Author: Susan Taylor

Publisher: Aldridge Press & G and S Taylor Publications

ISBN-10: 0952065142

ISBN-13: 978-095206514

Bread and Heaven takes its readers back in time to the Welsh valleys. A way of life, though long gone is truthfully preserved within the affectionate memoir of the author’s great grandmother.

Susan Taylor’s memoir, Bread and Heaven is an affectionate portrayal of an era in South Wales’ history when family life was forever changed. Based on a treasure trove of papers discovered after her mother’s death, the author weaves into her great grandmother’s contemporary diaries her own lyrical interpretation that beautifully captures life in the Welsh coal mining valleys of the 19th and early 20th Century.

Welsh social history with its equally strong driving force towards change is the backdrop for Margaret Ann and Rev. Morgan’s aspirations for a better life. The narrative arc explores the inter-generational stories from the early 1800s when Rev. Morgan went into the mines as a ten-year-old boy to the successes of their nine children who, elevated by Margaret Ann’s ambitions went on to become community leaders. We follow them through their challenges, losses and opportunities.

Bread and Heaven is already a well received addition to Welsh culture by the Welsh Books Council in the U.K. and Ireland. Readers in Australia, U.S. or Canada and anyone, particularly those of Welsh heritage like this reviewer is sure to find Bread and Heaven a welcome return to a simpler way of life. The many cultural references to Chapel, the close knit mining community life, strong willed women, Welsh language and delicacies, and the quest for an education that enables young men an escape from the inevitability of a miner’s grueling life is familiar. Though in the case of Bread and Heaven we get an intimate up close and personal glimpse into Susan Taylor’s great grandmother’s unlikely marriage, which created a family fiercely keen to rise about the life of manual labour and domestic service.

With today’s popularity of ancestry research, there’s a growing trend as people search for past family members, resulting in a proliferation of TV shows, blogs, websites and publications that taps into a thriving genealogy market. Bread and Heaven is a textbook example that exemplifies how to take a few notes and transform them into an entertaining and praiseworthy effort to tell a story that offers respect to our ancestors’ loves and life. Certainly, family matriarch, Margaret Ann is given all due respect for her colorful and remarkable life story.

Bread and Heaven is sure to satisfy everyone who enjoyed the movie How Green Was My Valley and Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood. If you have a Welsh ancestry, you’ll find much nostalgia in Susan Taylor’s detailed descriptions of Welsh everyday life. And if you enjoy reading historical memoir about strong women, Bread and Heaven takes its readers back in time to the Welsh valleys. A way of life, though long gone is truthfully preserved within the affectionate memoir of the author’s great grandmother.