Merlyn Rees's Page

There is another man ,who, with a single decision, ensured the safety and freedom, of the 346 Vietnamese on Wellpark.

His name was Merlyn Rees, and in 1978 he was Britain’s Secretary of State (otherwise known as the Home Secretary). That meant he was responsible for internal affairs in England and Wales, including national security and policing, and for immigration and citizenship for the whole of the United Kingdom.

It was he who decided the Wellpark Vietnamese could have a new life in Britain and, waving aside Britains’s strict immigration quotas, authorised their uplift from the ship in Taiwan to Stansted airport near London. What sort of man made this decision?

He was born in 1920 into a poor family, the son of a coal miner in Wales. When he was 6, after the General strike, his father walked the 300 km to London to find better work. His father was successful, and moved the family to the English capital where they settled in a community of largely Welsh ‘immigrants’. He was educated mainly in London and went to college to become a teacher. But the Second World War loomed in 1939 and Merlyn Rees joined the Royal Air Force, serving in Italy as a Spitfire fighter pilot. He achieved the rank of Squadron Leader by the age of just 25. After the war he returned to civilian life where he then spent eleven years teaching history and economics at a grammar school. Like his father who had been a founder member of the Labour Party, Merlyn Rees sought a life in politics and was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1963. He never shirked the hard tasks and rose within the Government, most prominently when he was given responsibility for the troubled province of Northern Ireland. He worked tirelessly to bring peace between the embittered Catholic and Protestant communities. Some said he was too emotionally involved in the strife the murderous conflict caused, for “he was a politician of significance, integrity and genuine compassion”.

Is there a clue in his life experience of initial poverty, immigration, war and strife that meant in October 1978 this man decided to grant sanctuary to 346 Vietnamese refugees on Wellpark despite the strict Immigration Rules? I think the answer has to be, ‘Yes’. Sadly he died in 2006, too early to be reminded of the enormity his decision had on 346 Vietnamese lives

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