Border Country

First published in 1960, but set for the most part in the 1920s and 30s, this book was recently reissued by the National Library of Wales as part of an initiative to make more widely available the literary output of Wales written in English. Will (or Matthew) is a university lecturer in London, where he is researching population movements of South Wales, where he grew up. He is called back to his home village in the Welsh Borders to visit his father, Harry, who has suffered a heart attack and the book tells their early story together and the sequence of events that led to Will moving away. Theirs was a relationship where little had been said but much felt and this new crisis raises difficult feelings for Will and makes him look again at show more his past and his relationship with his parents, family friends from his childhood and with his own wife and children.

The book evokes the old Welsh village life in the Welsh Borders extremely well. But the border country of the title is more than just the geographical border - it is also about the borders between past and present, staying and leaving, silence and speech, life and death. Sparingly written, moving and thoughtful. show less

When his father becomes ill Matthew returns to his Welsh village to visit and repair the relationship between the working class father and the boy who left to become a university lecturer in London. There is no social ladder-climbing here, just the boy's choice.

As well as a moving story about love between father and son, this is a quiet tale of Welsh family and social history published in 1960. Williams evocatively describes the old way of life in the rural border country and the changes that are inevitable There is some Welsh dialect that serves to remind readers of where we are.

The Wales Arts Review awarded this Greatest Welsh Novel, well deserved.

The foreword is by Dai Smith, who holds the Raymond Williams Chair at the University of show more Wales.

The delightful cover Little Train was painted in 1948 by Charles Burton, one of Wales' foremost artists. show less

This was a reading group book. I enjoyed it more than expected and got quite emotionally involved with the characters. The story of a father and son in the border country of Wales and their relationship over the years. The father knows his own mind but never communicates while the son is torn between his academic London life and his home life as a Welsh working class son. Worth a read.