Former Gower MP Gareth Wardell the guest speaker at Llanelli Rotary Club

by Robert Lloyd

Former Gower MP Gareth Wardell was the guest speaker at the weekly meeting of Llanelli Rotary Club held at the Stradey Park Hotel.

Mr Wardell gave an illuminating address, weaving comparisons between his job as a politician and his late father’s job as a Tumble barber.

It was an amusing, highly-entertaining and thought-provoking address.

Mr Wardell, now 69, won the Gower constituency seat in a Parliamentary by-election in 1982.

The Labour MP held the seat until his retirement in 1997.

He now works as a public affairs consultant in Wales.

Mr Wardell’s Parliamentary term was largely in opposition to Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government. But his did make a significant contribution by being the youngest MP to chair the Welsh Affairs Select Committee.

Mr Wardell recognised that in the ‘fame stakes’ he may have played second fiddle to his father, Jack, who was one of the UK’s oldest barbers and who cut and styled hair for almost 80 years.

Jack Wardell learned his hairdressing skills at the age of 13. His famous Tumble Barber Shed opened when he was 18 and he only retired in 2007, when he was 91. He died when he was 94.

The Barber Shed was later transported from Tumble to Kidwelly Industrial Museum in recognition of its importance to local heritage.

The vote of thanks for Mr Wardell’s talk was given by Past President JC Williams MBE.

Photos: Guest speaker Gareth Wardell with Llanelli Rotary Club President Ken Abban, flanked by (left) Susan Roberts, junior vice president, and (right) senior vice president Hywel Bassett.