Laura Gethryn spends the first 7 years of her life in the shadow of the Black Mountains. Her horsey mother idolizes the absent soldier and his return a broken man, emasculated by the Great War, leaves them destined to remain the disappointed parents of a single girl child. Caught up in the dance of dysfunction that is their marriage, they hand over Laura’s education to Mr Howells, a very different man to Gethryn. Welsh speaking, working-class and intellectual, he, his talented daughter, Mair, and disaffected son, Idris, open Laura’s eyes to a surprising new world. Years later, Laura receives in the mail a package: Mr Howell’s Parisian notebooks detailing his failure to escape the chains of his upbringing. Reading them, destroying them, may be the biggest service she does both her mentor and her future self.
About the author
Angela V. John is Honorary Professor of History at Swansea University. Her most recent publications include: Rocking the Boat: Welsh Women who Championed Equality 1840-1990 and The Actors’ Crucible: Port Talbot and the Making of Burton, Hopkins, Sheen and All the Others. She is currently conducting further research into the life of Cecily Mackworth.
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