Welsh Journal

Welsh Journal

Pastoral journal of poet and lecturer Jeremy Hooker's time as an Englishman abroad in Welsh-speaking Aberystwyth during the nineteen seventies. Includes several poems written during the period. Poet Jeremy Hooker recalls his time in the seventies as an English lecturer (in both senses) at the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. Life in a cottage in rural Llangwyryfon -- including the arrival of his two children -- is contrasted with Hooker's inability to enter fully into the Welsh-speaking community. Delight in his closeness to nature -- beautifully expressed in the book -- sits alongside his outsider status. A practising poet stimulated by his new, rural, surroundings, he must also explore the culture of his new home. Welsh Journal is a voyage of discovery, personal, professional and as a writer. It is also an important record of life in a certain part of Britain during the seventies.

Gaelic Journal

Welsh Slate

Slates from quarries in Wales once went to roof the world. By the late nineteenth century as many as a third of all the roofing slates produced worldwide came from Wales, competing with quarries in France and the United States. This book traces the industry from its origins in the Roman period, its slow medieval development and then its massive expansion in the nineteenth century – as well as through its long drawn-out decline in the twentieth.