Rape of the Fair Country

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What a land it is, this Wales! And of all its villages Llanelen is surely the best. The river is milk here, the country is honey, the mountains are crisp brown loaves hot from the baker’s oven one moment and green or golden glory the next. Beauty lies here by the singing river where the otters bark and the salmon leap, and I wish to God the English had stayed in England and ripped their own fields and burst their own mountains.”

It is a small village tale which is a part of a huge, ultimately worldwide movement - the birth of socialism, collective bargaining and universal suffrage. The owners will not negotiate and we have been sitting tight for too long. It is war if they insist in it. It has taken me twenty years of loyalty to learn that they make profits out of peace”. It's not just the story of the Mortymers, or even of Blaenavon and Nantyglo, but of the Chartist Movement and the birth of Trade Unionism. The events might be fictional, but they're true to the course of history, with Rape of the Fair Country ending with the disastrous Newport Rising of 1839. The research to write the book must have been extensive, but Cordell makes it seem effortless: momentous events viewed through the lense of a very human and likeable family. For it is greed you are discussing not politics. And until greed is taken from the hearts of men you will always have masters and poor, and which way round it is matters little" There were elements I did enjoy in the latter half of the book. The book does well to capture the community control of the Scotch Cattle and the excitement surrounding the growing Chartist movement. Zephaniah Williams and John Frost were and are giants of the working class campaign for universal (male) suffrage, political transparency and fairness for all. Industrially it was volatile moment in Welsh history and radical politics and protest came to the fore against shameful exploitation and destruction, there were even whispers of a Welsh Republic.

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Rape of the Fair Country is a novel by Alexander Cordell, first published in 1959. It is the first in Cordell's "Mortymer Trilogy", followed by The Hosts Of Rebecca (1960) and Song of the Earth (1969). [1] The book has been translated into seventeen languages. In addition to the book having been adapted for numerous plays over the years and more recently. [2] From the belly of my mother,” I said, talking the old language to please him. “She was born in Cyfarthfa long before Bacon puddled a furnace.” What I loved about the book was the simple but extremely powerful narrative style which Matt Addis captured brilliantly. As with anyone's life, there are moments of sheer joy coupled with the day-to-day 'slog' as well as huge, earth-shattering tragedies. I loved the fact that some of the most poignant episodes in the book are described so perfectly and then simply dismissed; life moves on and the shadow of the event lingers but the characters' lives continue onwards, as the need to survive dictates, without dwelling on the past.

What does Matt Addis bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book? I would listen to this again and again, I had read the book before (hard copy) and enjoyed it but this added a new dimension But he was still. Quite still he lay in the fading light of the torches, and his hands were frozen to the musket he held.But the hotel is occupied by armed soldiers and their superior firepower forces the Chartists to retreat, with twenty of their number killed and at least another fifty wounded. It is a disaster for the movement, and it is not clear what happens to Iestyn Mortymer – but his likely fate may well have been the same as top Newport leaders like John Frost and Zephaniah Williams, both of whom are transported to Tasmania. Others receive lengthy prison sentences with hard labour. Alexander Cordell clearly put in a lot of research into Chartism to write this book and his in depth knowledge of the history of the movement can be found in every chapter. Aside from the general reader, it should also be on the shelves of every student of English and Welsh social and economic history. I liked the difference in voices, after a few minutes listening you knew who was talking by the subtle changes in characterisation. I found it easy to listen to and very compelling, there was a consistency in the performance which never made the recording boring, I thought it was a great performance But for me, as a very proud Welshman, it can be a little anti-English in its sentiments at times. The author isn't Welsh, though he settled here eventually, and had an obviously very strong affinity with the country. But in his constant anti English rantings; One of the villains of the book is the Ironmaster of Merthyr Tydfil by the River Taff, William Crawshay. Here is an excerpt from the book: an old man, an iron “puddler”, blind, is dying by the roadside.

