What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

It was 30 years ago this month. Sinitta was in the charts and a new drama called Casualty was starting on the telly.

In Barry, South Wales, a young Owen Smith – the man who would be next Labour leader – was beginning his A-levels.

There were 1,200 boys and just three girls in the entire school.

Today, sitting with us in the cosy cafe where we meet near Pontypridd, is one of those few girls, now Mrs Smith.

“Yes,” laughs Owen, “1,200 boys, three girls and I pulled Liz. So I must have something going on. That must be leadership.”

Without doubt 46-year-old Mr Smith is a man most determined to get what he wants. But can he really be as successful in September 2016 as he was in 1986?

(Image: Roland leon)

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has amassed enormous support within his newly inflated party. Polls showing him potentially winning by 20 points.

Thousands have flocked to their leader, angered by perceived disloyalty during the mass resignations of frontbenchers.

Meanwhile, his popularity with the rest of the nation plumbs new depths.

A recent poll had him 64 points behind Theresa May in the favourability ratings.

And that, says Owen Smith , is what is making him determined to win once more.

“I have to do it,” he says. “Labour is on the brink of disappearing as a serious party and that would be a disaster for places like this that have relied on it for 100 years.

(Image: Roland Leon)

“Just over there is the Royal Mint which was moved here from London in 1967 by the Wilson government to put back jobs which had been lost from mining.

“But things like that only happen when Labour is in power. If, like me, you come from this part of the world and have friends who rely on public services, you know deep down you have to have a Labour government. And we are never going to have one with the current leadership.”

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Owen Smith might feel that deep down. But do the friends and neighbours he grew up with, those he marched alongside in the miners’ strike, those he stands beside watching Ponty play rugby on a Saturday afternoon? Do they still feel it deep down?

And if so how did UKIP’s vote share in Wales leap from 2% to 14% in the last election?

For Owen it all comes down to inequality – and convincing voters Labour is properly angry about the way Britain has been let down outside of London and is committed to changing things.

It transpires that for a softly spoken man with a laugh which frequently bursts out, he is furious about a fair few things.

(Image: Roland Leon)

“Inequality makes me very angry,” he says. “I am someone who is massively p****d off with unfairness and people being ripped off all the time.

“And people working incredibly hard for cr*p wages in dead-end jobs with no security and a rubbish pension who can’t afford to buy a house.

“And I’m angry that in 20 years we’ve gone from ordinary people being able to buy a house to a situation where now I don’t know how people manage at all.”

He is also seen up close the realities of modern employment practices and Tory austerity.

“My brother Daniel is a shop fitter on a zero-hours contract,” he says.

“He works when he has work but has to travel all over the place to get it and works like a Trojan. My other brother, Aled, has not worked for a decade or more and lives with my parents because he has severe epilepsy.”

The severity of his illness – he has had about one fit a week since his mid 20s – has also impacted on his mental health.

“That’s why the suggestion that’s been made about me being insensitive to mental health is so hurtful.

“Aled is on the Employment and Support Allowance and had to have the Work Capability Test. It is grim and degrading.

(Image: Roland Leon)

“The whole thing is ostensibly about getting people back to work but he got parked in a charity shop unloading clothes when he has two degrees and was a film-maker before he became ill.”

At the start of the leadership contest he suffered a particularly serious episode.

“He had to be rushed to hospital by ambulance. But what I found awful is that for someone who has epilepsy and mental health issues the system is useless.

“That day we went back and forth between two hospitals who couldn’t take him and ended up in A&E for 48 hours. It was grim. The care he finally got was great but the system can’t cope.”

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Life for Owen, teacher Liz and their three teenage children remains undoubtedly rooted in South Wales.

No Westminster bubble could float this far. If it did it would find itself pricked by the jagged hills rising behind the village.

Much of Owen Smith ’s politics was shaped by the history of these valleys. All the more so having a father – the son of a miner – who became an academic and official historian of the pit valleys.

“I was nine or 10 before I realised I wasn’t actually related to Nye Bevan,” laughs Owen. “Dad used to talk about him so much, I thought he was one of the family.

“But we were a very political house. We knew we were Labour.”

Then, in his early teens, came the pit closures and strike which cast devastation and heartbreak across communities.

He explains: “Grandad had just stopped working underground when the strike came. My father’s job was writing about the pits so we knew lots of people in the NUM. I went on marches with my dad.

“One of the defining moments was a day at Port Talbot when they were trying to stop the steelworks.

“The bosses were trying to bring in lorries from abroad and some of the men were throwing rocks at them. I’ll never forget the anger in their faces.

“The other moment that stayed with me was when the miners went back to work. We marched behind the colliery band and the banners. Of course we were defeated. But proud. Unbowed.” So will Mr Smith emerge similarly defeated but unbowed in his battle with Jeremy Corbyn ? Or does he truly believe he can win?

“Yes, I can,” he flares with a flash of that anger. “A lot of people support Jeremy but at the moment two million Labour voters say they are considering voting for Theresa May.

(Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“It comes down to winning and being a party that can win. Jeremy can’t do that.” And what is the first task on September 24 then, should he win the big job?

“At the moment we are fighting each other like ferrets in a sack so the biggest priority has to be uniting the party,” he says.

“Then, second, we have to be absolutely clear on where we are going to attack the Tories. Right now they are destroying the NHS in England before our eyes.”

And what if he does not win?

“On that first Saturday I’ll be watching the Pontypridd home game,” he laughs.

“I’ve already checked the match timetable! But even if I win I’ll still be going to watch my eldest play rugby and do all the normal family stuff we do at weekends.

“Too many politicians are just politicians. I’m not someone who has spent the last six years wining and dining journalists. I’ve been returning to where I live and where Liz and the family are. I think voters want politicians who are a bit more rooted.”

Two votes at least are (hopefully) in the bag – eldest son Jack, 17, and middle son, Evan, 16, are party members.

Youngest Isabelle, 13, may be too young to vote but has taken to wearing an ‘Owen Smith – the future of the Labour Party ’ T-shirt.

And what of Mrs Smith, the woman who knows better than most what her husband can achieve when he sets his mind to it?

Liz, 46, who still describes herself as “a Barry girl” (even pronouncing Barry just like Stacey out of Gavin & Stacey) is clear.

“I have never met a brighter man,” she says. “He remains sensible, he talks to everyone and he works so, so hard.

“And, when he is working for something, he is very, very determined.”

Indeed.