Down the Road and Round the Bend

In this collection of twenty short tales, Roy Noble celebrates the fascinating histories and traditional stories rooted in Wales, some canonical, and others less well-known today but equally deserving of attention. Seamlessly blending anecdote and personal insight with historical detail, Roy has compiled a selection of humorous and engrossing explorations of traditional Wales spanning the length and breadth of the country, suffusing each with his passion, knowledge and natural gift for storytelling. AUTHOR: Roy Noble is an award-winning BBC radio and television presenter. He is a patron and supporter for many charities and received the OBE for services to the community and for charity support in Wales. He has published several books, including his autobiography Noble Ways: Lay-bys in My Life (Accent Press, 2010). Roy Noble is an award-winning BBC radio and television presenter. He is a patron and supporter for many charities and received the OBE for services to the community and for charity support in Wales. He has published several books, including his autobiography Noble Ways: Lay-bys in My Life (Accent Press, 2010).

About the Author :
Roy Noble is one of the most popular and successful of Welsh broadcasters, prolifically presenting magazine shows for BBC Radio Wales, among other projects, for 27 years. His vast experience of touring Wales and meeting its people provides the material for this collection of humorous accounts, encompassing the richness of the nation's history and character.

Review :
Seamlessly blending anecdote and personal insight with historical detail, Roy has compiled a selection of humorous and engrossing explorations of traditional Wales from around the country, and suffused each with his knowledge and gift for storytelling. Roy Noble has been a popular voice on radio for many years (and lately on S4C) and his autobiography – Noble Ways: Laybys in my life – gives a foretaste of this book. With him we visit not only laybys and major arteries of Wales but also the back roads, by-ways and back alleys, with a good few detours into local inns. Indeed, three-quarters of the book reads like a gentle and entertaining pub-crawl around the heart of south Wales. Roy Noble had a long career in education and has an intimate knowledge of the people and places where he has taught, but there is nothing academic about his approach to his material. He happily mixes personal recollections, historical facts and ancient folktales with anecdotes related during a convivial evening and whose truth may be, as he says, elastic. He is a geographer and this informs his sense and understanding of the landscape but, first and foremost, he is a storyteller. He has a fondness for ghost stories – the one set in the Red Lion, Penderyn, is particularly good – but he will detour via Georgia, the Crawshay family and Welsh whisky on the way. His account of the mining heritage of the area, its transformation of the land and its terrible cost in lives, is told with great clarity and humanity. He centres on Senghenydd but culminates in an awesome register of death which finally embraces the horror of Aberfan. The three chapters which follow the A470 to the north coast lack some of the warmth and cohesion of the rest, but in ‘The Coffin Route’ he returns to form and home ground as he spins tales around the many meanings of the word ‘cwtch’, the customs around funerals, and the corpse road over the Black Mountain bringing back the dead. Although the mining background of south Wales inevitably raises ghosts and grief, this is not at all a depressing memoir but full of warm and witty reminiscence of Roy’s family, schools and rugby mates – not forgetting his many real and honorary aunts. He is, as you would expect, an excellent companion down many roads. Long may his travels continue.