractor mechanic in rural Wales to the pinnacle of motor racing. Cutting his teeth in lower formulae he astounded experts and fans the world over with his sideways car control and gentle demeanour out of the car.

By 1974 he had graduated to Formula One with the unfancied Token team and, following a brief demotion to Formula Three, a spellbinding performance on the streets of Monte Carlo caught the attention of all the major Formula One teams of the day. He was rewarded with a seat in the Shadow Formula One team, run by fellow Welshman Alan Rees.

In his first full season, in 1975, Pryce had already become the only Welshman to win a Formula One race. That it was the non-championship Race of Champions was academic. In his black Shadow, starting from pole position, he slithered on the damp and cold Brands Hatch circuit, the famous, undulating stripe of Kentish tarmac, and beat some of the greatest names in the history of motor racing. This included the likes of Emerson Fittipaldi, Jacky Ickx and Ronnie Peterson.

This ±«Óãtv Wales News video from 1975 catches a rare interview with the shy, introverted Pryce as his star burned brightest. Here he reflects in a typically understated way about his victory at Brands Hatch. The clip also includes some high praise from none other than three-time champion Jackie Stewart.

Rival, friend and five-time Grand Prix winner John Watson confirms Tom's reticence towards the jet-setting world of Formula One. "Tom was possessed of a huge talent," remembered Watson, "We spent a bit of time together because we both did Formula Two in 1974 and traveled around a bit together. I remember one time having dinner in Italy, and what Tom wanted was chicken and chips. And there in Italy you had the choice of the most incredible food - but that was all he wanted."

With the Ford-powered Shadow, Pryce's potential came to the fore throughout 1975. Despite the odd crash and his car's dubious reliability his pole position achievement on that Saturday in July was something few men have achieved.

"He did it with a malfunctioning clutch, and a hitherto unseen smoothness in place of his trademark oversteering style," says journalist David Tremayne, author of The Lost Generation, a thrilling, forensic account of Pryce's career.

"The race marked another milestone for Tom: the only time a Welsh driver led a Grand Prix. He ran in the top three initially, as Ferrari's Clay Regazzoni led from Pace, but overtook the Brazilian on the 17th lap and went into the lead on the 19th when Regazzoni slid into the wall at Club Corner.

"He stayed there on lap 20, too. But on lap 21 he was the first to encounter an unexpected pool of rain at Becketts. This was deeply ironic, for he had a reputation as a genuine rainmaster. The Shadow twitched and slithered off into the catchfencing, and he was momentarily stunned as a pole struck his helmet. It was a sad end to a wonderful drive.

Pryce was one of many to crash that day as the heavens opened, but in the races that followed his stock rose with a podium place in Austria, a fourth in Germany and the following year in 1976, he claimed a third place in Brazil and some promising drives. Things were looking good for 1977, until tragedy struck.

Pryce was killed aged just 27 in baffling and tragic circumstances in the 1977 South African Grand Prix, detailed in this ±«Óãtv News video and elsewhere. As Grand Prix racing is now a safer and affluent world, it will forever be poorer for the absence of one of Wales' greatest and unassuming sportsmen many tipped as a future world champion.

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Most people who drive west from Carmarthen on the road to Pembroke pass through the village of , blithely unaware that this quiet backwater spot was, in the early 18th century, the centre of an educational movement that was taking Wales - perhaps even the world - by storm. For this was the base of Griffith Jones and his famous .

In an age when there was no compulsory education, when the vast majority of working class people could neither read nor write, Griffith Jones created a system of schooling that by the time of his death in 1761 had taught almost 200,000 people to read.

Jones, arguably more than anyone else, helped to make Wales into a literate and literary nation.

Griffith Jones was born in Carmarthenshire in 1683. He was educated at Carmarthen Grammar School and was ordained into the Church of England in 1708. After early curacies in places like Penbryn (Cardiganshire) and Penrieth (Pembrokeshire), he became curate and master of the the School in Laugharne.

At one stage he did consider going to India to carry out missionary work for the SPCK, but decided against it and in 1716 became rector at Llanddowror, a post he held for the rest of his life.

