One thought on “A New Book”

  1. The following comment was received by e-mail from Mary Owen.

    So good to see the Jack Jones item today. He was a fine chronicler of his birthplace ,which like his contemporary, J.O. Francis, he liked to call ‘the Town of the Martyr’ . His style is not as scholarly as that of Francis, but it is admirable nevertheless. I admire his vivid descriptions of the Merthyr he knew, which had passed its heyday and men were seeking work elsewhere – in, for example the Rhondda. Two of my favourite books are ‘Black Parade’ -a cavalcade of a place and a time and his first autobiography, ‘Unfinished Journey’. Living conditions of the ordinary working class folk of which he was one, are sometimes raw and upsetting but he tells it as it was- so many of them loved going to the theatre, especially the women who took a few of their children, (Jack included) with them when there was money to spare. Some of the posher folk of the town loathed him for being so frank about the town’s living conditions and wouldn’t read his books. They had no idea that he wrote, with warmth and pride, some of the best information about his beloved town for local historians of the future. He wrote the dialogue for the film ‘Proud Valley’ and took the role, as did Paul Robeson, of one of the colliers. He signed a book ‘River out of Eden’ for me in W.H. Smiths in the 1970s.

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