Good news!! Dai St John is a champion once again

The Society has received an e.mail from Mr Lawrence Davies who has been writing a book on the bareknuckle fighters of Wales "Mountain Men". He has decided to put our very own Dai "bac y Vaughans" on its cover. A must as a Christmas present!! I reproduce his kind words from two e.mails below.

Dear Trefor,

apologies for the long delay, been a busy and slightly crazy time, the book on welsh boxing is finished, and is something of a monster, being 356 pages and with 60+ pictures and illustrations. I just wanted to let you know that I felt that it was important to acknowledge your invaluable assistance as well as that of the Resolven Historical Society, and so decided to feature Dai St John on the cover of the book, and your help within it.

In the course of writing this book I tracked down some interesting information and have sent you some pictures that I located of Dai, which I have also posted to the Debretts people for his relations.

I can't thank you enough for your assistance in the early days of researching this book, which gave me enough hope to start trawling through the microfilm in the libraries here there and everywhere.All being well, it should be available as of November.

Thank you so much for sharing this picture with me, what a thing to see, St. John must have been quite a man in his prime, I hope that on my next visit home I might be able to drop by and say hello, it would be nice to be able to visit the memorial to St. John. Strangely he stands alone in that he was remembered at all, most of the men I have been tracking have long been forgotten. It says a lot about the people of Resolven that they remembered what all of us forgot, that some of the greatest fighting men have come from Wales. I wonder if you know whether the graves at Belmont are still marked/maintained ? I did wonder throughout writing Dai's tale.

I hope in the future some enterprising Resolven landlord chooses to call his pub 'The Resolven Giant' and these remarkable pictures can be seen by all, hopefully he can now take his place alongside Jimmy Driscoll, Jimmy Wilde and all the rest, although I know as long as there is a Resolven Historical Society his fate is in safe hands.

Thank you for everything

Lawrence