As an active member of the SPCK Jones was concerned about the illiteracy of his parishioners and when he began his Circulating Schools in about 1731 he was clear that one of his main aims was salvation. He wanted people to read but only so that they could read the Bible and the catechism of the Church of England.

What Griffith Jones created was a series of schools that would rotate or circulate around the rural parishes of Wales, mainly in the winter months when farm work was relatively slack. The schools would stay in one place for approximately three months and then move on to another location. Dozens of men, women and children flocked to the schools where they used the Bible both as a means of instruction and as a training manual or reading book.

The Bible was used as a means of instruction and as a training manual or reading book

By 1737, just six years after they began, there were 37 such schools in existence with over 2500 pupils or scholars attending the classes. For those who had to work during the day, evening classes were set up and Jones himself, from his base in Llanddowror, was instrumental in training the teachers. He had powerful support from wealthy land owners like , the woman who continued to run and oversee the schools after his death in April 1761.

The system attracted the interest of reformers and educationalists from all over Britain - and from further afield as well. In 1764 of Russia commissioned a report on the activities of the schools, with a view to creating a similar system in her own country.

Griffith Jones was not without critics, however. Many people disagreed with teaching ordinary working men and women to read, particularly reactionary clergymen who felt that their position at the centre of the community was being undermined. Jones was a powerful preacher, someone who would hold the attention of mass gatherings, whether they were in the church or in the open air.

He was called to account on several occasions by his Bishop for ignoring church rules and customs and, particularly, for things like preaching on the weekday! It did not stop Griffith Jones who was determined to proceed with what he felt to be his mission in life.

Although not a reformer himself he can be seen to be something of a forerunner to the Methodist revival that was soon to hit Wales and all of the United Kingdom. By creating a literate and educated populace, men and women with a deep and focussed interest in the gospels and all scriptures, he had certainly paved the way for ministers like John Wesley.

More significantly, Griffith Jones and his Circulating Schools had created a people for whom education was crucially important, not just as a way to better oneself but as an aim and an end in itself. That is a stance that has never left the Welsh people.

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When you look at mainstream poetry of World War Two it is obvious that, unlike the Great War of 1914-18, the conflict failed to throw up any really great poets. Perhaps Alun Lewis in the forces and Dylan Thomas as a civilian came close but, as far as war poetry is concerned, there was no-one of the calibre and quality of writers such as , Siegfried Sassoon and .

However, when you look at people's poetry, the poetry or verse written by ordinary men and women during the conflict, there is no doubt that its quality is markedly superior than that produced in the earlier war. There are many reasons for this. Universal education had, by 1939, been around for nearly 70 years and the educational system was now able to ensure that virtually everyone had the means and, in many cases, the desire to express themselves in verse.

Poetic experimentation in the 1920s and 1930s meant that there was a growing acceptance of free verse as an art form. So men like Gwyn Elwyn Evans could happily and easily write:

In skies above an alien land
They gave their lives -
By the thousand;
Tens of thousands. [...]

When I am gone

Let it be said of me
'He flew with this illustrious band -
Bomber Command.'

During World War Two men and women served all over the world - unlike in the Great War when, really, the conflict was limited to France and the Middle East. Their experiences of new and strange places often manifested itself in poetry:

We sat on the dark veranda and drank our beer,
Held by the alien, stifling Nigerian night.
The dank foliage ambushed us, wet and horrid,
Darting the unseen fireflies nervous light.
(John S M Jones)

But, of course, World War Two was also the first real conflict to involve civilians on a huge, unparalleled scale. And it was, therefore, inevitable that they too should try to recount what was happening to them.

Even before the war began local Welsh newspapers such as were warning about the dangers of things like gas attacks - and they were doing it, not in long dense leader columns where it would never have been read but in simple and highly accessible verse:

If you get a choking feeling and a smell of musty hay
You can bet your bottom dollar that there's phosgene on the way.
But the smell of bleaching powder will inevitably mean
That the enemy you're meeting is the gas we call chlorine.

Humour, certainly, was more prevalent in World War Two. The art of subversion, challenging authority and those who felt they had a divine right to rule or lead, reached new heights during the war, arguably becoming something of an art form. It led, inevitably, to the Labour landslide of 1945 and to the anti-establishment satire of the 1950s and 60s.

