Kingfisher Of Hope

Out of Print...The innocent will always suffer, cariad, since the First innocent was crucified. These words, of a mother comforting her sensitive child, toll through this compassionate book like a bell. The mother, worn out by child-bearing and the struggle to keep her family alive and respectable, died prematurely, of pernicious anaemia. Her daughter, a child at grammar school, was condemned to domestic servitude. This is the story of the South Wales valleys and their courageous people. It is the story of a heartless capitalism incapable of understanding the price of coal, and of the Angry Summer of 1926, and of Aberfan. Yet this story is full of human warmth and happiness - delight in the beauty of nature, the joy of Christmas, the outings, the love of family and neighbours. Maggie Pryce Jones was born in Trelewis in the Merthyr Valley in the nineteen twenties, the oldest daughter in a large mining family. She attended Hengoed Grammar School but her mothers death halted career plans. Later, having married and had her own family, she attended Merthyr Technical College, became a civil servant and an enthusiastic trade unionist. She took up writing late in life. Now a widow, Maggie Pryce Jones lives in Treharris with her dog and three cats. She was memorably portrayed in the BBC Wales series on Welsh womens lives, 'The Time of My Life'.