October 12 marked the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Tenby born actor and documentary maker Kenneth Griffith, who was born at Ashville, Trafalgar Road.

Aside from Tenby Art Gallery and Museum manager Mark Lewis’s podcast highlighting Kenneth’s anniversary and the exhibition there, ‘Forged in Wales’, featuring Welsh Actors Burton, Hopkins, Baker, Sheen and of course Griffith, his close friend Bryan Hewitt, 62, made a special pilgrimage to visit Kenneth Griffith’s Penally grave with flowers from the family and to remember the great man.

Griffith made some 80 movies over a 60 year period and holds the record for the longest career in movies of any Welsh actor. He also made around 25 documentaries, usually with an antagonistic anti-imperialism theme; he was a supporter of the IRA, president of The Untouchables and an authority on Boer War philately and memorabilia.

He was also an author of books on subjects ranging from the Boer War to Nehru and the last surviving soldiers of the Easter Rising — not for nothing was he described as “the most distinguished trouble maker of his time.” Margaret Thatcher loathed him!

Kenneth loved Tenby, his bedroom had images of old Tenby and abstract ones behind his bed. He loved taking his family there and never missed an opportunity to visit the museum, having known its first curator in the early 1930s.

Bryan first met Kenneth in the year 2000 near his Islington home:

“We struck up a conversation because, having recognised him, I complemented him on what was to be his final documentary, ‘Against the Empire’. I think it impressed him, as most fans wanted to talk about his movies and his friendship with Peter Sellers!

“Ken invited me and my companions to his home and it started a close friendship in which I became, in many ways, his carer, social-secretary, chauffeur, barber, confidant, chiropodist and finally pall-bearer, together with Peter O’Toole and the Griffith family in July 2006.

“He really was like a father to me, I loved the old fella and knowing him has left a big impression on my life.

“This visit (one of several over the years) - in addition to the donation of some personal papers, photos and memorabilia to Tenby Art Gallery and Museum - fulfils a promise I made to Ken before the end, to ‘keep his memory alive’.”