This Bygone

by Ron Berry

For Dewi Joshua, a collier's boy, life underground at Pencaer colliery is central to his whole being. When he and other men from the Four Deep are laid off, he feels sickened, disintegrated.

More than anything he missed the togetherness of men underground, the bonding, walking the main, old blokes on the double-parting discussing Moel Exchange events and all the wireless and newspaper world like gods talking. Sanguine commentaries between hewing coal far, far away from all sky. Butties and mates settling down for grub at 11 o'clock, blokes queuing to the lamproom, collier-boys chin-wagging outside the pay hatch on Fridays.

This lyrical and unsettling portrayal of the individual's ability to survive, love, adapt and above all, thrive makes compelling reading.

205 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1996

About the author

Ronald Anthony "Ron" Berry was a Welsh writer of English language novels and short stories. Many of Berry's books reflect the working class of the industrial Rhondda Valleys where he grew up and lived for most of his life.

Largely overlooked during his lifetime, Berry has more recently been embraced by contemporary Welsh authors including Rachel Trezise and Niall Griffiths, and also by contemporary researchers.

The Glamorgan County History series describes Berry as "...unjustly neglected... ...whose fiction thrives on those very aspects of Rhondda life that broke the spirit of Gwyn Thomas's imagination."