So serving soldiers could write about honour, companionship and death but they were, perhaps, at their best when they stuck their tongues in their cheeks and took a quiet pot shot at the men who had put them into their fox holes, gun turrets or submarines:

It's Churchill's fault we're stuck out here
With all the flies and sand,
Whilst he and all his cronies
Live a life that's grand.
(Ken Burrows)

The thought of imminent death or mutilation often brought out a sardonic and self deprecating train of humour - you couldn't help the situation you were in, you couldn't change it, but you could laugh at it:

You must remember this
That flack don't always miss
And one of you may die,
The fundamental thing applies
As flack goes by.

And when the fighters come
You hope you're not the one
To tumble from the sky.
The odds are too damned high
As flack goes by.
(Anon)

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Most people remember as the man who, on 3 September 1928, discovered . Yet the part played in the discovery by his friend and colleague , a Welshman from the Merthyr area, should never be underestimated.

Indeed, there are many who say that it was Pryce who actually discovered penicillin, not Fleming at all.

Merlin Pryce had been employed as research assistant to Fleming but in February 1928 moved on to work in other areas. According to Mrs Hilda Jarman, Pryce's sister, Fleming went on holiday that summer and Merlin, calling in to say hello on what should have been Fleming's first day back at work, noticed blue-green mould on one of the petri dishes in the laboratory.

Lab assistants should have cleared the dishes away but, for some reason, they had been left untouched.

Mould growing on a petri dish

Merlin Pryce drew the attention of Fleming to the petri dish, noting that no bacteria surrounded the mould. Something, as yet unknown, in the dead cells that lay apart from the mould had caused the bacteria to die. The rest, as they say, is history.

But one thing is sure - if Merlin Pryce had not noticed the mould and drawn it to the attention of Alexander Fleming penicillin would not have been discovered for several years and, quite possibly, would not have been available for the treatment of wounded soldiers during World War Two.

While it is clear that the discovery of penicillin owes much to the work of other men - notably who were responsible for developing the antibiotic and bringing penicillin to the hospital ward - Merlin Pryce, from the very beginning, played down his part in the affair. He was a modest man who insisted that credit for the discovery should rest solely with Fleming.

Born at Troed-y-Rhiw in Merthyr, Merlin Pryce was educated at Pontypridd Boys Grammar School before moving on to the Welsh National School of Medicine when he was just 17 years old. He then left Wales to study at in Paddington, London and in 1927 was appointed to a Junior Research Scholarship under Fleming.

In the years to come Merlin Pryce enjoyed a successful and distinguished career in medicine, remaining devoted to St Mary's all his life. He became, after the war, first Reader and then Chair of Pathology at the hospital. He retained his affection for and relationship with Fleming right to the end, always maintaining that Sir Alexander was rightly honoured as the man who discovered penicillin.

Only twice did he ever break that stance - once, many years later, at an after dinner speech to the West Kent Pharmaceutical Society and, for a second time, in an aside to Fleming's widow. After a joint interview with himself and Lady Fleming by André Maurois, Fleming's first biographer, she hissed at Pryce, "Anybody would think you discovered the mould." Pryce's response was a simple statement that summed up everything: "But I did."

At this distance - and without written evidence - it is hard to deduce quite why Merlin Pryce should actively seek to play down his part in the discovery. He was, undoubtedly, a modest man and his devotion to St Mary's (as well as his relationship with Fleming) are perhaps indicators of the reasons for his stance. He would do nothing that would damage the reputation of either.

Merlin Pryce died on 8 February 1976, his reputation as a doctor and as a teacher unblemished. He could have been remembered for much, much more - if he had had the inclination to tell the world about the part he played in one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century.

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Seventy years ago the first rumblings of what is today known as the Battle of Britain commenced. By May 1940 German forces had overrun Belgium, the Netherlands and northern France. Hitler's goal was now fixed on destroying Britain's Royal Air Force and the invasion of Great Britain.

Many remember the Battle of Britain as a series of thousands of metres above the White Cliffs of Dover, with Spitfires and Hurricanes duking it out with Messerschmitts and Heinkels in the skies over Kent, Sussex and the English Channel. The reality is that between June and September 1940, the whole of the United Kingdom suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe. Wales was no exception.

