Dechreuais i fwrw drysau yn perswadio dinasyddion Gorllewin Caerdydd i bleidleisio dros Rhodri Morgan yn y fuddugoliaeth enwog ym 1987, pan wnaeth yr etholaeth wrthdroi’r unig egwyriant yn ei hanes i ddychwelyd i ddwylo’r Blaid Lafur. Fe’i glywais yn siarad yn gyhoeddus olaf dim ond dwy wythnos yn ôl, yn ail-fyw cyffro’r ymdrech honno a dechrau perthynas 30 mlynedd a mwy gyda chymunedau ledled Gorllewin Caerdydd.

Oherwydd, os oedd enw Rhodri Morgan yn newydd i lawer ym 1987, nid arhosodd fel hynny am yn hir: yr ymdrech yn erbyn y morglawdd; yr ymateb i’r ‘Ely riots’, fel y’u galwyd ym 1990; y dymchwel di-dostur o wladwriaeth y quangos—cynhyrchydd a chyfarwyddwr y ffilm Gymreig enwog yna, ‘Last Quango in Powys’, fel y clywais i fe’n cyfeirio ati yn aml. Ac erbyn 1992 roedd beth oedd yn arfer bod yn sedd ymylol wleidyddol eisoes yn gadarn yn nwylo Rhodri Morgan. Nid oedd hyn o ganlyniad i unrhyw beth ond gwaith caled, di-baid—y syrjeris wythnosol, y cyfarfodydd cyhoeddus, yr ymdrechoedd a digwyddiadau cymunedol. Efallai mi oedd yn dechrau bod yn amlwg yn fwy ar y llwyfan cenedlaethol, ond ble bynnag oedd ei angen yn lleol, mi oedd Rhodri yno.

Llywydd, in those days in the first half of the 1990s, Jane Hutt and I were the county councillors for the Riverside ward in Cardiff West, Sue Essex and Jane Davidson were the Riverside city councillors. We would hold weekly street surgeries, distributing flyers, inviting residents to put them up in their windows if they wanted us to call. Once every couple of months we’d be joined by Rhodri. Out would go a special flyer, advertising the presence of the local Member of Parliament. Instead of the usual three or four takers, a dozen leaflets would go up in people’s windows. Into the first house, Rhodri would disappear. Sue, Jane or I would proceed to call on each of the remaining eleven, every one of them disappointed to see us, every one of them hoping to see Rhodri. Three quarters of an hour later, we would return to the first house. There would be the Member of Parliament for Cardiff West, a plate of Welsh cakes, two cups of tea and three cousins discovered to be in common. They thought he was wonderful. And of course, they were right.

No surprise, then, that by the time of the 1997 general election and the first Assembly elections of 1999, Cardiff West voters were returning Rhodri Morgan with majorities that I remember telling him at the time would be the envy of Albania—one of the few European countries, he then pointed out, with which he did not have a pre-existing set of political contacts or relationships. By 2001, with the parliamentary representation of Cardiff West passed safely on to his close friend and adviser, Kevin Brennan, who I know is here this afternoon, Rhodri was free to concentrate on juggling just the political demands of being both First Minister for the whole of Wales and the fierce energy he brought to representing individuals and communities in his own constituency, and a relationship which continued well beyond his formal retirement in 2011.

Knocking doors over the past few days in Cardiff West, Llywydd, has been a slow and painful process. Full of tears, full of laughter, as household after household has its own Rhodri Morgan story to tell. Llywydd, because I spent the best part of a decade working with a small number of people who were there in the First Minister’s office—Lawrence Conway, Rose Stewart—during those earliest years of devolution, I just wanted to end by saying something briefly about Rhodri’s time in office. You’ve heard the story today of those hugely rocky early days, how he stabilised the devolution project and set it on the course it has steered ever since. It’s hard to add something new to that essential narrative. But what I did want to say this afternoon is that, underneath that sparkling surface, that ability to talk to anyone about anything, went a hugely serious political purpose: the creation of this institution, the putting the power in the hands of Welsh people to decide on issues that affect only them, the embedding of devolution in all parts of Wales. General de Gaulle, Rhodri would say, complained that it was impossible to govern a country that had more than 2,000 cheeses, and he had it easy in all those things. A Senedd soon to be a Parliament, an institution with full law-making powers, a proper separation between the Executive and the legislature, and, most of all, a secure place in the minds and preferences of Welsh citizens: what a different place this is to May 2000 in those earliest days of Rhodri Morgan as First Minister, and because of Rhodri Morgan as First Minister.

Llywydd, devolution is a project without a history. All of us involved it have had a hand in its creation. Inevitably, much of what we face we come across for the first time. The loss of a former First Minister and friend is exactly that sort of event. It leaves us raw and struggling to respond. But of this we can be sure: without Rhodri Morgan, that journey we have all been on would have been very different, and far, far more difficult.