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An Autumn 1993 Public Television Presentation Starring Anthony Hopkins. Thomas (1913-1981), a prolific and versatile Welsh writer, gave this work the subtitle `An Autobiography of Sorts' an apt description, since it tells more about the author himself than about his life. Many digressions, and digressions from digressions, occur. In these comic episodes he uses a cast of hilarious characters to describe his youth in a south Wales mining valley during the depression of the 1920s and 30s. His varied pursuits provided ample material for his exhilarating anecdotes, full of mordant wit and trenchant observations. ""Not only a vivid introduction to a most entertaining writer but an eloquent version of a narrative which has a more general interest. This narrative, which is also to be found in the novels of the eminent literary critic Raymond Williams, deals with the cultural destiny of the Welsh during this century - bound to stimulate fresh interest in an attractive author and in the literature of his native country."" - Magill Book Reviews.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
33 people want to read
About the author
Gwyn Thomas
27 books9 followersGwyn Thomas (6 July 1913 – 13 April 1981) was a Welsh writer who has been called 'the true voice of the English-speaking valleys'.
Gwyn Thomas was born in Cymmer, Porth in the Rhondda Valley, the youngest of 12 children to coalminer Walter Morgan Thomas and his wife. His mother died when he was aged six, and he was resultantly brought up by his sister, often with handouts from the local soup kitchen.
After winning a scholarship, Thomas studied Spanish at the University of Oxford. Plagued by mysterious health problems, terribly poor and depressed, it was only after spending a summer and a term at the end of his second year at Complutense University of Madrid, thanks to a miners' scholarship, that he decided to complete his studies. Thomas was diagnosed at the age of 23 with an undiagnosed thyroid malfunction that had been poisoning him for years, which was operated on to avoid his death.
On graduation and wanting to be a writer, Thomas struggled to establish himself during the 1930s depression. He took on part-time lecturing jobs across England, while trying to get his novel Sorrow For Thy Sons published.
He married his childhood friend Lynn Williams in Pontypridd Registry Office on 5 January 1938. Failing to pass the British Army medical at the outbreak of World War II thanks to 20 years of smoking, he returned to Wales in 1940 and taught at the WEA. He then became a schoolteacher, first teaching French in Cardigan, and then Spanish in Barry at Barry County Boys School for 20 years.
Post war, his wife decided to send some of his short stories to three publishers, who all accepted the scripts for publication. Approached in 1951 by a BBC Radio Wales producer to write for the radio, he returned to his childhood memories of 1920s South Wales to create Gazuka!
A prolific novelist and short-story writer, he became a regular on chat shows such as the Brain's Trust, and after 20 years of teaching in 1962 he became a full-time writer and broadcaster, retiring with his wife to Peterstone.
However, due to a combination of diabetes, heavy drinking and smoking, his health began to fail in the late 1960s. In 1981 Thomas collapsed and was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where he died on 13 April, shortly before his 68th birthday
Gwyn Thomas was born in Cymmer, Porth in the Rhondda Valley, the youngest of 12 children to coalminer Walter Morgan Thomas and his wife. His mother died when he was aged six, and he was resultantly brought up by his sister, often with handouts from the local soup kitchen.
After winning a scholarship, Thomas studied Spanish at the University of Oxford. Plagued by mysterious health problems, terribly poor and depressed, it was only after spending a summer and a term at the end of his second year at Complutense University of Madrid, thanks to a miners' scholarship, that he decided to complete his studies. Thomas was diagnosed at the age of 23 with an undiagnosed thyroid malfunction that had been poisoning him for years, which was operated on to avoid his death.
On graduation and wanting to be a writer, Thomas struggled to establish himself during the 1930s depression. He took on part-time lecturing jobs across England, while trying to get his novel Sorrow For Thy Sons published.
He married his childhood friend Lynn Williams in Pontypridd Registry Office on 5 January 1938. Failing to pass the British Army medical at the outbreak of World War II thanks to 20 years of smoking, he returned to Wales in 1940 and taught at the WEA. He then became a schoolteacher, first teaching French in Cardigan, and then Spanish in Barry at Barry County Boys School for 20 years.
Post war, his wife decided to send some of his short stories to three publishers, who all accepted the scripts for publication. Approached in 1951 by a BBC Radio Wales producer to write for the radio, he returned to his childhood memories of 1920s South Wales to create Gazuka!
A prolific novelist and short-story writer, he became a regular on chat shows such as the Brain's Trust, and after 20 years of teaching in 1962 he became a full-time writer and broadcaster, retiring with his wife to Peterstone.
However, due to a combination of diabetes, heavy drinking and smoking, his health began to fail in the late 1960s. In 1981 Thomas collapsed and was taken to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where he died on 13 April, shortly before his 68th birthday
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