Born into a close-knit Welsh speaking community near a coal mining village in the 1920s, Nathan Hughes gives a fascinating description of his early life. With a wealth of detail he brings to life the social, cultural and religious aspects of many events which were considered to be routine at that time in the part of Wales where he grew up. In his book "Reminiscences of Wales 1924 - 1942" he also refers to some of the unusual events which occurred from time to time when he was a schoolboy during the years of peace prior to the outbreak of war in 1939 and during the first three years of the second world war. His father died five months before he was born and his mother died four months after he was born. He was brought up by his grandmother on a small holding during a period when high unemployment existed throughout South Wales. A comparison is made of life in the village of his birth with the larger village of Penygroes where he lived after 1938.

For the reader who does not know Wales, the book provides an insight into life in Wales between 1924 and 1942 and hopefully, will stimulate further reading of the many excellent books which have been published about Wales. For the reader who has some awareness of his or her Welsh heritage and especially those who live outside of Wales, the book describes aspects of Welsh life with which they may be unfamiliar.

People who were brought up in a Welsh village may be familiar with some of the topics described in the 17 chapters of the book, namely

* Dim Memories
* The Gate
* Troed-y-rhiw
* Penygroes Council School
* Life on a Smallholding
* The Hughes and Rees families
* Early Visits to Penygroes
* Games and Sports
* Births, Marriage and Deaths
* Chapels and Churches
* Llandeilo County School - Peacetime
* Penygroes -Life in a Larger Village
* The Emlyn Colliery
* Llandeilo County School - Wartime
* Mischief, Mirth and Morals
* Waiting for my Call up.

Readers who were not born in Wales will learn about many topics which may be new to them. The early chapters describe life in a small village at a time before any houses had electricity and only three houses had indoor plumbing. The author describes day to day household tasks in homes which at the time did not have the advantage of today's modern conveniences and appliances. The fact that his home was also a smallholding meant that he undertook other responsibilities from a very young age. Initially he helped his family in daily tasks such as fetching cows to be milked, feeding the animals with cattle feed, hay and water, moving the cows back to the meadow, and then cleaning and washing the cowshed. When he was about six or seven years of age he did all this without supervision. He also delivered milk each evening to his grandmother's customers in the village together with dairy products each Saturday to members of his family in a nearby village. He helped in the seasonal tasks when hay had to be cut, gathered and moved to both the loft above the cowshed and the haystack adjacent to it.

The most significant event of the time frame covered in the book was the transition which came about due to the start of World War II. Between the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 and the declaration of war on September 3, a blackout was imposed on everyone in the country, 350,000 London schoolchildren were evacuated to Wales, and there was a fundamental change in the broadcasting system. In the later chapters he describes how school and village life changed under these new wartime conditions where everyone was subjected to food and petrol rationing. For the first few years of the war, gas masks were carried on every occasion one was out of the house. After the Battle of Britain, air raid warnings were regular occurrences. Everyone was inconvenienced when the Air Raid Warning siren was sounded since they had to get out of bed and move to safer places in their homes. People remained there until they heard the siren sound the All Clear signal.

In the final chapter the author recounts more of the wartime changes which occurred in the county of Carmarthenshire and the village of his birth.This was a time when the Battle of the Atlantic was at its height. All able bodied males were expected to spend at least two nights a week on some form of civil defense work after they completed a day's work. In the author's case this was as a member of the Home Guard, and his exploits during that period provide an amusing finish to the book.

After the war he returned to Wales and graduated from Swansea University. His work as a Marconi Planning and Installation Engineer involved the start up of television broadcast services in many European countries and in 1954 he supervised the first Eurovision transmission from the Vatican.

He worked for three of the independent television companies during the early years of commercial television service in the UK. Initially he was Senior Engineer for the first London program contractor. He then moved to Cardiff where he worked for the two program contractors which produced Welsh language programs. As Chief Engineer of Television Wales and West he supervised the technical operation of the company and later as General Manager of Wales Television managed the start up and all aspects of the company's activities. Nathan's pioneer work in the industry is listed in "The History of Independent Television" by Anthony Pragnell. In the field of international marketing while working for two major equipment manufacturing companies he negotiated contracts for broadcasting and communications facilities which are now in operation in various parts of the world. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and is affiliated with other professional institutions and organizations

Nathan was a founder member and first President of the Welsh American Society of Dallas. Since his retirement he has been active in Welsh affairs and for a number of years was a board member of the National Welsh American Foundation. Nathan was the only person from the United States on the list of new Gorsedd member at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in 2002.

He and his wife enjoy visiting their three grown-up children and their families who live in St. Petersburg, Nashville and Houston. They also return regularly to Wales to enjoy the beauty of the land of their birth, its culture and language and to their many Welsh friends and relatives where they are always given a warm "croeso" (welcome) in a manner which is uniquely Welsh.

While only a few details about the book and the author have been included in this Summary page, visitors to the web site are encouraged to learn more about the book by clicking on the links listed below.

A two-page trifold brochure can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat PDF file format in either 8.5X11" or A4 sizes.