Morley in the seventies. Nothing much has changed apart from the cars parked on the roadside. Photo from David Atkinson Archive, Morley Memories.
Hiraeth is a delicious Welsh word as it captures that nostalgic longing for home. As a Yorkshire lass living in Wales, I often yearn for Morley, a town in Leeds, where my family still live. Yet I also feel at home in certain places in Wales that connect to the spirit and soul of place I long for. Maybe it’s the spirit of the industrial past that connects me to South Wales.
Morley is a large town in West Yorkshire that was constructed from the blood, sweat and tears of coal and textiles. The stone buildings of Morley are crooked and leaned towards me with whispers of secrets. I always identified a beauty in the urban landscape of home and feel so happy when I return to visit my family. There is a community spirit in Morley and people will always chat and make me laugh.
I imagined Jim driving along this road in his Zephyr. The photo is from Wales online and is captures Cardiff fifty years ago.
Last year, I stumbled on some newspaper photos of Cardiff in the sixties and seventies and the people huddled together chatting connected me to a familiar community spirit and evocated a nostalgia. When imagining the people’s stories, I met Pearl and Jim, characters from my novel,Loving You (working title), searching for their dreams in a fictional Welsh town near to Cardiff.
Photo of the Welsh factory woman in the sixties is from BBC News in an article written by Gwyneth Rees, BBC Wales News
Pearl is a seamstress who dreams of becoming a singer. Jim is a car mechanic who yearns to be an artist. Secrets about Pearl’s late father thrive in Aberynys as people still gossip about him. Pearl and Jim’s dreams push them together and pull them apart. Pearl is immersed in a community, but Jim is a loner. Both characters are shaped by their lives in Aberynys and want to escape in different ways. Pearl’s friends in the sewing factory are influenced by the people my grandmother brought to life for me when I was a child, and their sense of humour is both northern and Welsh. Of course, a colourful cast of characters also barged into the book, and my fictional town of Aberynys is a port which was also influenced by visits to Barry Island, Cardiff Bay and the Valleys.
This photo of the Valleys inspired Aberynys.
Aberynys is the nostalgic place in my heart: a place built on stories I listened to when chatting to folk in Yorkshire and Wales. I created a place name with lyrical Welsh words: Aber is the Welsh word for estuary and ynys means island. Aberynys is a montage of my life experiences and a place that makes folk dream their dreams. Loving You remains one of my works in progress as I just love to visit the place in my heart where I can seek sanctuary from what is happening to us all at the moment.
Which place do you call home and is this different to place you live in now?
‘Autumn is the best time of year for me to write because the tranquillity inspires reflection.’
The light is magical in October and bathes everything in a warm glow. There is also a stillness in the air, suggesting nature is waiting to go to sleep so that it can create more colour in the spring. Autumn is the best time of year for me to write because the tranquillity inspires reflection.
As leaves flutter to the ground, characters come to life. The promise of the festive season hovers as winter waits patiently to present the first shimmer of frost. It is no wonder, then, that I am delighting in penning a Christmas scene at the moment.
I am writing a novel set in World War Two. It is a joy to escape to the era where my grandmother was a young woman and the festive season required creativity. At Christmas time, my grandmother made her own festive wreaths and table decorations with foraged holly, ferns and berries and added bows and gold paint. She told me stories of how my great grandfather spent months making and renovating toys in the lead up to Christmas. I have given this resourceful nature to the characters. Everyone was creating Christmas decorations the last time I visited my novel.
‘Thanks to my grandmother’s memories of the era, love and laughter are shining in the scene packed with friends and family.’
Thanks to my grandmother’s memories of the era, love and laughter are shining in the scene packed with friends and family. Furthermore, families are collaborating to celebrate Christmas and there are some heartwarming moments, especially when gifts are exchanged. Romance is also sparkling but a mystery lurks beneath the Christmas magic.
‘As leaves flutter to the ground, characters come to life’
When I listen to the characters chat, I reflect on how we can create a unique Christmas without all the expense. Recent events have made me very aware of how much people matter and my characters teach me new things all the time. I am excited to share this heartwarming story one day, but for now I am enjoying the process of cutting back the scenes and walking amongst the words that have fallen.
Wishing you all a calm and creative autumn.
