Gwenu dan Fysiau

Brought up in a working-class home in Usk, a very anglicised town, and kept ignorant of things Welsh at school, he now grew aware that he had a country with its own history and language. He once told me he had suddenly realised the depth of his feelings as a Welshman after being called Taffy by English officers and taunted by other squaddies on account of his accent.

But he was attracted to a stronger brew than what constitutional nationalism had to offer: living in Cwmbran, a New Town in Monmouthshire not noted for its Welsh identity or the vigour of its cultural life, he formed a unit of like-minded friends and they called themselves the Patriotic Front. They even had their own social club, the "Patriot's Rest", until Plaid Cymru outlawed the group in 1966. Lewis designed the Front's uniforms, and its symbol - devised by the poet Harri Webb and based on the White Eagle of Snowdonia - he made into cap-badges. It was not long before slogans began appearing on walls the length and breadth of Wales that were accompanied by this potent piece of symbolism.