your comments
Ronald Hunter (Rev) from London
George was a member of my congregation in Cardiff when I was Minister of his Church. Also delighted to have been asked by hin to be his electoral agent (non political) in the 1977 elections while he was Speaker.
Rev David Moss from Whitby
Thomas George Thomas - a shining example to us all in this 21st Century. A man of unswerving faith and loyalty. A man of principle and the highest moral standards. A man of the people. A man to respect and look up to. This country has been all the better for the presence of Thomas George Thomas, Lord Tonypandy. Men of his ilk and charisma have sadly now all but gone. May he rest in peace.
Anna M. Shivers Stich from Tempe, Arizona
In my view he is a saint. I lived with his Mom one year at heir bungalow named "Tilbury" in Cardiff from 1961 to 1962. I was rather young and didn't know much about politics, but the kindness I experienced in their home was wonderful.
Byron Evans [ex valley boy] Cardiff
George Thomas - a name and man to be remembered and respected. Will be remembered long after Tony Blair. George was a man of and for the people of all ranks particularly of the down trodden and ignored. May Gorden Brown now show the same Christian convictions that George did - not myths that the Blair years created.
Glyn Kembrey from Newport
Lord Tonypandy - a great man and true Christian. He would be upset by this Labour Party. If Tony Blair and his party were half the men this man was then Britain could be a proud nation again.
Lisa Baker, Trealaw
My grandmother lived near Mr Thomas and went to the same school - she always speaks highly of him. I met him when I was about 11-12 yrs old when my junior school won a competition to name the wards of Ysbyty George Thomas hospital. We performed Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat in front of Mr Thomas himself. It was a day to remember ... I still have the mug I was given that day :) imprinted with a picture of the hospital named after Mr Thomas.
Cliff Morris, Cardiff
I met George, in about the late 'sixties on a train from Paddington to Cardiff, late at night. We chatted all the way home and he gave me a lift in his big Ford to my house at Lakeside. We now live in his former bungalow at the Heath. A genuine valley boy!
David Davies, Tonypandy
Between 1980 & 1998, I was working as a taxi driver in Cardiff. Vicount Tonypandy used the taxi firm I worked for, and I had the pleasure of picking him up on numerous occasions. Once, just after he had been given the all clear for throat cancer, he got into my cab and said:" Now tell me your troubles" Here was a man who had just got over cancer asking me about my problems. He was always a gentleman, and a person who i admired very much indeed.
Simon Davies,Hasbury,West Midlands
George Thomas was like many a bachelor
before him,wedded to democracy,chapel and the British sense of fairplay.
My late uncle had a friend called Percy who had the privilege to meet the
great man in Monmouthshire.Percy praised
Lord Tonypandy as a true Parliamentarian who had no 'side' to him and a real gent,
whose T.V. persona was reflected in reality.
Dave Bradley, Peterborough
George Thomas was my grandad's cousin (Elvet Morris) and I think lived with his family due to his mother dying. When my grandad died he sent my mother a wonderful letter, a great man much missed.
Michael Hough
Thomas George Thomas was my second cousin. Im originally from South Africa so my knolledge of politics durin his time is limited. One thing i will say is i am yet to meet a man so humble. I had the pleasure of his company both in the U.K while on holidays and in South Africa when he attended Family functions.
Emyr Morgan from Llandeilo
A servile traitor of Wales - the fact that Thatcher saw fit to give him a hereditary peerages says it all.
Rog from Pontypridd
"Of the people and for the people" ... that was George. Those who didn't love him respected him. He leaves a warm and charitable legacy behind him
Poet Maesmith from Brynamman pays tribute with this poem:
SOVEREIGN JEWEL - ISLAND OF LIBERTY
Your Majesty Elizabeth
Great Queen, My Liege,
May please I you address.
My Liberty and Common rights
Belabour under great duress,
Are being cruelly, illicitly, eroded away
By some few traitorous Parlimentarians.
Treasonous egotistical, political men
Who would usurp and twist our ancient law
To achieve their very own niggardly ends,
Would have us dominated by a Foreign
Un-elected, unaccountable, unchecked Power.
How dare act they so wrong?
What right have they to give away
That which they have no power to give?
A thousand years and more of Common Law
Which so many fought hard to strongly bind secure
Celtic, Anglo Saxon, and Norman heritage, sure.
Pray, verily, I do deeply beg,
Under terms of your Coronation Oath,
Magna Carta and our own old Bill of Rights,
Stop please this unconstitutional, illegal,
Apalling, unjust, unethical EU thing,
Before it is too late.
Beware ultimate civil strife,
And, yes indeed, inevitable risk to life.
Act now to avoid Britains's looming dissolution,
Protect this wondrous Sceptred Isle.
Forbear that we mere Commoners mean,
May be forced to make an unpleasant scene.
God save Great Britain, free speech, Common Law,
And you, most cherished, our Sovereign Queen.
(Written some 2 years ago, a copy was sent to Buckingham Palace for which the poet received a positive and pleasant acknowledgment.
I hope the great ex House of Commons Speaker, Lord Tonypandy would have been proud of this, were he - stalwart defender of British justice and principles that he was - still alive today.)
Capt Mike Smith, MNI (Maesmith)
Alf Creed Hafodyrynys
Whats the saying - from small acorns comes big oaks. Never a saying more true.
Dave Robinson in Ridgeville, South Carolina, USA
My father was an ardent Conservative, but he had great respect for George Thomas as a man although, of course, he disapproved of his politics. I can still remember he used to say 'You are a good man, George, you are just wrong!'I also remember Mr Thomas went to the Holy Land on a visit some time in the mid 50's and when he returned he gave me a pretty stone he had picked up there, saying 'Just think, Jesus might have touched this'.
My father respected him so much, I think, because he felt that George always had the best interests of his constituents, and, of course, his beloved Cardiff and South Wales at heart. I suspect, like me, he always misted up when he heard Land of my Fathers!
Peter Borrow
Some time in the late 1980s I was holding a business lunch meeting in a Cardiff hotel. Whilst talking to my colleague my attention was caught by a gentleman at another table to whom I nodded in greeting.After several mutual acknowledgements during the meal, I eventually asked my colleague to turn and tell me who was this person, who seemed so familiar, and who had been nodding in response to me. 'You mean Speaker Thomas. I didn't know you knew him.' I didn't know him, but such was the man that I felt I did!
Former Speaker and Welsh Secretary