For more information about my writing and how Wales inspires my stories, please click on the links to the Frost Magazine below.
‘The tide of Christmas visitors washed me down the High Street.’
Eva Glyn is celebrating the release of the paperback edition of The Missing Pieces of Us on my blog today. The Missing Pieces of Us is one of those novels that will gain a special place in your heart. I have invited Eval Glyn to introduce her novel and present an extract.
The Missing Pieces of Us tells the story of Robin and Izzie, who meet twenty years after their brief affair, only to discover their memories of it are completely different. Here we meet Robin for the first time, a homeless man and a far cry from the young graduate Izzie would remember:
The tide of Christmas visitors washed me down the High Street. The Salvation Army band was gathered near the Buttercross, the trumpet player’s scales rising into the air and mingling with the scent of roasting chestnuts. Further on, the traffic lights glowed into the leaden morning – red, yellow, green. The colours were coming back.
The paperback of this book is released on 14th October.
Opposite the bus station tourists streamed from a coach. I pressed myself against the railings of the park but in truth I need not have bothered. I seemed to have perfected the art of creating an empty space of at least a yard around me. Despite being invisible. One day I’d laugh about it – I hoped.
The Itchen was in full spate. A drake huddled on a flat rock, hunkering down to avoid the wind but finding himself splashed by the freezing waters instead. The gardens rising up on the other side of the river were stripped for winter, naked branches shivering. A single holly bush stood out, glossy green, a miserly few berries left by the birds. Red and green… Colours again. They pierced the fog in my mind, even as my body battled the cold.
I knew when the colours had started. I was on the steps of the Buttercross, nursing the empty paper cup. I turned it in my hand, royal blue with a firmament of Christmas stars. Izzie. A heart-stopping moment of joy, confusion, then shame. But all the same I couldn’t tear myself away. I waited for her there every morning, just in case. I could still taste the coffee – bitter, hot, and strong.
Although Welsh by birth, Eva Glyn now lives in Cornwall with her husband of twenty-six years. She loves to travel, and more often than not her books are inspired by a beautiful place and the secrets it could hide. The Missing Pieces of Us is her first book for One More Chapter, an imprint of Harper Collins. and is set in Hampshire. Her second, The Olive Grove, was inspired by a heart-breaking story she was told while on holiday in Croatia.
Eva Glyn on her travels.
Eva also writes as Jane Cable and can be found on Twitter @JaneCable and on Instagram as @evaglynauthor.
Anne Williams is a shining light in the bookish community and is a best friend to authors, bloggers and readers. Her kind and generous spirit is remarkable, and it is no wonder she has won many awards. I was intrigued to know more about Anne and what inspired her love of reading. Having invited Anne to my Bloggers’ Café, we settled down for a good chat about her childhood memories, reading and her life in Cardiff. We shared a pot of tea for two and a generous plate of Welsh cakes. We chatted for hours and she gave me some tantalizing facts about her life.
Jessie: Anne you work tirelessly to support authors, and we don’t know what we would do without your support. I’d like you to relax, have a cuppa and tell us more about yourself. Tell us about your childhood in Bangor and your fondest memories. Do you speak Welsh?
Anne: Lovely of you to say so, Jessie – while it’s lovely to be able to give authors my support and a bit of exposure, it’s got more to do with the fact that I just love books and reading, and love talking about them whenever I get the chance!
The view from her parents’ house in Port Dinorwic
I actually come from a small village between Bangor and Caernarfon: in those days it was called Port Dinorwic (it’s where they used to load and ship the slate from the quarry), but it’s now been renamed Y Felinheli. I don’t speak Welsh, sadly – although my dad came from the village, my mum was from Swansea and an English-speaker, so we never spoke Welsh at home. I can understand conversations though, translate things into English and watch the occasional programme on S4C.
My memories are all about family really. We lived in a converted schoolhouse until my O-level year (that’s what people took before GCSEs!), when we moved to mum and dad’s new-build dream house, overlooking the Menai Straits. I had a brother, Nigel, who was eight years younger than me – and was the constant pain little brothers often are (very sadly, he died a few years ago from a heart attack – by then, we were friends again). After we moved house, all I can really remember is an awful lot of studying – I desperately wanted to read English at university (I got there!) and to spread my wings a little.
