A NEW biography claims Plaid Cymru's first MP considered martyring himself for devolution. Gwynfor Evans, the former Plaid president who died this year, contemplated suicide after a "no" vote in the 1979 devolution referendum. The vote and the loss of his West Wales seat at that year's General Election sent him into a state of depression. Rhag Pob Brad (Against All Betrayal) was written by Richard Evans who is no relation to the Plaid pioneer. He claimed Evans' son told him the only thing the politician felt he had left to give the nation was his life. But the fight for a Welsh language television station changed his mind. Ironically the development almost cost Evans his life when he launched a high-profile hunger strike to secure a Welsh station. An extract from the book says: "It was in the middle of this depression, with everything at sea and the ideological vineyard exhausted, that Gwynfor's most frightening idea was born: he decided the only thing he could now offer Wales was his life. "In the mid-1980s, Gwynfor admitted to his son, Dafydd, that he had decided some time in 1979 to kill himself and give his life, the most precious thing of all, back to the nation...the aim was to turn the dying embers into a patriotic blaze and inspire the young to fight again for the nation that had betrayed him." He intended to kill himself on St David's Day but changed his mind when the Thatcher Government reneged on a pledge to establish a Welsh channel. Another extract shows the rift between Evans and Plaid MP Dafydd Elis-Thomas over nationalist arsonists Meibion Glyndwr. Evans wrote to Elis-Thomas - now a peer and the Welsh Assembly's Presiding Officer: "Although I condemn their methods, as I condemn all violence, I believe their motivations are the same as ours. "The life of a nation is at stake - that's the arsonists' motivation, not racism. They want to keep the nation alive, not keep it pure, however perverted their methods." welshnews@dailypost.co.uk | 
