News Archive

Writers in Their Landscape

The Tours 
Tour leader: Dr John Pikoulis
Tickets: £50 / £47 for Academi Members and Associates 
(price is per tour)

Alun Lewis in Cwmaman - Saturday 16 August 2008
Lecturer: Dr John Pikoulis

Margiad Evans in Llangarron - Saturday 6 September 2008
Lecturer: Dr Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan

This series of literary bus tours is designed to introduce readers to the landscapes which inspired three memorable writers: Raymond Williams (1921-1988), Alun Lewis (1915-1944) and Margiad Evans (1909-1958).

The Alun Lewis tour takes the form of a walk through Cwmaman, including his birthplace, St Joseph’s church, the family home at 61 Brynhyfryd and the infant school across the Nant Aman fach he attended. We then follow the river onto the Graig, the site of one of Lewis’s most memorable poems, The Mountain over Aberdare. The other text to be studied on this tour is The Housekeeper, a fine story describing life in the valley in the Depression years. Once filled with five pits, it now presents a scene of almost Alpine splendour. Lewis’s poems and stories are published by Seren.

Margiad Evans, born Peggy Whistler in London in 1909, visited Benhall Farm, the home of her aunt and uncle, in 1918 and promptly fell in love with the area. Her family moved to Lavender Cottage, in Bridstow, a few years later. She then started to write about the area under a Welsh-sounding pseudonym. She and her husband moved to Llangarron in 1941 and, during the next six years, wrote most of the stories that comprise her masterpiece, The Old and the Young (Seren). We shall walk through Llangarron to her cottage, Potacre, followed by lunch at the Lough Pool Inn and a gentle stroll down to the Wye. The tour ends with visits to Lavender Cottage and Benhall, courtesy of their present owners, and tea at Wilton Court, a three-star hotel on the Wye which dates back to the 16th century.

 
As part of the Margiad Evans tour we will be raffling two copies of her novel The Wooden Doctor courtesy of Honno Press. The Wooden Doctor was first published in 1933 and has now been re-printed by Honno as part of their classics series. Honno’s Classics are a unique series which bring books by women writers from Wales, long since out of print, to a new generation of readers.

The tours will start from the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff at 8.00 am returning to the same point at around 7.00 pm that evening. Detailed timetables will be available from Academi.

Please Note: The walking tours will often be over fields and we will encounter a number of stiles along the way.

For more information and to book your place contact Academi on:
029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org