Jessie: Did your parents inspire your love of reading? If not, who did inspire the beginning of your reading journey?
Anne loves the quote from Maya Angelou – “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Anne: My mother’s always been a reader and taught me to read and enjoy books before I started at the village school aged 3 (maybe I was a bit of a prodigy!). I remember us having floor to ceiling bookshelves in the alcoves in the lounge: I read the books, my brother used them as a climbing assault course. And then I had my library ticket and can remember looking forward to choosing my five books a week into my late teens. I was always the child who preferred to sit in the corner with a book rather than get involved in the rowdy stuff – I was also painfully shy, and I think the books were a bit of an escape (and they probably still are!).
Jessie: You told me you lived in Cardiff thirty years ago. What was Cardiff like three decades ago. Where did you like to go? Were there lots of bookshops? What advice would you give to your younger self living in Cardiff?
This is the Cardiff that Anne remembers
Anne:I went to university in Hull, did my growing up and really didn’t want to go back to a small village – and I didn’t have to because I joined the Civil Service and they posted me to Cardiff. I was in my twenties, remember – reading took a bit of a back seat (the need to dissect and analyse had dampened my book enthusiasm a little) while I got on with having fun with friends and discovering the opposite sex. I don’t remember book shops – at that time, I was keener on music and searching out vinyl, and there was a great shop on the Hayes (long gone) where I spent many happy hours. I spent a lot of time in and around the Chapter Arts Centre in Canton – at that time it was a pretty amateur set up, but a great place to see obscure art-house films, wander the gallery, eat vegetarian food (rather exotic at the time!) and to meet friends in the bars. There were the many clubs and bars too, of course – a couple of hours’ sleep was plenty then, and the hangovers weren’t as bad. It was the era of the New Romantics, and I do remember a few outings to the Casablanca in the Docks – and the many places where you could get happy hour cocktails (not a modern phenomenon). Advice? I wouldn’t have listened anyway…!
Jessie: You visited Cardiff recently. How has Cardiff changed?
Anne sat in this coffee shop in Cardiff Bay. This place is very different to her memories of the Docks in the era of the New Romantics.
Anne: While all the landmarks are still there, it’s really changed beyond all recognition. The city centre I remember is no more, totally swallowed up by that enormous shopping centre – but it was nice to see that the quirky arcades have been cared for and are still full of those fascinating little shops and cafes. Docklands was a bit of a no-go area back in the 80s, and that’s certainly changed – and I very much liked the new waterfront development. They always say you shouldn’t go back though, don’t they?
Jessie: Do you miss Wales now that you live in Yorkshire?
Anne: I haven’t lived in Wales since the mid-80s – I lived in Wigan, worked in Manchester, for over ten years before I moved here. I visited North Wales regularly when my parents still lived there, but never had a hankering to return. I guess home is anywhere you can be happy, and I haven’t regretted for an instant making Yorkshire mine.
Jessie: I am in awe of the number of books you read and the quality of your reviews. How do you balance reviewing and blogging with the rest of your life? How long does it take to review a book?
Anne: Thank you! When I was still working, I’ll admit it was difficult – I have the greatest admiration for bloggers who can balance life, work and blogging – and I only took things up a gear after I retired. There was a time when it seemed to have become my new full-time job: I’ve eased off a little with the need to care for my mother, and three or four posts a week now feels about right. My reviews take ages, if I’m honest – I’m a bit of a perfectionist and want every review to be as good and complete as I can make it. I probably spend four mornings a week writing posts, and then a little more supporting others on Twitter, being sociable on-line, and doing the necessary admin. The reading’s no hardship – I’m not really much of a TV watcher so I read in the evenings and in bed and can sometimes manage an occasional treat of an afternoon.
Jessie:What makes a good review? Do you have a review structure, or does it depend on the book and your inspiration?
Anne:I don’t really know what makes a good review, but I do seem to have accidentally landed on a shape that works for me, and hopefully for others. I rarely tell the story – I get annoyed when I find myself doing so, because the author does it so much better. And I’m quite paranoid about spoilers – totally unforgivable, and not really that difficult to avoid. My reviews are really just my personal reaction to a book: I’ll mention whatever I particularly liked (and sometimes things I liked less), but the emphasis is always on how a book made me feel. And the only reviews you’ll ever see on Being Anne are of books I’ve enjoyed – I don’t enjoy everything, but then I stop reading and pick up another.
