Davies, Ray, 1930-

Person

Davies, Ray, 1930-

Ray Davies was born at Cardiff Royal Infirmary in 1930 and spent his childhood at Llanbradach near Caerphilly in South Wales. He was educated at Coed-y-brain school which he left at Christmas 1943 and started work at Llanbradach Colliery two weeks before his fourteenth birthday. At the age of seventeen he became a fully fledged collier and later found employment as a trainee welder with Welsh Metals Ltd, Caerphilly. He joined the South Wales Miners Federation in December 1943. At the end of the 1940s he did his national service for two years in the Army.

In 1954 he secured employment with Woodall and Duckham, a civil engineering firm, and he soon became a shop steward with the TGWU, soon developing a keen interest in health and safety issues. He later moved to the Llanwern steel works when it was first opened and became a ganger/supervisor at the works. In 1965 he became a shift brick stockist. He was actively involved in the 1980 steel strike.

After a brief flirtation with the Communist Party, Ray Davies joined the Labour Party in 1958 and was chosen vice-chair of the Trethomas Labour Party in 1961. He was elected to the Bedwas and Machen UDC, a major turning point in his life, and later the Monmouthshire County Council. In 1974 he became a member of the new Mid Glamorgan County Council and in 1995 a member of the new Caerphilly County Borough Council.

Ray Davies has been especially prominent in an array of important political campaigns over the years. They include peace issues, the use of caning in schools, the 1984-1985 miners' strike, gay rights, and the agitation against the community charge (poll tax), during which he was imprisoned for short periods on three separate occasions because of his continued refusal to pay. He also stood as the Labour candidate for the Cardiff Central constituency in the general election of June 1983, and has been one of the most stalwart supporters of Ron Davies, the former MP and AM for Caerphilly.