Season of the Long Grass

This is an autobiographical story of growing up in a mining community in the Welsh Valleys in the 1950s. It looks at life in the valleys through the eyes of a child. The reader is taken quickly into the past where the dialogue, written in local dialect, makes the characters live in the reader's mind. It is essentially a story of growing up in the valleys in a gentler time and the transition from child to young adult. Physical description of the writer's haunts such as Table Rock in the 'Long Grass' are evocative. Some scenes in the book are funny, some poignant and some colourfully descriptive of the times such as the Sunday School outing to the seaside, Christmas in Wales and the Boxing Day hunt. There are hilarious forays into the English countryside, the valleys funeral of a young girl, the Welsh Americans, the annual carnivals, fairgrounds, school life and 'Rock and Roll'. The book is essentially a journey through childhood to adolescence, and a burgeoning awareness that adulthood will mark the end of the 'Season of the Long Grass'. The conclusion brings the reader back to the present day where the adult searches once again for the 'Long Grass' only to find that, like the evolving society, it has changed beyond recognition. Finally, she realises that even though this time is long gone the dreams and memories of childhood live on; that past and present are fused into one entity.