A Welsh Childhood

by Alice Thomas Ellis

For Alice Thomas Ellis, Wales was a magical place of unrestricted freedom and exploration. Through her recollections, the acclaimed novelist evokes the stark beauty of the Welsh landscape along with its history, legends, and people. Patrick Sutherland's 90 black-and-white images complement the text and make this shared journey even more compelling.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Memoir, British Literature, History, Autobiography

186 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Alice Thomas Ellis was short-listed for the Booker prize for The 27th Kingdom. She is the author of A Welsh Childhood (autobiography), Fairy Tale and several other novels including The Summerhouse Trilogy, made into a movie starring Jeanne Moreau and Joan Plowright.

Reviews

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just Finished (15) A Welsh Childhood By Alice Thomas Ellis. I loved this book. I've just spent the last 45 minutes copying out passages into a notebook to read someday when I'm feeling homesick for the Welsh countryside. Ellis writes of a childhood spent roaming the hills and valleys of northern Wales and of the times her own children did the same. She is poignant and funny, more wry, than haha funny, when she touches on memory and the longing for what once was. The black and white photos accompanying the text are stunning. One of my favorite passages: "I have never felt truly at ease or at home anywhere but Wales. I fell in love with the land as I believe people are supposed to fall in love with other people. I wanted to be one flesh with it." Amen to that.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novelist Alice Thomas Ellis begins with her childhood memories, which reveal an acerbic wit that she never loses. Soon she is sketching her motherhood, observing that she didn't know they were the happiest of her life until they had passed. I'm thinking that right now might be the happiest time of my life, or at least that I am worried that it is going to get less happy as I age.

[Jean Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Alice Thomas Ellis' sense of humor but my favorite part of this book was when she wrote of her grief.

"We were living here when our second son, Joshua, died, and his death formed a hinge in existence. Everything that happened before led up to it, and everything that has happened since is only afterwards. He lies in the graveyard across the fields and one day I shall lie besides him, and it won't matter anymore. I do not know how people contain such pain. His father wrote this epitaph for him.

Joshus Haycraft
Who died 21 May 1978
aged nineteen years
after a fall

Joshua,
for whom the sun
did not stand still,
but as you fell headlong
so set for you,
as suns return
you too, most sweet beloved,
will return
and in the name of him
whose name is yours
rise again. "

My younger brother died at 12 falling from a tree and my older brother wrote an Epitaph that is on his gravestone. The loss of my brother is still with me just as she describes - a hinge. I saw my parents ruined with grief and wondered the same, how could they contain such pain? How can anyone?

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, and plan on reading all of Alice Thomas Ellis now.

Here's a few samples:

"I have absolutely no faith in history since my memory of my own is so vague, conflicting and confused. I sometimes think that at some point the young girl was simply replaced by a completely new transplant and was taken into the earth under the gnarled hawthorns and the rocky outcrops. She had no interest in babies or in cooking, she had no concept of fear and couldn't understand what her mother meant by 'worry'"..."and if it wasn't for remembering the clothes she wore I would doubt that she ever existed."

"Four little boys are rather like hamsters - however you try to cage them they get out - the road from the Sychnant Pass was near and dangerous and I didn't want them burrowing through the rowan, honeysuckle and bramble into the Friary grounds to annoy the good brothers. So we took a cottage sixty-odd miles away near Bala in the Aber Hirnant forest..."

It is illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Patrick Sutherland.

[Annie Schoonover · Rating 5 out of 5]

A seamless blend of memory, history, and mythology, beautifully written.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author's anecdotes are interesting and charmingly written, and the black and white photographs are beautiful.

[Wealhtheow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, if melancholy, illustrated guide to the Wales of the author's childhood.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely.