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Across the Severn is Eva Goldsworthys heartfelt tribute to her parents, who were forced to uproot themselves from Wales after the 1921 miners strike and had to face down anti-Welsh sentiment when they moved to England. The author says, This book is an account of two people I loved. From one angle their lives were uneventful but they illustrate the great courage inherent in the Welsh as a people the way they stick to a task and make the best of difficult circumstances. May and Joe stayed true to this tradition even though they would have been the last to admit it.

More than a familys story, Across the Severn is also an excellent piece of social history. Events in the lives of the protagonists are constantly rooted in the wider context of the turbulent politics of the early 20th century. Goldsworthy examines the devastating effects of pit closures in the Valleys and the 1921 miners strike, which left her father with no choice but to seek work in hostile England. On a trip home to Ogmore Vale in 1926, the author observed firsthand the obvious signs of poverty following the General Strike. She says, I remember boarded-up shops and thin, grey-faced men hanging around on street corners. The coal mine owners had taken their revenge and there had been savage cuts in employment, most of all for the so-called agitators. The burning aim of most of the youngsters in Ogmore was to get out.

The author also includes her reminiscences of the time she spent working on the development of radar and nuclear fission during the Second World War. Socialism, the emancipation of women, and the swan-song of the English gentry are amongst the other wide-ranging topics which form a background to this fascinating story of how individuals coped with the difficulties they faced during an era of unprecedented change.

Eva Goldsworthy was born in Wales but spent most of her life in London as a mathematics teacher. She has three daughters and now lives in Llanfyllin. She is also the author of A Flat-Pack in Greece.

Reprinted with permission from David Western's blog , all material 2009, David Western --

This week I'm doing the back side of the dragon's wing. Because this particular design is kind of a 2 1/2 Dimension carving, I want to make sure that I don't just repeat the front pattern as there is a wing passing over the other. As with all the other sections of the spoon, I do a quick bit of pencilling to make sure everything is where it should be...THEN I commit to the knives.

Here I cut down a section to separate the back wing from the front wing. Visually, the back one should overlap the little visible section of the front wing just as the reverse has happened on the front of the spoon. Confusing? It can get that way if you don't sketch things out! As I'm only working to 2.5D and not a full on 3D, I will keep the wings as opposite faces of the spoon, rather than trying to separate them completely. If the spoon were a bit thicker and I wasn't concerned about it getting too delicate, I would be inclined to do separated wings. Doing that would leave me with very thin wings which would be extremely susceptible to breakage...probably not a good thing for a dragon who is going to brave the hurly burly of an Eisteddfod evening!

With the facets of the wing marked out and the front portion clearly deliniated, I can start getting set to shape each section of the wing.

I have started to clear out material to create each fold of the wing. I use the bent knife to do the bull work and then smooth things out with a straight knife or with a bent knife with a shallow curve. I like to leave the surface a bit textured as it makes the wing look a bit more lively and a bit less processed than dead smooth faces. I generally cut from the bottom fold and move up to the top of the wing. That way, if I have a knife slip and take a bit off the fold in front, it isn't as calamitous a situation as it is to whack a finished section!

And thar she be. This is far as I will take the wing for the time being. After the spoon is pretty well completed, I'll come back over any rough areas and tidy things up for the final inspection, but this is pretty good for the moment.

These two pictures show the effect I am after with the wings passing over each other. A bit more exciting than 2D but not as dangerous as 3D! But don't despair if you are like a car racing fan who has come to see the pile-ups....I may have got this far unscathed, but there are plenty of opportunities for disaster still to come! It's what makes lovespoon carving the thrilling pastime it is!!

It is hard to believe that all the hard work of the teams here in Washington, DC and back in Wales will come to fruition in less than two weeks now! Everyone is very excited! The Ty Unnos, a building project of the organization Coed Cymru, is already taking shape as anyone in Washington, DC exiting the Smithsonian Metro stop cannot avoid noticing. This weekend, site designer Angharad Pearce Jones and her crew arrive to start an amazing installation project along one fence line. It will be fascinating to see this take shape.Watch our Web site, www.folklife.si.edu for schedule updates, biographies of participants, and special events. Check out the Welsh Assembly Government's site as well at www.wales.com for even more information.I hope everyone who can possibly make it to Washington, DC will come at some point during the two weeks: June 24 - 28 and July 1 - 5, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with evening events as well!Betty Belanus, Curator

Nam Le, who won the 60,000 Dylan Thomas Prize for his book The Boat last November took on the challenge of meeting 11 year old schoolchildren from Terrace Road School as part of his role as an ambassador for the University of Wales sponsored Prize.The meeting with the 36 Year 6 pupils took place at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive , Uplands, Swansea - the birthplace of Dylan Thomas which has been restored to its condition as a new house in 1914 by local couple Anne and Geoff Haden and where the prizewinning author stayed for a few days.Said Nam "The children amazed me with their range of original ideas - they kept me on my toes all day."Staying at the birthplace of Dylan Thomas has been a huge treat - I've learned something about how this house and the area influenced his early work."Apart from the workshops with Nam the children also toured the house with Anne and were shown by tour guide Ann Hughes how to make a cup opf tea using leaf tea, a teapot and china cups with not a teabag in sight!.Geoff took them on a trip to nearby Cwmdonkin Park where they followed the love triangle short story Patricia, Edith and Arnold in which Patricia, the maid at Number 5 and Edith who worked next door discover that they are dating the same man. Sparks fly when the three meet up at the bowls pavillion in the park under the watchful eye of the youthful storyteller Dylan!In the evening Nam and 2006 prizewinner Rachel Tresize talked about their writing careers in conversation with Peter Stead and award winning author Flur Dafydd at the Dylan thomas Centre.