Between 28 August and 1 September 1940 Wrexham suffered a sustained period of bombing, a by-product of German raids on Liverpool. In fact, German planes had been sporadically bombing the border area of what is now Flintshire, Cheshire and Shropshire from the end of June 1940, and it was not until August 1940 that a defensive group of aircraft was dedicated to defending north Wales.

Derrick Pratt, author and historian who specialises in the histories of the Wrexham area provides an insight into the ease with which German fighters could attack north Wales in the summer of 1940.

"The first bombers followed the Bristol Channel, up the Severn River, that would appear like a silver thread at night - they could follow it," says Derrick. "Then they made the little hop from Shrewsbury where the Severn starts to flow back into Montgomeryshire and they picked up the River Dee. Then they followed the Dee to Shocklach and either took the River Mersey to Liverpool or headed right towards Crewe."

During the early phase of the battle the German aircraft could find their target by following the rivers and railways that criss-cross the Welsh border, relatively uncontested, to unload their deadly cargo.

"People speaking from Oswestry and Overton can remember half a dozen Heinkels flying very sedately in the dusk towards Liverpool and not a thing being done," stated Derrick. "They just flew up very steadily, following the River Dee towards Liverpool with nothing to shoot them down."

And it was these twin-engined Heinkel He 111 bombers, one of the Luftwaffe's workhorses during the Battle of Britain, that passed over Flintshire and Denbighshire to bomb Liverpool and her docks for three nights from 28 August 1940.

Mike Grant, who co-authored Wings Across The Border - A History Of Aviation In North Wales And The Northern Marchers with Derrick, sheds some light on how Wrexham and the surrounding area was caught up in the first German raids on Merseyside.

"Liverpool took quite a hammering, but the Wrexham area took a massive hit as well," said Mike. "That part of the world was absolutely peppered during those three days. For the inhabitants of those areas, the Battle of Britain was a wake up call."

The Liverpool attacks have been described as the first major night attack on the United Kingdom, and also marked a switch in strategy by the Luftwaffe as they began night time raids. German records state that some 446 tons of high explosive and 37,044 incendiary bombs were dropped on the Merseyside area in four nights. Many of these bombs fell on the Ruabon Mountains and the areas surrounding Wrexham.

"Llay Main Colliery was nearly hit by a lone bomber," says Derrick. "It was 3.30pm on a Monday in early September. Kids had just started back at school and mums were collecting their kids form Llay Infants School when a Heinkel 111 passed low overhead. It was so close that everybody started waving, and the pilot nonchalantly waved back. As the aircraft passed the crowd, they suddenly saw the cross on the tail, and the Luftwaffe livery and the awful reality dawned."

The lone bomber - a frequent and dangerous reality during the early phase of the battles in the sky - headed along the Pen-y-Ffordd road on that autumn morning and dropped two bombs near the gates of Llay Main Colliery.

"If the bombs had gone 70 yards further south," continued Derrick, "it would have hit the winding gear and trapped 900 men underground, and you would have had a disaster worse than Gresford."

Derrick's own childhood memories overlap with these tumultuous times. Born in Acrefair, near Wrexham he witnessed the bombs and burning borderland, shaping his career and lifelong interest in teaching, language and local history.

"I remember crying my eyes out!" revealed Derrick. "Lewis' department store in Liverpool was bombed. There was a Lone Ranger toy and a rocking horse. It was all burned! The toys, the pets corner. All these charred parrots and pets... oh, I cried my eyes out."

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Many of us may have heard about the. Maybe some of us will own a print or even one of the early Victorian fairings that depict the redoubtable pair. But not many of us will know the actual story of Lady Eleanor Charlotte Butler and the Honourable Sarah Ponsonby, the two ladies in question.

These two upper class women lived together for many years outside and, despite their desire only for a peaceful and untroubled existence became, by the early years of the 19th century, something of a tourist attraction for the little north Wales town.

They fascinated the public and intrigued the imagination of many who wondered, in public and in private, about their relationship - was it sexual? Nobody, either then or now, has been able to find out.

and were both born in Ireland, to aristocratic and well-off families, and met in 1768 when they immediately became great friends.

