'We were in a position where we needed to

“MY AUNTIE lived there, another one there, that was my grandmother’s shop” Wales’ First Minister has turned full tour guide as we walk down the high street of St Davids.

- Political editor Ruth Mosalski reports

Once again found itself looking for a new leader after Mark Drakeford announced he was standing down, ruled herself firmly out, leaving Jeremy Miles and Vaughan Gething to battle it out.

Mr Gething won, but his tenure was short-lived.

Then, last year on July 22, she stood in the Royal Welsh showground with her colleague, Ogmore MS Huw Irranca-Davies at her side, and said they would put their names forward together. Not because of ambition, but duty.

The pair weren't allies as such, you didn’t see them having tea together, and she admits they'd probably never even had a coffee together before doing their deal, but their partnership made sense because she had backed Vaughan Gething, he Mr Miles, and their partnership was intended to smooth over the fissures that had turned into well-pronounced cracks in the Senedd Labour group.

“He's a decent guy. He’s got good values. You can tell he wasn’t one of the people who stirred things up, and neither was he in it for himself. We were in a position a year ago where we needed to save the party,’ she said.

“That was our duty and responsibility. We both felt that really strongly,” she says, as we take a seat on some rocks, the occasional walker or runner double-taking as they pass.

It was two days later, on July 24, that she was named the leader of Welsh Labour unopposed, and a year ago yesterday, on August 6, a vote in the Senedd confirmed her as First Minister too.

But in reality she hadn't wanted the role, and to be frank, her colleagues hadn't wanted her to have it either, but no-one else was putting their name in the hat.

When she said she wouldn't be trying for the leader role for a second time she told me of the “brutal rejection” she had felt having put herself out there against Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething, only to come third, and that she wouldn’t stand again.