Drop In Sessions continue... Wednesday 24th June 2009, 4.30pm-6.30pm, Hobo's, Queen Street, Bridgend.
WMF are hitting the road again and hosting a series of Drop-In Sessions over the coming months across the country for those who would like to meet face-to-face with questions about their ventures / careers / aspirations in the music industry.Staff will be on hand to answer queries and offer general guidance to anyone who pre-books a time slot .The Drop In sessions are free to attend. If youd like to book a space or would like any further information, please drop us a line.hello@welshmusicfoundation.com / Tel: 02920 494110

I'm looking for a good Richard Burton type voice to read a script narration for our upcoming Welsh documentary in northeastern Pennsylvania

Welsh writers were out in force at the recent Hay Literature Festival beating off TV cooks and broken down politicians for the attention of enthusiastic audiences. The highlight was the announcement of the Wales Book of the Year shortlists. Poet Damian Walford Davies from Aberystwyth University chaired an evening in which the three English language and three Welsh language authors were invited to read from and discuss their work.

The English language shortlist consisted of Gee Williams (Blood etc), Deborah Kay Davies (Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful) and Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch (Not In These Shoes) pictured above from left to right. The Welsh language authors were Hefyn Wyn (Pentigily), William Owen Roberts (Petrograd) and Geraint V Jones (Teulu Lord Bach).

Later, Damian Walford Davies teamed up with Richard Marggraf Turley and presented a son-et-lumiere evening of poetry and imagery and another Welsh success: during the course of the festival Flur Dafydd was presented with the Oxfam Emerging Writer of the Year prize.

Pictured below with shortlisted authors is Dominic Williams representing Parthian who can claim two thirds of the Wales Book of the Year list. WTG Parthian!

Vote Now!...in the Wales Book of The Year Award 2009 Poll.

Sir Tom will be going home to Wales to perform in Cardiff on October 9 and 10 at Cardiff Internationa Arena (CIA). Tickets are on sale. Check our web site for more of Tom's 2009 itinerary http://www.tjfanclub.com also Tom's website at tomjones.comTom Terrific Fan Club - USA

We arrived in Cardiff about a week ago now, in the early afternoon on the train from Paddington Station, having arrived at Heathrow that morning on an overnight flight from Detroit. We pulled our luggage out from the train platform to the lobby, paused just long enough to buy a small map of downtown Cardiff, then headed out through the station doors to the cab stand, to be greeted immediately by several cabbies asking if we wanted a cab, Surely, we said, and were directed over to the cab first in the cue, with the explanation that this was how it worked; everyone takes their turn.No muss, no fuss - doors were opened, luggage stowed, we got in, the cabbie turned, looked at me: Plasturton Avenue I said a little tentatively, looking at my wife for reassurance since I inevitably mispronounce even the simplest words. She nodded approvingly, confirming I was conforming with the coaching she had given me on the train, causing me to more loudly declare "We're going to Plasturton Avenue. Then, an exchange something like the following:Where?Plasturton.Where?Plasturton.I have never heard of that place. Is it in Cardiff?Yeah, Im pretty sure Then, our cabbie, out the window to another cabbie but still facing me to ensure I named the place:Do you know where this is?Plas Plasturton I stumbled as he came up to the window. We want we want to go to PlasturtonPlas tur ton he said slowly, No, no, I never heard Then, he grinned, moved back from the window, folded his arms across a middle I usually think of as reserved for truck drivers, grinned again, looked sideways with a now face-splitting grin at another cabbie standing close by, then came back to the widow: Plasturton. Oh, Plasturton. Yes, yes, we know that. Five minutes from here. Then, to our cabbie: Plasturton. Take them to Plasturton. Our cabbie grinned. In fact, excepting for my wife and me, by now that whole little universe of cabbies was grinning. Ten minutes later, were on Plasturton Avenue, standing in front of the house that will be our home in Wales for the next three months, having just had our first lesson in one of the things that makes Wales truly distinctive.According to folks who study how we talk, intonations are different in Wales. Whereas most of us English speakers tend to augment sound with stressed syllables, thats not true of the Welsh. Instead, rhythm counts more, with stress tending to go to penultimate syllables. Hence, I was asking to go to PLAS-tur-TON. However, once the cabbies figured it out, we ended up going to Plas-TUR-ton.

We have recently added a feed in the right hand column for our new Forum feature. For the technically minded I should point out that this is not an RSS feed but rather a php module in a resizeable iframe. That said, the whole thing is very easy to use and the new display means that you can observe at a glance all the latest activity in the Forum. We will still use the old Ning Forums but we would like to encourage people to try out the new Forum as well. Just click on any of the links in the display in the right hand column to be taken to the appropriate thread.

Please feel free to start a new thread ( we are a little threadbare at the moment ) or reply to existing posts. Threads in the Forum can be saved to your hard drive as .pdf files and there are a host of other sophisticated features . Enjoy!

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