25th Anniversary -- free Kindle book promotion

For five days, starting on Monday 4th November, we will have a free "anniversary" promotion on the Amazon web site, with the Kindle versions of the first three books in the saga.  You can download the digital or "electronic" versions of the three novels completely free of change.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074CFGRJ6?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1730659108&sr=1-1&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin

Just click on the Kindle edition of each book to order your free download.

Enjoy!!

Here's the story:

In 1999 my wife and I flew to Gran Canaria on holiday, and en route I was struck down by aerotoxic syndrome. I felt sick before we landed, but then I experienced classic flu-like symptoms. I went straight to bed when we arrived at the apartment, and spent the night wide awake, feeling very ill indeed. One hears about "a fevered imagination" and now I know what it means. Anyway, a story came into my head - of a feisty woman called Martha Morgan. It was "narrated" -- I can still recall the female voice. Dates, places, characters, and a storyline covering the greater part of her life from 1796 to 1855. Individual episodes came into my head, and I even "heard" key conversations. 

In the morning, not having slept a wink, I felt better, but the story was fixed firmly inside my head. I told my wife about this strange experience, and she said “Well then, you’d better start writing!” So I did..... and I knew that the story had to be told in Martha's own words, with immediacy, through diary entries.

Twenty-one years later, I still do not know what to make of that episode. l think that the story was “given” to me, and that in order to keep faith I had -- in the beginning -- to try and put into words the emotions and experiences of a pregnant, suicidal 18-year-old female who lived more than 200 years ago. 

The narrative extended, eventually, across eight novels; and I can honestly say that the only one of those that involved the "invention"of characters and narrative was "Guardian Angel". The reasons for that will be obvious to the loyal readers of the Saga.

Parrog Milkman

 

This old a great olde photo, posted on Facebook by Ann Evans.  It shows the milk delivery to the Parrog householders when the tide is high.  Date -- c 1950 or 1960?

Storytelling mode.............

 Discovered this old photo (from a few years ago) of me in storytelling mode, telling tall takes to small children in the Newport Library........

Pitch deck now available online

Here is the link to the pitch deck which Steve has created --  freely available to all who might be able to help in bringing the project to fruition.  Feel free to share with anybody willing to help in the creation of a costume drama masterpiece........

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGOc6qd-Zo/Y2xFEY4PXsi8wYVen4YesQ/view?utm_content=DAGOc6qd-Zo&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

Martha -- sometimes happy, sometimes sad, always complicated

 

This is a lovely pic created with AI by Steve.  So this particular lady doesn't exist, except in the mind -- but if you want to start a fan club, go ahead.......

Martha was nothing if not complicated, in the depths of despair one day and carried on a wave of optimism and joy the next.  Here she is quite young, as she might have been in the first volume of the saga.

Parrog, by Graham Hadlow

 This is a wonderful water colour painting of the Parrog (Newport) from artist Graham Hadlow.  Almost Turneresque........

Graham has greatly simplified the housing along the Parrog shore, but in doing so he represents quite closely what the scene might have looked like around 1820, when Mistress Martha was in her prime........

The rather modern boats give the game away, but it's a lovely landscape painting anyway.

By the way, Graham kindly provided the paintings for the dust jackets of my hardback books of Pembrokeshire Folk Tales, back in the day.

Every story needs a monster

 

IN PRAISE OF MONSTERS


An eerie shadowy faceless figure dressed in black from head to toe walks -- or glides -- through the pages of "Dark Angel”, volume three of the Angel Mountain saga. Who -- or what -- is this strange creature that appears intermittently, leaving no trace of his movements, even when there is snow on the ground which should show up footprints? Is The Nightwalker a human being intent on stalking or terrorising our heroine Martha and her family and friends? Or is the creature a ghost -- or a devil -- or even the Grim Reaper, come to remind Martha of her mortality and maybe of her impending demise? 

And remember this before you start to worry about authenticity -- or about me as an author making people seem silly and gullible when in any real situation they would have thought rationally and applied due scrutiny. In the Wales of the early 1800's Darwin had not yet written his "Origin of Species" and there was still a widespread belief that the Bible was TRUE in all respects.  Many people believed that ghosts and demons might indeed be out there, prowling about and sometimes visiting punishment on the wicked.  The supernatural was a part of everyday life.

In the writing of eight novels and in the portrayal of Wales as it was 200 years ago, I was always mindful that I should not fill the story with "modern people in fancy dress".