In 1778, rather than be forced into arranged marriages that they did not want, Eleanor and Sarah scandalised polite society and ran away together.

They had tried to run away before and had been prevented by their families. This second attempt was more successful. For many weeks their "elopement" was the talk of both Dublin and London coffee shops and salons. The two women did not care. They were happy in each other's company.

Together, they sailed from Ireland to Milford Haven and then journeyed north, eventually arriving in the Vale of Llangollen, an area they considered to be one of the most beautiful pieces of countryside they had ever seen. Just outside Llangollen they found and, in 1780, bought a small house called Pen-y-Maes and settled down to life together.

They were, in the main, unsociable, took no notice of current fashions and wore basic, dark clothing at all times. The people of Llangollen accepted them and called them, simply, "The Ladies."

Despite the injunctions of their families Eleanor and Sarah refused to return to Ireland. They began to redesign their cottage in the style and renamed it . They spent the next 50 years studying literature, learning languages and piecing together a huge collection of woodcarvings.

Eleanor kept a diary of their life together - a life that was, really, quite mundane and often boring.

However, for some reason, their story and their lifestyle caught the public imagination. Soon visitors, unknown and famous, were besieging Plas Newydd. People such as the poets , and all came to talk and stare, as did the novelist .

, friend of Byron and, by strange coincidence, a distant relative of Sarah Ponsonby, also found time to visit, as did the formidable Duke of Wellington. Visitors often brought with them pieces of wood carving which the ladies promptly added to their collection.

The exact relationship between the two women will never be known. At the end of the day it hardly matters. They were the greatest of friends and that friendship helped to sustain them through many years of what were, at times, quite gruelling problems.

Finances were never easy for them. Despite having an annual income of under £300, their aristocratic backgrounds never quite disappeared and they insisted on maintaining a household that consisted of gardener, footman and several maids.

One of the maids was Mary Caryll, a woman who had served them before, in Ireland. This insistence on servants and standards led to not inconsiderable debts, something with which they battled all their lives.

The Ladies of Llangollen were, eventually, reconciled with their families but continued to live in north Wales. And the public continued to come. Eleanor died on 2 June 1829 while Sarah, 16 years younger than her friend, lived on, alone at Plas Newydd, until December 1832.

The house at Llangollen is now a museum. It is run by Denbighshire County Council and is one of the main tourist locations in the town.

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Everybody in Wales knows the story of Aneurin Bevan, the miner's son who became Member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale and the man who, in the first Labour government after World War Two, effectively created the .

Rt.Hon Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health taken in 1942

In a recent poll to find the top Nye, as he was commonly known, came out in first place. Clearly he holds a position of major esteem in the minds of the Welsh people.

Nye Bevan's story is too well known to demand yet another full telling. But 6 July 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of his death and it would be wrong to let the date pass without marking it in some way.

His death truly was "a death out of time." He was just 62 years old and, in the opinion of many, at the height of his powers. Diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1959, Nye knew he had little time left to him but this fervent left-winger, a man who believed, above all, in the rights of the individual working man and woman still had the courage and strength to take on the role of Deputy Leader of the .

Bevan's career was full of controversy. He was born at Tredegar in 1897, one of 10 children, his father a coal miner. Nye hated school and, by his own account, did badly there, leaving as soon as he could in 1910.

He was self-educated, using the local Workmen's Library to study politics and economics in the evenings and at weekends. He became a miner and, in due course, a trade union activist with the Fed, the .

Nye Bevan knew the power of the mine owners only too well, being refused employment on several occasions because of his supposedly "revolutionary" views. Despite, or perhaps because, of this in 1926 he became a paid Union official. He was one of the miners' leaders in south Wales during the and in 1928 he was elected as Labour MP for Ebbw Vale.

He was a harsh critic of anyone he suspected of not supporting the working classes and this applied to his own party as well as the Conservatives. He was even expelled from the Labour Party for a brief period in 1939 because he would not "toe the Party line." Opposed to Churchill's wartime Coalition Government, his criticism was so virulent that once called him "a squalid nuisance".

It was as Minister of Health in post-war Labour Government that Nye achieved his real moment of glory by creating Britain's first National Health Service. It was not done without considerable opposition from the British Medical Association. When asked how he had finally managed to quell the opposition of the wealthy consultants Nye famously responded: "I stuffed their mouths with gold".

