A verdict on the condition of industrial Wales today depends on the viewpoint. From the outside, looking in, its progress since the war has been phenomenal. From the inside, looking out, the foundations seem not wholly secure, the future prospects patchy and unsettled.
History makes faith difficult. Middle-aged men in South Wales have the memory of the lean post-war years in their blood stream. Prosperity to them is likely to seem eternally precarious, with every minor check to growth appearing as a major threat. Older men remember that South Wales has been prosperous before and that the roaring, free-spending years before and after the First World War went down into the abyss of the thirties. What has happened once can happen again.
The Guardian, 18 Feb 1965
Martin Johnes 