Anyway, the character of The Nightwalker is one of the most interesting of the 200 or so characters who appear in the stories. As an author, of course I have used the "creature" to symbolise the darker components of this story -- Martha's loneliness and despair, her paranoia, and her tendency towards depression. But it was also interesting to turn everything upside down towards the end of the novel, and to turn The Nighwalker into an ultimately pathetic and even tragic figure -- and the scene in which Martha is finally forced to confront this creature is one of the scenes of which I am most proud.... but I must not give too much away.........

Beauty and the Beast. The Phantom of the Opera. King Kong. Ogres, monsters and trolls. Literature is full of these terrifying figures who are demonised because they are different -- either because they are large, or ugly, or fail to conform with what we are used to seeing as beautiful or comfortable. The great film called "Monsters" comes to mind as well. All too often the monsters are themselves terrified because they have suffered from some traumatic event, or just because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Anyway, every story needs a monster……..
https://lnkd.in/eWwE6FmE

"A hymn to the human spirit....."

Delilah in the rain.......

I was reminded last night, in a message from a friend who has been re-reading the 8 novels of the saga, that we should not spend all or time flagging up the darkness and the drama of the narrative.  Supercharged action and unremitting gloom seem to be the predominant features of much modern TV drama -- and to a degree we have been sucked into the process of demonstrating that on that front the life story of Martha Morgan stands up against even the most violent TV dramas and films currently available.  But, but.......

This is what my friend said: “The narrative is filled with humour, thought provoking challenges, beauty and inspiration. It really is a soaring hymn to the human spirit…."  

We must remember that whatever characteristics Martha has, she is also resilient, irrepressible, compassionate, easily moved to both tears and laughter. Whatever happens to her, no matter how serious her injuries may be and how dark her moods may be, she always -- eventually -- comes up smiling.  I suppose that is what endears her to her readers.  

As the story came to me, it is full of humour, partly derived from Martha's dry wit and lack of respect for authority, but also derives from the situations in which she finds herself.  In each of the 8 volumes there are episodes that were great fun to write, and which have acted as counterpoints to the episodes filled with pain and tragedy.  Unconsciously, I suppose that as a writer I have been influenced by the titans of the theatre.  Shakespeare, of course, famously had ridiculous characters scattered through all of his plays, and many of the most dramatic scenes in the history of stage drama are followed by episodes of levity, involving clowns and fools who knowingly or unknowingly say and do hilarious things.

Somebody said that the novels of the saga are Shakespearean in their emotional scope ---and that's one of the compliments that has meant a great deal to me.

So yes, there is love, beauty, tenderness and laughter in the stories, and we should not forget to advertise the fact.  My favourite comedy characters from the series?  Well, the ever-pompous Rector Devonald, then Wilmot Gwynne and his voluptuous wife Delilah, then Beau Brummell, then Sergeant Dafydd Gruffydd in Chapter 6 of "Guardian Angel" who says everything at least twice, using slightly different combinations of words.......... and so on and so on.

But the best clowns and fools, in the grand literary tradition, are given license to speak truth to power, and to have insights into the depths of the human soul.  And so it is with all of the colourful characters who say and do apparently foolish things in the pages of the novels.  So yes, please laugh if you like, but also dig deeper.........

See also:

https://brian-angelmountain.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-role-of-humour-in-serious-fiction.html

The dastardly villains.......

Moses Lloyd

 

Alban Watkins

George Howell

Benjamin Rice

Now we are on Instagram

Thanks to Steve, we now have a brilliant presence on Instagram. Look for "Angelmountainsaga" and thou shalt find. Hope you approve -- please like and follow!

https://www.instagram.com/angelmountainsaga/?hl=en

We are trying to capture the dark and gritty nature of the drama as it is now adapted for TV.  There are various tweaks to the storyline with a view to enhancing the dramatic intensity  -- we hope that some of the fans who know the story inside out won't get too upset!!

More pics from Martha Morgan Country

 

Some great images found on Facebook.  There are some very good photographers out there........

The Portrayal of Wales (again)

The Way -- Celtic Weird at its best........

Around 2015-2016 there was a lot of discussion in the media about "the portrayal of Wales", encouraged by a Senedd Committee set up to investigate the output (in Wales) of high-end drama in film and on TV. An Open University article included these words:

".........the Welsh national character is portrayed as anti-imperial, tolerant and internationalist, by contrast with the English, who are perceived as colonialist and racist. This is, of course, a part of national myth making and cannot be supported by available historical or contemporary evidence. However, it is a deeply held and powerful belief." 