What he had done, in order to create the new system, was to allow the consultants to continue with their private practices whilst working for the new Health Service at the same time. It could be argued that this gift or loophole undermined the whole system and, in later years, led to serious problems. But considering the opposition and the urgent need to offer free medical services to the nation it is hard to know what else Bevan could have done.

Appointed Minister of Labour in 1951, Nye soon resigned in protest at the introduction of prescription charges - he was always a man of principle. He contested the Labour leadership after Attlee resigned but lost out to the more moderate . Nye kept his left-wing views to the end, his supporters (Bevanites as they were known) being such a scourge that in 1953 he and several of his group had the party whip withdrawn.

There were barely 12 months between diagnosis of cancer and his death in July 1960. He fought the disease with the same dogged determination he had used to cure his childhood speech impediment. But it was no use, the disease spread through his body and within a few short months he was dead. His early demise almost certainly deprived the Labour Party of a vibrant and dynamic leader and, possibly, the country of a future Prime Minister.

Nye Bevan remains one of the most charismatic figures ever to grace the halls of Westminster, truly one of the most remarkable Welshmen of the 20th century.

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The sinking of the liner Arandora Star on 2 July 1940 is a story of tragedy and human folly, a disaster that need never have happened.

The Arandora Star, previously run as a cruise ship by the , had been commandeered by the Admiralty in the early days of World War Two and on 1 July left Liverpool with nearly 1,200 Italian and German internees on board.

Early the following day she was torpedoed and sunk by U47 under the command of Gunther Prien, the German ace who, only the previous year, had conned his submarine into Scapa Flow and destroyed the battleship .

The roots of the disaster, however, go back many years. Almost every Welsh community in the 1920s and '30s had its Italian café or ice cream parlour. Most of the immigrants came to Wales from the Bardi area of Italy and were quickly integrated into Welsh society. Their cafés were places of refuge and hope, where a little warmth and comfort might be found during the dark days of the Depression.

However, when Mussolini declared war on Britain in June 1940 the Italian community - at least in the eyes of the Government - immediately became suspect. Fear of and spies meant that within days of Mussolini's declaration over 4,000 Italians, men who had spent the vast majority of lives living in perfect harmony with the people of Britain, were behind bars.

It was a harrowing experience. One young boy still remembers how his father had been arrested and interned:

"They came for him at gunpoint in the night. The policeman hammered on the door as if we were criminals. My father thought something had happened - he hadn't a clue he was going to be arrested... I was a little boy of six and that was the last time I saw my father for 11 months."

The internees were taken, first, to transit camps and then to specially prepared accommodation on the Isle of Man. The plan was that, from there, all the Italian and German aliens - the term was deliberately used - would be shipped to Canada, well out of harm's way. The Arandora Star was the means of transporting them.

The ship did not have markings on her side - something that might have warned off any stalking U Boat - as she had previously been used as a troop ship and it is quite possible that Prien mistook her for an armed merchant cruiser. Only one torpedo was fired and the Arandora Star sank in just over half an hour.

Over 800 lives were lost, several of the lifeboats either being destroyed in the attack or jamming in the :

"My three uncles were all arrested together. My father went to the Isle of Man but the other three were put on the Arandora Star. Of course she was torpedoed and went down.

"The story is that Uncle Luigi jumped off the ship and survived. But either Guiseppi or Franco, I don't know which, went back to get his false teeth and the other one went with him. They both went down with the ship.

"Their families were very bitter for a long time with the British Government for allowing the boat to sail."

The bitterness was understandable. These were men who had little or no regard for Mussolini and his Fascist regime - they had far more in common with the Welsh - and were certainly not latent saboteurs or secret agents. And the decision to risk the perils of a U Boat infested Atlantic was, frankly, ludicrous.

After the disaster the plan to send internees to Canada was quickly dropped and most of them sat out the war, until the Italian surrender of 1943, on the Isle of Man.

The interning of Italians during World War Two was hardly the most glorious episode in British history. The sinking of the Arandora Star was equally as damning. July 2 2010 marks the 70th anniversary of that terrible event. It is a date we should all remember.

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