Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
Pobol y Topie / Bont-Goch Lives
Pobol y Topie / Bont-Goch Lives
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Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description
Hanes difyr dros 100 o ddynion a merched a wnaeth gyfraniad i fywyd cyfoethog un o gymunedau gogledd Ceredigion, ac eraill a wnaeth eu cyfraniad y tu hwnt i Gymru mewn nifer o wledydd tramor gwahanol. Yn eu plith mae arlunwyr, athrawon, awduron, beirdd, bonedd, cenhadon, crefftwyr, ffermwyr, gweinidogion ac offeiriaid. Dwyieithog.
Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description
The fascinating story of over 100 men and women who shaped the life of a small community in north Ceredigion whilst others left Wales to make their contribution in a number of foreign countries. Persons noted include artists, authors, clergymen, craftsmen, farmers, gentry, miners and mining engineers, missionaries, poets politicians, schoolteachers and soldiers. Bilingual.
Manylion y cynnyrch / Product details
- ISBN 13
- 9781527275775
- Gwales Code
- gwales.com.9781527275775
- Gwerthwr / Vendor
- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
- Long Title
- Pobol y Topie / Bont-Goch Lives
- Awdur / Author
- Huws, Richard E
- Current Price ex VAT
- £12.00
- Current Price inc VAT
- £12.00
- Availability Status (EN)
- Available
- Availability Status (CY)
- Ar gael
- Dyddiad cyhoeddi / Publication Date
- 2020-11-06
- Cyhoeddwr / Publisher
- Richard Huws
- Media Type (EN)
- Paperback / softback
- Media Type (CY)
- Clawr meddal
- Pages
- 168 pages
- Size
- 200 × 210 mm
- Language Code
- Welsh; English
- Categori / Category
- CY: Bywgraffiadau a Chofiannau (yn Gymraeg) | EN: Biographies (in Welsh)
Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review
This bilingual volume about the people of Bont-goch is a very welcome companion to Richard E. Huws’s previous book on the house and farm names of the village ( Enwau tai a ffermydd Bont-goch , 2017). Together, the two books are an invaluable resource, both for individuals and for the community. Huws has lived in Bont-goch for twenty years, which is both a long and a short time – a long time in an era of ready mobility, with people often moving from one place to another, sometimes across the globe; a short time in the context of a rural community in which some people have lived their entire lives, and where homes, particularly farms, pass down from generation to generation. Pobol y Topie / Bont-goch Lives includes those who have been born or raised in the village and have moved away, those who have passed through or moved there and stayed, and those who can trace their families back through several generations. There are farmers, artists, miners and mine engineers, poets, academics, soldiers, teachers, a host of ministers, curates and vicars, and a welcome number of ‘local characters’. There is at least one birth date from the late eighteenth century, but most range from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Everyone included has passed away, some as recently as 2020. The research required to produce this book is phenomenal and meticulous. For each person, Huws gives the date and place of both birth and death, and also notes where people have been buried. This last piece of information seems important. It mattered to me recently that I was able to find the grave of a beloved teacher of more than fifty years ago, and place flowers there in remembrance. And I imagine this will be true for others with connections, whether familial or otherwise, to the people included here, especially as more time passes. Pobol y Topie / Bont-goch Lives actually includes photos of some people’s gravestones or memorials, but mostly the photos are of the people themselves. Women, though not necessarily under-represented here, tend to appear in entries for their husbands, with only a dozen or so having entries in their own right. These exceptions include Hilda Thomas of Cwmere and her younger sister, Aircraftswoman Dorothy Ann Evans, who died in a tragic accident during World War II; the ‘agricultural pioneers’, sisters Margaret and Mary Edwards of Plas Cefn Gwyn; and the extraordinary Lady Pryse, ‘one of north Ceredigion’s most colourful characters of recent years’. There are plenty of colourful characters here (such as Professor Melini, the phrenologist born in the village in 1869 whose London house was raided by the police, who ‘took away evidence including a crystal ball and magic wand’), and some extraordinary stories – the 1891 lightning strike that killed the Evans brothers at Pantyffynnon; ‘Dafis Affrica’, the first Wesleyan Welshman to serve in Africa as a missionary (in Sierra Leone in 1814-1818) who, having been elected mayor of Freetown and a justice of the peace, lost his mind as a result of illness and ended up being excommunicated in 1846 and hanging himself in 1851; and the time (1950-1952) when ‘the majority of [Bont-goch’s] parishioners went on strike for two years, boycotting all services’. But mostly the stories here are of ordinary people living ordinary lives, as most of us do – lives that are nonetheless significant, that make a mark on the community, and are worthy of remembrance. Richard E. Huws has done the community of Bont-goch, and all the people who live in the village or nearby, a great service in recording these lives. And his book deserves a place in every local home.
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