Almost a decade has passed since this was published:

https://jpcrocks.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/wales-on-film/

.........and a lot of it still holds. But many films and TV series have been shown and broadcast since then, and the stereotypes are still being perpetrated. Maybe we see fewer coal mines and male voice choirs than we did back in the day, and its good to see a regular stream of productions taking advantage of the new opportunities for streaming (on Netflix, Amazon Prime etc) and appearing on the mainstream BBC and ITV channels. With S4C playing a pivotal role in the commissioning of new material, there was always a danger that the production companies would concentrate their efforts on small-scale and cheap productions for "internal consumption." But that hasn't happened, and many of the better productions have been reviewed in mainstream media and watched by large audiences across the UK and the rest of the world. So one is justified in asking this question: what does the rest of the world think about Wales, as it is portrayed on the large and the small screen?

One needs to do a proper study to find the answer to that, and in the meantime we can but speculate. In 2013, along came "Hinterland", to be followed by "Hidden" and "Keeping Faith" to confirm that Celtic Noir was really embraced in Wales, having already had a great success across the UK with "Shetland".   Celtic Noir was accepted as a genre across the world, while never quite acquiring the status of Scandi Noir, which is still going strong (one series after another, many of them on the Viaplay streaming channel.)  This is all rather subjective, but my feeling is that Welsh drama output has become a bit messy in the last 5 years, with series like "The Light in the Hall", "Wolf", and "Dal y Mellt" lurking in the shadows and "Pitching In" and "The Valleys", which were supposed to be funny, turning out to be disasters.  But in spite of the brilliance of "Men Up", there is more dark than light. and we now seem to have moved on from Celtic Noir to Celtic Weird.  How else to interpret "The Way" and "Tree on a Hill", two pretentious, chaotic and utterly dreadful series that I gave up on after the first episode.  I know of many other viewers who did the same, and others who switched channels after just a few minutes.

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/the-way-bbc-one-review-michael-sheen-b1139373.html 

Some comments on the web:
"I really, really wanted to like The Way, especially as it's filmed locally; but so far, it's been nearly 40 minutes of pretentious drivel."
"TheWay on BBC1. Contender for worst drama of the decade."

 "Can't we have a drama set in Wales that isn't grim?  Wales is a beautiful place full of diverse people, every drama that comes out of Wales is daft and grim......"

So now the message about Wales that goes out into the world is that male voice choirs and coal mines have been replaced as icons by ranting martyrs, despairing communities and nutters, portrayed by writers and directors who are more interested in surrealism and innovation than in good stories, well told.  So where next, I wonder?

https://nation.cymru/opinion/we-must-fight-back-against-a-popular-culture-that-depicts-the-welsh-as-idiots/

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/162/welsh-affairs-committee/news/101267/portrayal-of-wales-on-screen-needs-urgent-improvement/

https://www.thetalentmanager.com/blog/909/tvs-portrayal-of-wales-in-the-spotlight

Welsh TV -- Goodbye Celtic Noir, Hello Celtic Weird

WELSH TV -- GOODBYE CELTIC NOIR, HELLO CELTIC WEIRD

One minute we are celebrating the brilliant "Men Up", and the next minute we are thinking "What on earth is happening with Welsh TV?"

Ten years ago the critics were lauding "Hinterland" in Wales which followed "Shetland" in Scotland as a pioneer of this new thing called "Celtic Noir".  I enjoyed "Hinterland" although its unremittingly dark portrayal of Wales was not to everybody's liking. It didn't succeed in quite the same way as "Shetland" did, and it did get a bit tired towards the end of its run. A bit more humour might have helped. It didn't make a vast amount of money. But it inspired a host of other effective dramas including "Hidden" and "Keeping Faith", and a number of other TV series filmed in both Welsh and English which seem to have become increasingly bizarre over the years. Some have been good and others have been terrible.  Then we had the police investigative real crime reconstruction dramas called "The Pembrokeshire Murders" and "Steeltown Murders" -- the first pretty impressive and the second, in my opinion, somewhat contrived and overblown.

Then we come to the latest (2024) heavily promoted drama series. Am I the only one who gave up watching "The Way" at the end of the first episode, and then did the same with "Tree on a Hill" a few nights ago? Both truly dreadful programmes, in my opinion. "The Way" was a pretentious mish-mash of social protest rhetoric, ludicrous storyline, fairy tale, magic and historical symbolism. Some people liked it, I suppose, but segments of the media re-named it "The Mess", and I can see why.  OK -- it was Michael Sheen's obsession and his name was enough to get it financed, created and broadcast. But did it do anything for the reputation of Welsh TV or the Welsh nation? I fear not.

