I was born and raised in Blaenavon, until the age of 12 when we moved to Kent, and my mother's family all came from Abergavenny.
'The Mountains Between' came about after I had decided to record my father's amazing memories of Blaenavon and my mother's intriguing recollections of life in Abergavenny and Goytre. Their story inspired this one and I hope it reflects my deep feelings for my heritage.
It was published in November 07 to follow on from a BBC production, 'Coal House' which was filmed in Blaenavon and aired at the end of October. 'Coal House' took people back to how the miners lived in 1927, whilst 'The Mountains Between' begins in 1929.
The book has already been enormously successful, and became the bestseller in independent book stores across the region. The months since its publication have been great fun, with talks, book signings and radio interviews.
The launch, in Usk, was one of the best nights of my life, packed with people who are important to me, and full of fun. There was some beautiful Welsh harp music, a silly rhyming speech from me (still in Panto mode, as we'd just finished one!) and some great live music from my talented sons Daniel and Robert (check it out on
http://www.febria.com )One of the signings was in Borders book store in Cardiff, who have said of the book, 'The Mountains Between is shaping up to be one of this year's word-of-mouth classics as news of this terrific novel spreads across Wales.'
Meanwhile an interview for BBC Radio Wales with the entertaining Roy Noble was heard as far afield as Canada and the USA.
But the best bits of all have been the personal messages from people who have gone out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed reading it which is the main reason for writing a novel, after all!
This is what my publisher has to say about the book. It's all true, but I couldn't write about it myself in such a positive way!!:
'Blaenavon and Abergavenny surge to life in this vibrant, haunting, joyful masterpiece, a celebration of the Welsh people in the 1920s to '40s: a saga of two families and their communities - the farmers and the miners, villagers and warriors, singers and mourners, noble and ignoble, cowardly and brave, in a smorgasbord that keeps the pages in perpetual motion
This is the story of a little girl growing up on a farm, fighting to keep her balance in the face of an unbalanced mother and the deepest heart-blows a child can bear. It's a story of strength and courage; of a girl-woman with a huge heart who took what life threw at her and kept on loving - the story of a survivor.
It's the story of a mining family who suffered an unspeakable tragedy; but they got up and got on because that's what those amazing people did. And it's a story about two young people who could have and should have found each other much sooner, but their valleys were separated by the mountains and never the twain, in those days, would meet
It's a war story; a love story; a hate story. But more than all this, it's the story of a chunk of Wales's lifetime slashed like a scar on a mountainside - about the people of Wales, the people of the mountains and the valleys who formed the beating heart of that country; the people who enable the current Welsh to stand proud and hold the Red Dragon high, because of what their forefathers did This is the story of their essence.
"Intensely moving."
"Funny, tender, utterly fascinating."
"Wales gleams brilliantly through the dust of farmland and coalfield, mountain and valley, heartache and delight. You can almost taste it!"
'The Mountains Between' was published by Sunpenny Publishing on November 27th 2007