My Neighbors

by Caradoc Evans

...passed Capel Sion, people who were gathered at the roadside to judge them remarked how that Aben was blind in his left eye and that Dan's shoulders were as high as his ears. At the finish of a round of time Sheremiah hired out his sons and all that they earned he took away from them; and he and Catrin toiled to recover Rhydwen p 121 from its slovenry. After he had paid all that he owed for the place, and after Catrin had died of dropsy, he called his sons home. Thereon he thrived. He was over all on the floor of Sion, even those in the Big Seat. Men in debt and many widow-women sought him to free them, and in freeing them he made compacts to his advantage. Thus he came to have more cattle than Rhydwen could hold, and he bought Penlan, the farm of eighty acres which goes up from Rhydwen to the edge of the moor, and beyond. In quiet seasons he and Aben and Dan dug ditches on the land of Rhydwen; "so that," he said, "my creatures shall not perish of thirst." Of a sudden a sickness struck him, and in the hush which is sometimes before death, he summoned to him his sons. "Off away am I to the Palace," he said. "Large will be the shout of joy among the angels," Aben told him. p 122 "And much weeping there will be in Sion," said Dan. "Speak you a little verse for a funeral preach." "Cease you your babblings, now, indeed," Sheremiah demanded. "Born first you were, Aben, and you get Rhydwen. And you, Dan, Penlan." "Father bach," Aben cried, "not right that you leave more to me than Dan." "Crow you do like a cuckoo," Dan admonished his brother. "Wise you are, father. Big already is your giving to me." Aben looked at the window and he beheld a corpse candle moving outward through the way of the gate. "Religious you lived, father Sheremiah, and religious you put on a White Shirt." Then Aben spoke of the sight he had seen. The old man opened his lips, "Hish, hish, boys. Break you trenches in Penlan, Dan. Poor bad are farms without water. More than...

116 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 1919

About the author

David Caradoc Evans was a Welsh novelist, short-story writer, and playwright who wrote in English. He was married to writer Oliver Sandys.

Reviews

[Ben Dutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caradoc Evans, a London based Welshman, a writer whose work was described as “literary filth” (by the Western Mail), is one of the great names of Welsh letters: and yet he is barely known in the twenty-first century, though his work is still in print.

My Neighbours differs from his most famous work, My People (1915) which was a collection of stories set in the Cardiganshire village of Capel Sion. It was a work that polarised public opinion; with many claiming Evans had betrayed his homeland. My People, like My Neighbours, was written in a highly stylised manner – Biblical in tone, for it was through translations of the Bible that Evans learnt much of his English. My Neighbours, however, is not localised in the way My People was: Evans’s aim is broader here. In the fifteen stories that make up My Neighbours, we are with the London Welsh, men and women ostracised or working away from their homeland.

There is only one recurring character in My Neighbours – God – and His influence is felt in all the people gathered here. Their suffering is amplified by their faith. There is a fundamentalism to these people. “David nursed his patience and then, full of misery, sent up a plea to God. He also put arguments in the mouth and money in the hand of a preacher, and the preacher bade God multiply the Welsh nation and listen to the cry of His religious little children.” That is from the story Wisdom, and it highlights the other consistent thread of this collection – politics. It extols a Welsh nation separate from England (though always obliquely). It is a story collection that seems timeless, revealing a group of people for whom the wider world is unnoticed – the stories in this collection were written during the First World War – and in London there were air raids, and danger, and yet none of this is evident. The London Welsh continue oblivious.

My Neighbours then, is a fine, if sometimes awkward collection – ones enjoyment of it is wholly dependent upon you accepting the stylised voice – that revels in the torture of faith and poverty; a work that uncovers a world long forgotten but whose political, and religious messages, are as indentured in the twenty-first century as they were at the beginning of the twentieth. Caradoc Evans is a great writer, and though this may not be his best work, it is never less than powerful.