‘Very sensitive subject’: plan to take Welsh water for London stirs painful memories

Elwyn Edwards was 13 when his relatives were evicted from Capel Celyn. ‘I went to Liverpool to protest,’ he said, ‘but nothing came of it’. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

On a February night 60 years ago, three young men battled through blizzard conditions to plant a bomb at a construction site in a lonely Welsh valley. Their target was a dam being built by Liverpool Corporation to supply water for the city.

To provide million of litres a day for the English city, the people in the small Eryri (Snowdonia) village of Capel Celyn were to be evicted and their homes, farms, post office, school, chapel and cemetery flooded to create a reservoir.