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"Mae Rhywun Yn Gwybod" - Alwyn Gruffydd (Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, £3.99)

Wales was a very dark place in 1979. The double whammy of Thatcher's election victory and the rejection of devolution seemed to mark the end of the social democratic consensus that had existed since 1945 and the inevitability of more national self-government, no matter how limited.

This electoral defeat prompted extra-parliamentary forces to come into their own in Wales. Miners and steelworkers went on strike, anti-nuclear demonstrators blocked roads and held mass rallies, Cymdeithas yr iaith was at its height and there were regular demos and street protests. But resistance to Thatcher and the British state also took the form of direct action, as Alwyn Gruffydd chronicles in his short succinct book in Welsh.

Between December 1979 and December 1991 there were 228 attacks on holiday homes, political and economic targets in Wales by various groups including Meibion Glyndwr and the Workers' Army for a Welsh Republic.

The latter has already been the subject of a fascinating and well-researched companion to this new title - "Achos y Bomiau Bach" by Ioan Gruffudd that looks in detail at the political landscape in the early 80s and in particular at the Welsh Socialist Republican Movement.

This book deals more specifically with the Meibion Glyndwr arson campaign and the trial that saw Sion Aubrey Roberts become the only person to be convicted for his part in the campaign. The trial also saw the end of the campaign but many other campaigners were never caught. The title comes from a comment by a policeman investigating the attacks at the time - "Someone somewhere knows something".

Gruffydd was a journalist at the time of the attacks and the first half of his book is little more than a cuttings review. It lacks the sense of perspective that, for example, "Achos y Bomiau Bach" achieved but also the sense of drama and excitement of the time.

Gruffydd perceptively points out that, from the outset, this was not an anti-English campaign. Holiday homes belonging to Welsh people and Welsh speakers were burned down too, because the message was that nobody should own two houses when some people in Wales didn't have a roof above their heads. That problem remains as bad as it ever was today.

The bizarre arrest of well-known actor and singer Bryn Fon - after a device was planted at his home - probably encapsulated the police's Keystone Kops approach to the whole matter. The "device" was found after a tip-off in a wall on his small holding and brought into the house for examination! The whole incident left the police highly embarrassed and raised questions about the involvement of the secret services in investigating the arson campaign. There was even a suggestion that MI5 had attempted to embarrass the local Special Branch in a turf war because it was desperate to maintain its grip on "domestic" subversives.

Eventually the police arrested three men and they were charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. Gruffydd was in court for the entire 40-day trial of Sion and his fellow defendants - Stwmp and Dewi Prysor. The latter were acquitted and all were found not guilty of conspiracy. Sion was given a 12-year sentence for possession of explosives and sending explosive devices in the post. He was released in 1997 and freely admitted his part in the arson campaign.

It was an historic trial in that MI5, for the first time, gave evidence in open court - albeit behind a screen. The truth about the secret state's involvement in the arson campaign may never be known, although the new Freedom of Information Act could open a few doors to probing journalists. What is clear, however, is that political activists were subjected to massive state surveillance and the entire Welsh-language community was placed under suspicion. That community responded in kind - with passive support for the arsonists. A HTV opinion poll found that 69% of Welsh speakers supported Meibion Glyndwr's aims - a figure that rose to 85% in Dwyfor, the most radical of nationalist hotspots and the area bearing the brunt of the second-home problem in Wales.

Disappointingly, Gruffydd only touches on the cultural references to the arson campaign - rock and folk songs and contemporary poems in Welsh regularly mentioned the campaign in glowing (sic) terms.

The vote for devolution in 1997 and a Tory-free Wales in the same year's General Election saw a political bookmark to the 1979 double whammy. It's doubtful the arson campaign did anything to achieve such a result, although it certainly highlighted the Welsh housing crisis and heightened national identity among some.

Lewis Jones