For me, the best parts of this story were the details of everyday life, love and survival during a period when working people had few choices or freedoms. Cordell's prose often verges on the poetic to create a vivid picture of the life and times of Iestyn Mortymer. I was particularly interested in the story of Iestyn's older sister, Morfydd, who struggles against convention and suffers for her pioneering opinions on politics and the role of women The plot concerns the Welsh iron-making communities of Blaenavon and Nantyglo in the 19th century. The action is seen through the eyes of young Iestyn Mortymer who grows up in times of growing tensions between ironmasters and trade unionists. In 1826, when the book starts, Iestyn is eight years old and already beginning work at the Garndyrus furnaces near Blaenavon. His sister Morfydd has strong feelings about women and children working in mines and ironworks. She sympathises with the Chartist movement and condemns the action of the militant Scotch Cattle groups. In this she is in opposition to Hywel Mortymer, their conservative father who later begins to question his own loyalty to the ironmaster. There also exist audio versions of the book in circulation read by Philip Madoc and there have been successive attempts to get the book made into a film. [3] Although the story exudes violence, the exploitation of a downtrodden workforce, sadistic floggings and bestial behaviour, it has its gentler and romantic moments. When Iestyn falls in love with his lovely Irish girl, Mari, there are delightful passages describing their courtship amongst the parts of the Usk valley which have yet to be destroyed by coal mines and ironworks. Six shillings a week she earns on the trams like an animal, too big round the waist for the towing belt. In less than four months she will drop it in coal dust’.I first read Rape of the Fair Country in the mid sixties, not long after it was first published. At the time I'd recently moved to South Wales and was puzzled by an iciness towards the English: I was nudged in the direction of Alexander Cordell's Rape of the Fair Country and The Hosts of Rebecca (the final part of the trilogy, Song of the Earth would not be published until the end of the decade) and soon understood why memories are long and forgiveness slow. There's an unflinching look at the hardships suffered, not just by the Mortymers but by all the workers and their families. Serious injuries and even death are commonplace. Poeetiline ülimasendav naturalistlik-realistlik pilguheit 19. sajandi esimese poole Walesi rauasulatustööstusesse, ehk siis Inglise industrialismi sünnivaludele. Neidsamu sünnivalusid jälgitakse läbi Mortymeride perekonna suht traagilise käekäigu. Ehedat autentsust lisavad walesikeelsed väljendid ja mõningad tavad. Eks see raamat vene ajal 1964. aastal ilmuski kuna teda saab ka kirjeldada kui "tööliste võitlust kapitalistlike ekspluataatorite vastu" ja eks pidanud marksismi klassikud tšartiste miskiteks eel-revolutsionäärideks niikuinii, kahe silma vahele on aga jäänud täiesti keltidest waleslaste suht vabad abielueelsed suguelukombed ja julmad kaklused millega nad omavahel tülisid lahendasid, samuti walesi tööliste suht vankumatu ja konservatiivne usklikkus. Olles seda raamatut lugenud vähemalt 10 korda on mind alati siiski haaranud äärmine poeetiline traagika, mis tegelastele osaks saab, samuti walesi looduse ülistus. When we refer to William Crawshay of Merthyr Tydfil we allude to a man who has done more for Glamorganshire, and perhaps for South Wales, than any other living individual. He was one of the few remarkable men who can give a character to a country and a tone to an age. In the extent of his speculations and unbounded enterprise, we cannot name another Cambrian who has done so much and so well or the Principality of Wales.”

Rape Of The Fair Country’ is a dramatic account of the industrial revolution in the raw. It is set in the early years of the nineteenth century, when that turbulent and cruel period in British history was in full flight - destroying the countryside and creating dreadful sufferings for the working population – whose former gentle life in green fields was replaced by brutal labour in quarries, factories, coal mines and ironworks.Talking about joining the union/going on strike after one of the family is badly injured in the foundry: I live in Newport, and although this story is fiction it has a basis in the areas history, which makes it very interesting to me, but it is a great story for anyone, it is earthy and has humour, romance and gives an alternative view re the conditions suffered by the workers