Jessie: You must receive lots of books in the post. Where do you store all the review copies you receive?
Anne: Do you know, I actually don’t receive that much book post these days – I’ve asked the publishers I work with to stop sending them. My eyesight is worsening with age, and I find it so much easier to read on my kindle – but don’t ask me how many books are in my kindle library! Although a lot of the books I read are gifted or downloaded from netgalley, I can’t resist buying even more – probably at least twice as many as I receive. I had my bedrooms decorated last year, and decided I needed to do something about my 4000+ unread books, spread over half a dozen bookshelves. Most went to the library, and some to charities, and it really didn’t hurt (much) – I now have just one (large) bookshelf for my signed copy collection.
Jessie:Besides reading, what other hobbies do you have?
Anne: To be honest, I don’t really have other hobbies. I enjoy theatre, cinema, concerts (of all kinds, with a newly found love of classical), museums and galleries, and visit as often as I can – but everything else I do tends to be book and reading related, including running a real-life book club. For the last couple of years, I became an almost full-time carer for my mum, who has vascular dementia: now she’s being far better cared for in a home, I visit or take her out every other day, but I’m just getting used to the idea of having “spare time” again, and really must do something about revitalising my social life! I also always used to go on two major holidays a year – US, South America, Africa, the Far East – but that’s been just impossible recently. For now, I’ve decided to explore the UK a little – three book-related stays already planned for this year, and a few more I need to get round to sorting out.
Jessie: If you wrote a book what genre would you write in? Have you got any characters hassling you to tell their story? What names would you give you the leading characters?
Anne: I did have plans, didn’t I? I don’t think it’s ever likely to happen – and if it doesn’t, I don’t think I really want it enough. Genre-wise, I think it’d be women’s fiction – maybe romance, perhaps with some travel included, and definitely with older characters. But I’ve never really come up with a story that’s made me enthusiastic to develop it further – and I’ve definitely never got anywhere near coming up with names!
Jessie:Finally, is there a famous quotation about reading that resonates with you?
For instance, I often quote C.S Lewis:
‘We read to know we are not alone.’
Anne: Not really about books and reading, but I do love the quote from Maya Angelou – “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And that works pretty well for books too, doesn’t it?
Anne has been nominated for an award at the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards. Voting closes on 24th April at 9pm. https://annualbloggersbash.com
‘I leave you with a sense of humour and memories. Think of me when funny things happen.’ That’s what my late father told us when we discovered he had only got weeks to live. He insisted that we didn’t sit around the hospital bed and weep but laugh at memories. He started a conversation with, ‘Do you remember when…’, and then engaged us in funny stories of past events. Everyone in the ward laughed along at the stories – it was magic. I can still remember my dad holding his belly as he laughed out loud. What a great way to distract us all from the sadness! That was thirteen years ago.
Dad’s philosophy helped us through this year. As we haven’t been able to get together with extended family, we have treasured memories of past events and shared photos of past get togethers. We aimed to find photos that capture laughter!
I found a photo of me when I was about nine years old.
I found a photo of me when I was about nine years old. I urged Mum to take a photo of Dad reading the newspaper, so we could record the progress of his bald head and present the photo as evidence. He loved this and said, ‘Hair today, gone tomorrow.’
Photos that capture a moment are a gift. For example, in Northumberland, I decided to take a closer look at the sea and when I jumped off the wall, I was rewarded with a splash from a freak wave. I was the only walker who did not escape the water, and my husband was able to snap the moment as he was taking photos of the sea at the time.
I decided to take a closer look at the sea and when I jumped off the wall, I was rewarded with a splash from a freak wave.
‘Please tell me that wasn’t planned,’ said an elderly gentleman, crying with laughter.
‘No, it was especially for you,’ I replied.
He held his stomach as he waited for the laughter to subside. It felt as if Dad was there with us in that moment, instigating his usual mischief.
Of course, sharing stories and old photos is not the same as the face-to-face contact, but it cheered us up. For us, Dad is an absent present in those moments of hilarity and it’s comforting. My heart goes out to those people who have lost their loved ones, and I am thinking of you and wishing you comfort in those memories captured in your heart.
Which photos capture your fondest memories and make you smile?
