Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Welsh Terrorist Chic


What I find interesting about Welsh terrorist John Jenkins - apart from the fact that he went around blowing things up - is that he always seemed to look quite stylish. Take a gander at this picture from '76, for example. He looks like a cross between William Burroughs and the keyboard player in a generic punk band.

Jenkins had just been released from Albany prison on the Isle of Wight where he had served about 7 years of a 10 year sentence in connection with a series of explosions between 1966-69. He was a member of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Movement for the Defence of Wales).

The above snap shows him at Waterloo station, ready to return home to Wales. His first port of call was to be Abergele where he would pay homage to the Abergele bombers (2 members of MAC) who blew themselves up in 1969 on the eve of the investiture. Jenkins was unrepentant about his bombing campaign, he said: "Does a man have to apologise for fighting for his country?"