Welsh Country Upbringing

A WELSHMAN REMEMBERS Is a kind of biography, about the life and family of Robert Bassett, a Welshman, born in the South Wales town of Newport, in the county of Monmouthshire, over 70 years ago. We read anecdotes and events, in the lives of this Welsh family of seven children,-- four boys and three girls, whose parents were both hard working and caring, during their upbringing. It tells us of the many and varied homes around the area , the result of the need to try to improve both income and conditions, in the life of an agricultural worker in the earlier parts of the twentieth century. It includes the various schools and the difficulties involved. We are also told of Roberts exploits in amateur boxing and his love of country music culminating in the trip of a lifetime when, along with his wife Jeannette he visited the southern States of America , and the home of country music , the Grand Ole Opry, in Nashville Tennessee in 1985. We also read about some of the memorable moment of the family's early days, ...the arrival of the family's first car, the naivete of the earl;y years when newspapers were rarely seen,.... "the everlasting pen !!".... We are told about the little village schools, of following the foxhounds instead of classes, and the family's involvement on the farms during haymaking, and the wonderful picnic teas at the end of a hard days work...... This book is a compilation of memoirs and events put together from memory, over the past fifteen years. Altogether an interesting and often comical look at life in general, in and around the area of South wales during the 70 plus years of the Authors life.

A wide-ranging and comprehensive analysis of modern Welsh history by the acclaimed historian Kenneth O. Morgan. Taking as its starting-point 1880, the book covers all aspects of the nation's history from political, social, economic and religious development to literary, intellectual, and sporting achievement.

Wales is a country where small in beautiful, a cultural tradition rooted in the austerity and erudition of the Celtic saints, a tradition more confirmed than repudiated by the Reformation and is best appreciated by lovers of small things. The delights of Wales are understated and cumulative: small country churches rather than great city cathedrals, a labyrinth of byeays away form the few highways, details of vernacular achitecture rather than grand edifices - Edward I's thirteenth-century castles being the exception that proves the rule.

• This is the first study of the representation of animals and animality in Welsh literature. It introduces the reader to key ideas and concepts from the new and fast-growing field of animal studies, and suggests how Welsh rural and urban history might be redrawn from the perspective of animals and their agenda. • It provides new and exciting insights into a range of Welsh writings about animals, and examines how Welsh literature explores ways of thinking about intelligence, sensibilities and knowledge from an animal perspective. • The book introduces readers to the concept of a relational universe in which all life is bound together through a network of relations and connections and illustrates its importance to animal studies and Welsh writing.

Making Sense of Wales gives an account of the main changes that have taken place in Welsh society over the last fifty years, as well as analysing the major efforts to interpret those changes. By placing work done in Wales in the context of broader developments within sociological approaches over the period, Graham Day demonstrates that there is a body of work on Wales worth considering in its own right as a specific contribution to sociology. He also shows the relevance of sociological accounts of Wales for understanding contemporary empirical and theoretical concerns in social analysis. Beginning with post-war analysis which considered Wales in terms of regional planning and policy, Day shows how more theoretically informed perspectives have come to the fore in recent years. He also examines more contemporary developments, such as gender and class transformations, the emphasis on the centrality of the Welsh language for conceptions of Wales and Welshness, as well as the impact of new forms of governance and questions of social exclusion.