GHF-E090-N09 — “Billy’s unhappy family” (South Wales Echo, 3 December 1988, p. 2)
Wiki catalogue reference: GHF-E090-N09 · Custodian / source URL: Buckler family evidence repository
Evidence preview
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Catalogue UID: GHF-E090-N09 · Custodian/source copy: bucklerfamily.estate. Preview and provenance status as at 10-10-2026.
Description
4. Provenance and where to check it
DOCUMENTED (press report). Catalogue no. GHF-E090-N09. Sections 1 to 4 record what the cutting is and says. Section 5 is the Wiki’s reading and is open to challenge. A press report is evidence of what a newspaper reported, not proof that its statements are true. Jump to: Evidence · Transcript · Description · Provenance · Interpretation.
- What it is: a human-interest news report by Jim Clarke, page 2, with a group photograph (caption above).
- People named: Billy Buckler; his wife Branwen; their children Hywel, Rhys and Amy; Chris Thompson (30, light haulage business); Karen Griffiths (21, from Cardiff); Terry Rayment; Melanie Thompson and her 20-month-old son Daniel; Rod Chillum; Jane Davies; Martin Price; one unnamed woman. The bailiffs are mentioned but not named.
- What is reported: eight other people found sharing the farmhouse when the bailiffs refused to readmit Mr Buckler; some tenants’ rent paid by the Vale of Glamorgan Borough Council; a semi-communal life for around a year; former residents living on a bus in a nearby lay-by; bailiffs declining to comment on the former tenants’ allegations.
- Not in the text: the nature of the “allegations” the bailiffs declined to comment on.
- Holder of the image: Google Drive file
1551682_10201438154295877…jpg. Transcribed on the Press Archive page (N09). - Family archive copy: the archive contains
2026-02-04_image_bpvsbuckler_evidence_en_v0.0.0.10_003.jpgas a further evidence image, but the inspection run did not verify readable text in that image. It is therefore recorded here only as a candidate source, not as corroboration of this transcript. - Original newspaper: South Wales Echo, 3 December 1988, page 2. The British Newspaper Archive holds this title for 1983 to 2005, so the dated page should be obtainable there.
Transcription
Open transcription
2. Verbatim transcript
By Jim Clarke. The photograph caption is in square brackets at the end.
WHEN the bailiffs refused to let South Wales farmer Billy Buckler back into his family home they found eight other people sharing the rambling old farmhouse. What were they all doing there? It seems that Billy opened his doors to everyone except the bailiff and his men. Billy’s friends and then their friends and then friends of friends turned up at Great House Farm in Llandough, Cardiff, for short stays that become permanent residencies. So the eviction of Billy, his wife Branwen and their three children Hywel, Rhys and Amy has made another group of people being made homeless. Some of the tenants are unemployed and had their rent at the farm paid by the Vale of Glamorgan Borough Council. One man works in a Cardiff club and two others will have to abandon business projects as a result of the eviction. “Billy and Branwen have had a hard time of it recently, but we’ve all tried to get behind them and help get the farm back on its feet,” said Chris Thompson. Karen Griffiths, aged 21, from Cardiff, told how the pressure of the legal battles with BP had taken their toll on Billy. “Sometimes we’ve seen him break down and cry,” she said. Most of the young people who were evicted had been living a semi-communal life on the farm for around a year.
Karen, who was made redundant from Llandaff Tech earlier this year, and her friend Terry Rayment had been travelling and living on a bus for a time before they found a place to stay on the farm — now they are back on the bus in a nearby lay-by with their two dogs, a cat and all the possessions they could carry out of the farm. “The farm was a happy place to stay,” said Terry, who has known the family for years. Karen told how the residents of Great House Farm would go out on “wood runs” together, collecting fuel from the nearby woods to feed the open fires in the huge farmhouse. Thirty-year-old Chris had just started a light haulage business backed by the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. “It was going really well and I had plenty of work coming in, but without a base to work from or a phone I’ve had it,” he said. The bailiffs refused to comment on the allegations laid by the former tenants of the farm. [Photo caption: Karen Griffiths (left) and Terry Rayment with some of the others evicted from the farm: from left, Melanie Thompson and her 20-month-old son Daniel; Rod Chillum; Jane Davies; a woman who wouldn’t give her name and Martin Price.]
Interpretation and wider context
RECONSTRUCTION. The report is a contemporary record of who was in occupation at the farm at the time of the eviction beyond the Buckler family: a group of non-family residents, some with rent paid by the local council. It is relevant to occupation and to the later criminal and civil proceedings only as background. It is not evidence about title.
“Chris Thompson” here may be the “Mr Christopher Thompson” described as a farm tenant in the chainsaw report (N07). The two names differ in form and no document links them, so the Wiki treats them as possibly the same person, not as established.
What this does not show. It does not show the terms on which anyone lived at the farm, and the statements are the residents’ own accounts.
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Related: Press Articles Index · Press Archive transcripts · 1988: Possession and Demolition · Williams / Buckler family · Evidence Library.
Interpretive assessment date: 10-10-2026.