 OVER a thousand people gathered yesterday to bid a last farewell to Gwynfor Evans, the father of the Welsh nationalist cause. Ian Parri witnessed the event when a town came to a standstill to remember a true political giant THE centre of Aberystwyth ground to a standstill yesterday as people turned out in their thousands to bid farewell to the man recognised as the father figure of the nationalist cause. Former Plaid Cymru president and the party's first ever MP, Dr Gwynfor Evans, died at his home in Llangadog, Carmarthenshire, last week, after a long illness. He was 92. Seion chapel, in Baker Street, was yesterday packed to its 700 capacity, while another 800 people crammed into the nearby Bethel chapel to follow the funeral service on a giant TV screen. Several hundred others stood in reverent silence behind crowd-control barriers as the service was relayed to them through a tannoy system. Representatives from all the main political parties put aside rivalries to pay their last respects. Among the congregation were Carwyn Jones, Labour's rural affairs minister in the National Assembly, former Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Lord Live-sey and Conservative assembly member Glyn Davies.
 The service was broadcast live on S4C - the TV channel Dr Evans famously helped secure when he threatened to starve himself to death in 1980. The hearse carrying Dr Evans' body was preceded by a yellow-clad police outrider. The coffin was draped in the Welsh flag. The procession was headed by a lone piper and a top- hatted undertaker. | 
