Myfanwy Davies

Dr Myfanwy Davies was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire during the Christmas Holidays of 1975.

She is from Furnace, Llanelli. Her mother, Mari is the Plaid county councillor for the Hengoed ward which includes Furnace. Mari was also chair of Llanelli Rural Council during 2008-09. Myfanwy’s father Dic was the head Librarian at Llanelli Library until his retirement. 

Her brother, Owain has played for Llanelli Wanderers RFC and Kidwelly and is now a trainee lawyer. He recently completed a charity cycle ride from Rio to Buenos Aires to raise funds for male cancer research. Her sister Gwyneth is a consultant in chest medicine at Singleton Hospital in Swansea.

Myfanwy was educated at Ysgol Dewi Sant, Ysgol y Strade and a number of universities. She is a former university teacher (Univeristé d’Aix-Provence and Univeristé de Rouen). She currently leads a team of health services researchers based in Cardiff University and divides her time between her home in Llanelli and her work in Cardiff.

During the past year Myfanwy has successfully campaigned with Jill Evans MEP to start proceedings against the UK government for breaches in water quality in the Burry Inlet. If the case is proven, this will provide a huge boost to local people who are fighting for the future of the cockle fishery and who are campaigning against the routine release of untreated sewage into the Inlet.

Myfanwy has also campaigned successfully with Helen Mary Jones to save nearly a hundred jobs at Coleg Sir Gar and has worked with Helen Mary to obtain funding for a world-beating breast cancer treatment centre at Llanelli Hospital.

Recently Myfanwy won national support from Plaid Cymru Assembly Members for a package of measures to help save town centre businesses that are suffering from out-of-town retail developments and the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Details of all these campaigns and others are on the news pages.

Myfanwy’s maternal grandmother Hilda was a geographer from Liverpool. Having been brought up in relative poverty following the death of her father, she was the first of her family to go to University. Hilda retired to Tenby where she was among the first generation of Welsh learners. Myfanwy’s paternal grandfather Jack was from Rhandirmwyn where her father’s family still farm.  During the 1930s Jack was sent to work in London where became a tailor at Burberry’s in Bond St, famously making a suit for Haile Selassie, a man whom he admired for his defense of Ethiopia against Fascist Italy and of whose dapper appearance he also approved. Jack became a Plaid supporter the early 1950s in reaction to the actions of the Forestry Commission in seizing farms in the Upper Tywi Valley to grow conifer trees in ‘the national interest’. He is said to have commented ‘whose nation and whose interest’?

Myfanwy’s political outlook was formed by growing up in Llanelli. She vividly remembers the thousands of redundancy letters given to workers at Duports Steelworkers left in the streets by people whose lives as well as their livelihoods had been shattered by that overnight closure. Many of the older men never worked again.

Myfanwy joined Plaid in 1989 having realised that the Labour party had no interest whatsoever in defending our communities from the vandalous actions of Tory Governments while they could still take the votes of Llanelli people for granted.

Myfanwy is a patron of Breakthro’ Llanelli, a group for young people with disabilities. She is secretary of Llanelli Fairtrade Coallition which campaigns to raise awareness of fairtrade issues and is an associate member of Llwynhendy WI with whom she recently posed for a fundraising calendar in aid of Llanelli hospice.

Myfanwy likes to cook for friends and listens to a wide variety of music. She will read almost anything and enjoys particularly walking and spending time on Cefn Sidan and in Parc Howard.

Myfanwy’s political interests are in the economy and health and social policy. She is particularly interested in pensions, housing and disability rights.