Tributes paid to champion of the miners

Feb 13 2008 by Katie Bodinger, South Wales Echo

RESPECTED former mayor and councillor Muriel Williams has died.

Mrs Williams, who was Labour councillor of Nantymoel for more than 35 years, was known fondly as “Auntie Mu” to those in her community.

The 90-year-old widow died at the Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend, on February 6.

A former mayor of Ogwr, she was a leading figure during the Miners’ Strike in the 1980s.

The South Wales Echo in October 1984 described how Mrs Williams was given a standing ovation for her Labour Party conference speech in which she said the miners would not be starved back to work.

“Miners’ wives are as determined as any Margaret Thatcher,” said Mrs Williams, whose husband Eddie died from the miners’ lung disease pneumoconiosis in 1982.

The determined mother, who was given an MBE for her services to the community of Nantymoel and district, was called upon to defuse the tense public meeting which brought Arthur Scargill and Neil Kinnock together.

One prominent Welsh Labour Party member said at the time: “There is no doubt that Muriel was there as a motherly figure for the two boys to defuse the situation.

“Whatever anyone says, she was there for the purpose of joining the two together.

“She is a miner’s widow with two sons in the pits and she has organised help for miners’ families in her valley.

“She knows the industry and she knows the Labour Party. She did her job.”

She is survived by sons David and Wade, as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Her funeral will be held tomorrow at Coychurch Crematorium, Bridgend at 1.45pm.

katie.bodinger@mediawales.co.uk