Up the Rhondda!: A Peculiar Sort of Hiraeth

"...on every page, and in pretty much every paragraph, the author's love for the place that shaped him shines through..."
- Nation Cymru

"The values celebrated in these chapters make me understand why I feel so proud to come from the Rhondda... Wherever you're from, you won't fail to be inspired." - Sophie Evans, West End singing star

The Rhondda: a valley that fueled the world. In this kaleidoscopic portrait, John Geraint fixes - with a filmmaker's eye - the experience of living in this vibrant former mining community. The valley springs vividly to life as John takes us down crazily angled terraced streets, on magical mountain walks, to 'Bracchi' cafés and, with teenage sweethearts, to see Rhondda heroes on the silver screen. We meet eccentric schoolteachers, working-class 'billionaires' and the man who invented Corona pop. Comic and evocative, this is no conventional catalogue of hiraeth: John's pointed observations reveal how his valley has changed and is changing, and how the values it has lived by can help guide the Rhondda - and the wider world - towards a better future. Up The Rhondda! will delight Valleys people, and fascinate and entertain anyone the world over who has a lively interest in how places and the past shape our understandings and convictions in the present.