The pandemic led to hard decisions for everyone and another documentary featuring the Welsh Government has aimed to show the other side of decisions made in Wales – particularly around the Omicron variant.
Gweinidog Iechyd Mewn Pandemig, Health Minister in a Pandemic, was shown on S4C on Monday, March 21. In it, we saw the first meetings of then new-health minister Eluned Morgan. It showed the other side to the discussions about whether rugby players should be exempt from quarantine rules and the Welsh Government's anger towards them as Mrs Morgan demanded they receive no support. You can catch up with that bit of the documentary here.
But another more personal side showed the messages Mrs Morgan's two children when she was deciding whether to close nightclubs. Her daughter, who is a student at an English university, texted her mum saying: "Thanks, my friends hate u now". Mrs Morgan replies "I'm so sorry love".
The exchanges are shared on the documentary. In another message daughter Gwen asks her mum by text: "Any chance you can pick me up on Thursday?" Mrs Morgan replied: "Sorry, not me, the world is falling apart" and her daughter responds: "Okay fairs" and adds: "I hope ur mentally stable Mam".
Another message comes from her son, which Mrs Morgan describes as "hilarious" while laughing. In it he says: "You're a dick". She explains in the documentary that no decision has actually been made by that point – although nightclubs were eventually closed – but that he has simply heard it on the grapevine.
"They're trying to get early answers from me. Of course I won't tell them a thing. Both my son and my daughter will be back from university over Christmas and the first thing they'll do is dump their bags, ask me to wash their clothes, and they'll go straight out to a nightclub. God knows what they'll bring back with them."
The pair don't feature in the documentary with Mrs Morgan explaining: "I want the children to live their own lives." She also discusses her father, Revd Canon Bob Morgan, who was leader of South Glamorgan County Council. She tells a story about how she was in Clwb Ifor Bach drinking underage when there was a TV crew there. While her friends ditched their drinks for Coke she kept her cider and black and, when she was asked, said that's what she was drinking – something that didn't go down well at home.
"My parents were pretty strict with me when I was young. My father is a vicar so it's not very nice when a vicar's daughter goes out like this," she said. "I remember a lot of tensions and I left home when I was 16. If he said black I said white I suppose."
In another section she is pictured discussing Omicron with Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford and Welsh Government officials. When asked if people should be scared she replies: "I think those people who don't undertake the vaccine offer are taking a risk with their health. You're either going to have had it, you're going to recover, or you're going to be dead."
