#156 Gwyn ‘Alf’ Williams (Part 2)

Oh What A Time...

Pop! Pop!

Comedy, History, Education

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!

We’re back for 2026! And our first subject is the life story of one of the most prominent Welsh historians of the 20th century; Gwyn “Alf” Williams. We’ll trace his life from beginnings in South Wales to the beaches of Normandy in WWII, right through to his time at York University and rise to national prominence on TV.

Elsewhere, what are your great sleep walking or talking escapades? Can you beat anything we’ve shared in this episode? If yes, you know what to do: hello@ohwhatatime.com

AND THIS THURSDAY 15TH JANUARY! The comedy history podcast that has spent as much time talking about the invention of custard as it has the industrial revolution is here with its first ever live show!

The subject will be: the history of London. We’d love to see you there.

It’s Thursday 15th January at the Underbelly Boulevard in London’s Soho.

🎟 Tickets are on sale now and there’s only a few left: https://underbellyboulevard.com/tickets/oh-what-a-time/

And if you want more from the show, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:

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Join us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatime

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Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).

Chris, Elis and Tom x

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, what a time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free,
0:06.4	plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access
0:11.9	to live show tickets and access to the Oh Water Time group chat. Plus, if you become an Oh Water
0:16.9	Time All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up.
0:23.7	For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh, what a time.
0:28.4	Welcome back to part two of our Gwyn Alph special.
0:33.2	This is a special suggested by the wonderful Ellis James.
0:48.3	Music this is a special suggested by the wonderful Ellis James. When Alf is one of the most important historians to you, Elle, I think that's a fair thing you're describing, yeah, from your life and your studies.
0:55.0	He's a very significant sort of historian on the left in British history in general, but yeah, yeah, absolutely, certainly in Wales.
1:02.8	And we found out already about his remarkable life on the beaches of Normandy, the start of his career as a historian, and he's now gone to York to study
1:12.2	at uni, and Chris is going to tell us more about that. Yes, so it's now 1963. Gwyn Alph Williams
1:19.6	has landed what looks like the perfect job, a senior lectureship at the brand new University of York.
1:26.1	Within three years of being there, great city, York, Great city. Oh, amazing. Yeah. Great pubs. Yeah. Great brewer. Everything seems to be arranged around breweries. Yeah. It's also so pretty. Yeah, yeah. It's incredible. Yeah, yeah. No, I did a gig in York in September, and the pubs are fantastic and it's a it's an amazing place
1:46.1	to have you been to the yorvik museum many many times yeah yeah which which smells like the
1:53.5	viking times basically that's the idea of isn't it yeah they they you they you you you you head in
1:58.6	and they have all these these little figures and scenes that represent the past.
2:03.1	And I just remember them pumping in the smells of the past.
2:06.2	Yeah, yeah.
2:06.9	What they needed was deodorant.
2:10.7	I went to the V&A museum yesterday for the Marie Antoinette exhibition that's currently on, which is fantastic.
2:18.1	And they've got a section of the Marie Antoinette exhibition, which is dedicated to her
2:22.8	obsession with the smells.
	...

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