Wales’ history brought to life
Hill’ – what you would have seen from there over the last 1,000 or so years, and how and why it changed.
“I was blown away by the idea – the way it had made history immediately relevant to the learners and helped them to understand the pattern of the past. It made me think about the way in which history has shaped our landscape and how the events of the past are relevant to us today.”
While writing the book, Elin kept Josephine in mind to ensure it would appeal to her age group and, once Gwasg Carreg Gwalch had accepted it for publication, the intended audience was widened to include school years five to eight. However, the book has something to teach readers of all ages.
“Over the years, as I have been talking to people about history, I have realised how many people seem to feel they have missed out on knowing the history of Wales,” says Elin. “Also, while working on the curriculum and its assessment, I became aware that an understanding of chronology was often not as well developed as I would have hoped – so I thought that a history of Wales through its landscape would provide a chronological framework, helping to show how one thing led to another and all of these left their marks on the land around us.
“Josephine’s auntie Rowena has emailed me to say the book is really useful for tired mums (she has a three-year-old) and someone else has said it is good bedtime reading, because it’s all in very short sections.”
The book covers the biggest stories in Welsh history and also shares some lesser-known tales which deserve an airing – for example, the one of Elizabeth Miles, a widowed mother of two young children who took on a pub to make ends meet and was so successful she ended up running several businesses, including the Bridge Hotel in Llandrindod Wells. She transformed this from a hotel for 40 guests into the massive Metropole Hotel, which can accommodate 200 and is still run by her family today.
The book is also packed with intriguing mysteries, such as the carving of a little warrior that can be seen at Eglwysilan church near Caerphilly. The image, found in the churchyard in 1904, may date to pre-Christian times.
The book is arranged in chronological order, offering up fascinating stories and images on every page.
“The idea of a chronological framework was very important to me and – I hope – provides a clear framework to follow,” says Elin. “I also had my brief to include enough women, so I tried to give a brief portrait of a man and a woman from each period. That was difficult sometimes and I don’t think I managed to stick to that in the last part of the book – but Josephine is okay with it.
“The biggest challenge was trying to get all of the different strands of history from 1850 onwards to come together coherently. By the end of the process, I had this concept of a growing sense of
equality between people and this helped to keep my eye on the shape of the final section.”
She is delighted with the maps and illustrations that bring the book to life: “I would like to pay a huge tribute to the brilliant publishing team who put them all together,” she says. “I would produce some suggestions – and sometimes some truly terrible sketches – and they would produce what you see on the page.”
Spurred on by the delight of seeing her book in print, Elin is now poised to release her next project – a cartoon book about the story of Llywelyn Bren of Senghennydd, one of her childhood heroes, which is due out in March.
“The brilliant cartoons are by a professional cartoonist, Graham ‘Picasso’ Griffiths,” she says. “I’ve got lots of other ideas, but they’re still in the process of development and involve other people, so I can’t say anything about them at the moment. On the other hand, maybe Josephine will have a new brief for me!”
■ History Grounded is out now, published by Gwasg Carreg Gwalch