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Gleaming vision of a supreme co-operator
William Hazell’s Gleaming Vision: A Co-operative Life in South Wales, 1890-1964 , by Alun Burge (Y Lolfa, £9.95)
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Reading this biography of a man who spent most of his life as a coal miner, suffered considerable personal hardship and yet achieved so much, is a humbling experience. William Hazell’s contribution to local organisations was immense and he was a prodigious writer on a vast swathe of subjects.
Ynysybwl is a village four miles from Pontypridd, a dead-end but for mountain roads over to the Rhondda Fach and Aberdare valleys. Hazell (pictured) was born in St Pancras in 1890 but by the time he was 16 he was a miner in Lady Windsor Colliery, the main employer in Ynysybwl.
It is unclear how or why he came to this close-knit community in south Wales, with its population of just over 5,000, but he quickly made an impression.
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