But, of course, this wasn't a story that could be told publicly. The Soviet press, as we've heard, denied that any famine had taken place at all. Unfortunately, there were plenty in the western press who were willing to believe that.

There was one man, of course—we’ve heard his name time and time again today—who tried to draw attention to the genuine situation, and that was Gareth Jones, the journalist from Barry. He had an interest in Russia, as we’ve heard from the Minister, since hearing the stories of his mother when she lived in Hughesovka, now Donetsk. He visited Ukraine for the first time in 1930 and he returned several times afterwards, and decided to wander on his own, rather than be guided, as a number of other journalists were, on Potemkin trips by officials of the Soviet Union to see what they wanted them to see. And by travelling under his own steam, he experienced directly the impact of this famine on those people living there. He used his voice as a journalist, and, as a journalist myself, I’m so pleased and proud of what this Welshman did for Ukraine and for journalism.

He reported back about what he saw, through newspaper articles in the UK, America and Germany. He explained that he had to leave because of the suffering and that food wasn’t available. 'So many Russians are too weak to work', he said. He said that he saw people fighting over a piece of orange peel on the floor of a train. 'I didn’t visit one village where a number hadn’t died', he said. But by trying to reveal to the world the atrocities Stalin wrought on his own people, he drew the attention of the secret police. He was forbidden from travelling to the country again, and, more than likely, because of his journalism, he lost his life, ultimately.

Even amongst his contemporaries in the west, he was accused of telling untruths. One journalist with The New York Times, Walter Duranty, said that, because the Kremlin, the headquarters of the Soviet Government, denied it, Gareth Jones’s story wasn’t true. In his response to him, Gareth Jones said: