Local characters inspire nostalgic new novel based in South Wales Valleys
A new novel based around the amusing antics of a group of
characters in a village in the
Tales from my Welsh
Village is Ken Smith’s first novel, and features the ridiculous activities
of some members of the pub fraternity in a close-knit
“Tales from my Welsh
Village captures a time gone by. Everyone in
The novel was inspired by Ken Smith’s time living and
working in the
Speaking of the camaraderie and the characters to be found
at the local pub in his
“I found some of the local characters so amusing that I felt some of their more outrageous antics should be recorded for posterity. Most of the tales are purely fictitious, while a few are very loosely based on actual events. Some of the more calamitous stories you just couldn’t make up!”
The novel is set in Rhyd-y-groes. One of the main members of the pub fraternity in Tales from my Welsh Village is inspired by a real local person – Trefor, the landlord of the Plough Inn - a born practical joker who often pushed things quite a bit too far! Another was Fred Howells, the local gravedigger and rat-catcher. According to Ken:
“Fred could turn a harmless situation into a rip roaring escapade without even trying, to the utter amusement of everyone in the pub.”
The novel creates great amusement from a few classic Fred incidents based on real events, such as the time his ferrets got loose and created havoc in the bingo, the time he used dynamite to speed up his gravedigging efforts and the time he was tricked by Trefor into thinking he’d come into a large sum in American dollars, only to narrowly avoid arrest when he tried to change the fake money in the local bank.
The book has been dedicated to
Ken Smith emigrated to
“As I live so far away from where I was brought up - over 4,500 miles – it has always been most important to me to keep in touch with as many family members and friends as possible by phone or e-mails, as I love the Valleys and the Rhigos area.”