FOLK singer and Welsh nationalist Dafydd Iwan has claimed an agent provocateur tried to lure him into a fake plot to assassinate King Charles when he was the Prince of Wales.

Iwan, who celebrated his 80th birthday in the summer, makes the revelation in his new autobiography, “Dafydd Iwan: Still Singing Yma o Hyd”, due to be launched on November 9.

He says the bizarre incident happened during the run-up to the investiture of the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles, at Caernarfon Castle in July 1969 when his satirical song, "Carlo" (Charles) was riding high in the Welsh pop charts.

Iwan said: “I arrived at a concert in Llanrwst to find the place crawling with police, and two of them approached me to say they’d received intelligence that someone was out to kill me, so they were there in numbers to give me protection.

"I was ushered into the marquee where the concert was to take place and shown into a small room in a corner of the tent. ‘We will be outside if you need us’, they told me.

"As I sat there, trying to come to terms with what I’d just heard, and getting the guitar ready for the stage, a man came in, looking like a character from a B movie, and said in a hushed voice that we’d met previously at a Plaid do in Holyhead. I’d never seen him before, and never saw him again.

"He said that he had very little time, so he wanted to come straight to the point: ‘We have a plan to assassinate the Prince, and you are the very man to help us’.

“I did not let him finish his sentence but told him to get out as quickly as his feet could take him and added that I didn’t ever want to see him again.”

Iwan’s musical career started in the mid-1960s and before the decade was out, he was receiving television coverage both for his music and for his political activities as a member of Cymdeithas yr Iaith.

He was imprisoned in 1970 for his refusal to pay fines for defacing English only road signs as part of the fight for Welsh language rights.

Imprisoned for a second time, Iwan was released when the outstanding fine was paid by a mystery figure, whose identity is revealed in the book as Welsh rugby legend Ray Gravell, from Mynydd y Garreg in Carmarthenshire.

The Llanelli and Wales international was a great fan of Iwan, singing his songs constantly in the dressing room and they became great friends.

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Iwan was one of the founders of Cymdeithas Tai Gwynedd (Gwynedd Housing Association) in 1971 and was involved in other projects to provide homes for the population in north-west Wales.

For many years, he was a Plaid Cymru councillor in Gwynedd, and his long service to the Welsh language led to his being made an honorary member of the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod at Bangor in 1971.

His autobiography will be launched at the first of a series of celebratory gigs at Galeri in Caernarfon.