Jack Jones is now a near forgotten writer, and does not wholly dererve to be.

He has his faults - a tendency to run-away sentimentality (he was Welsh, after all), and construction so poor that characters prominent at the beginning of his books, seem to drift out of focus to become incidental characters later on.

But he knew his subject - which was the history of the South Wales coalfield from its rise - (if that is not too lixed a metaphor for coal-mines) in the 1880s through its prosperity before World War 1, through to the depression of the 20s and 30s.

Prosperity is a relative term - for he knew first hand of the squalor in which many lived even at the best of times.

This is the first of a few "sagas" he penned, telling this history through one working class family. (Actually the later sagas tended to feature more well-to-do families, who rise more succesfully with the prosperity of the region.) The central character is Saran - the lively intelligent daughter of a disreputable family who is wooed by a miner and becomes "Mam" to a large brood of children whom she supports through hard times. She is apparently based on Jones' own mother, also called Saran.

Though a strong character undoubtedly - and no doubt an accurate portrayal of many working class women - there is a part of me that finds her rather irritating. Whatever else he was, Jones was no feminist. He finds it natural - noble but natural - that the women should slave and scheme to keep things going while it is the men who try to make some broader sense of it all through politics.

The men are also allowed refuge in drink, but, to be fair, I don't think he really approves of that.

An authentic book though, a book which shold be read; should at least be available to read. It is long since out of print and I took years to find my copy.