TALES FROM MY WELSH VILLAGE

An easygoing, nostalgic collection of tales inspired by the
author’s past in rural Wales.

Fred Howells is a part-time gravedigger and retired coal miner
for whom the only thing better than a pint of beer is two pints of beer.
Typically, he bets on the horses and jokes with his fellow patrons while he
downs one pint after another—for free whenever he can manage it. He’s “always
trying to get something for nothing,” yet he still owes plenty. When the debt
gets so delinquent that his wife, Annie, can’t even buy groceries, she leaves
him in disgust, even taking the electric stove. So he heads to the next valley
and hangs out at the Plough Inn, where owner Trefor Plough and others know him
well and there’s plenty of draught beer and lively banter. Fred fits in well,
as he knows “everything about everybody and nothing about anything at all,” and
Trefor sometimes thinks “Fred was worth every drop of free beer he gave him.” There
isn’t much plot to the yarn, but Fred and the others are likable fellows who
enjoy playing practical jokes. The narrator describes scenes where much
hilarity ensues, but most is of the you-had-to-be-there variety. For example,
Fred accidentally knocks over a carefully arranged store display of chocolates,
the angry store owner boots him and his pals out, and the chapter ends with
“peals of laughter.” In a restaurant, he embarrasses a woman and her daughter
and eats their dinners when they leave their table. “He can make food disappear
like magic,” his son explains. The humor lies a bit flat on the page, but of
course that’s in the eye of the beholder, so your smileage may vary. There are
some good lines, as when Fred’s friend “could talk a glass eye to sleep.”