As for "Tree on a Hill", I found it quite bizarre, which I suppose was the intention of Ed Thomas, who created it, wrote the script, executive produced, and directed it. Eccentricity in characterisation and storyline is OK, but here the characters are so bizarre and caricatured that they are all deeply unlikeable. In "establishing shots", the attempts to flesh out the characters of the key players are very crude.  The storyline is preposterous. And the whole episode, which should hook in the viewer, is laboured and pretentious.  Conversations are for the most part somewhat banal. The actors look bored. Scene after scene goes on for far too long, and all the humour falls flat. It is, after all, promoted as a "dark comedy"............ I wonder if Ed is trying to rebrand himself as the Salvador Dali of Wales? Surrealism is fine, in its place, but this is a mish-mash, maybe arising from a determination to push creative boundaries and create some great work of art that is impossible to pigeon-hole or categorize. Exciting?  Radical? Experimental? Ground-breaking?  Hmmmmm......

At the end of the first episode I found myself longing for a classical drama following the simple rule of portraying ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events.......  I can understand that Welsh screenwriters and production companies want to do exciting and innovative work, and I can understand why the financiers and the broadcasters (not to mention Creative Wales) want to give their support, but drama output should be aimed not at earnest discussion groups in Film and TV degree courses, but at the viewing public.  

So please, no more Celtic Weird. Arguably, Wales has already been misrepresented for too long already  in TV dramas as a place of psychopaths dwelling in semi-derelict farmhouses up on the wild moorlands of mid-Wales.  So de we now want it to be misrepresented again, this time as a place inhabited by complete nutters? 

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN WALES

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN WALES

https://senedd.wales/media/vfmmf1d1/cr-ld16426-e.pdf

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68654383?fbclid=IwAR0w0UQo2z9SecsnrnERZNPYDU507KEjYw9qralOHSUvWw9eapAcXK4PEJE

It's good to see that the Welsh Assembly / Senedd has done another investigation of this matter. The Committee Report, just published, makes assorted worthy recommendations. But I was staggered to see that the Report contains virtually nothing about the in-depth representation of Wales (and the "selling of Wales") in public service broadcasting output.  The Committee almost seems to be unaware that TV is a promotional medium, not just something used for entertainment and factual or news reporting.

Quote:

"70. The BBC also has work to do on ensuring that people across Wales feel represented by the services they receive. The scale of this challenge is clear as only half the Welsh population think the BBC reflects “people like them”. We are optimistic that improved representation will be one of the consequences of the BBC’s Across the UK plans. The BBC must be ambitious in these plans, and Ofcom need to be similarly ambitious in what it asks for from the broadcaster.

Recommendation 8. Ofcom should be ambitious in using its regulation of the BBC to drive improvements to the BBC’s representation and portrayal of people in Wales. The BBC and Ofcom should report back to this Committee before the end of the Sixth Senedd to report on its progress."

So there is no insistence that the BBC and the other broadcasters should devote serious resources to the telling of the Welsh story-- and play a role in developing Welsh national self-awareness and pride in its heritage. The "portrayal of people" in Wales is a different matter entirely.  Wales is, arguably, already well portrayed through a string of "Celtic Noir" dramas, some of them good and some of them terrible -- but all portraying Wales as a pretty miserable place populated by psychopaths and weird hermits living in the dark woods and out on the bleak uplands!  Owls, cobwebs, deserted farmhouses, and mutilated corpses proliferate.......

It's all very timid and unimaginative. A missed opportunity, since Welsh production companies currently spend much more of their time, and devote more of their expertise, to the telling of other peoples' stories rather than their own. That was a point made strongly round about the time of the last Committee review, a few years ago. 

So are we nowadays a proud and confident nation with our own unique narrative? Not on this evidence. Scotland knows how to do it, with Wales lagging far behind.

See also:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/1332895073239296384

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/2021202063279546799

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/214899534126205324

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/6622277849502862975

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/777544346778325937

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/5940215187797442833

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6213147837343782336/7734630347947395414

https://brian-angelmountain.blogspot.com/search?q=Welsh+narrative

Newport 1835

 

This is a wonderful image from the National Library selection.  Newport around the year 1835 around the topm end of Marketv Street.  The building where the Friends Garden is now located does not look like a dwelling -- there are no proper windows.  Also the arched door is unusual.  Could it have been a stable for people who were coming into town to attend the market or on other business?

Note how ruinous the castle is.  It was renovated and brought back into use as a dwelling around 1855 -- and the facade overlooking the town was changed almost out of recognition, with the trimming down of the left tower and the addition of assorted windows,

So this is how the centre of town will have looked around Martha's time..........