Following in the Footsteps of Ellen Thomas
Advent, my debut novel, was recently published by the wonderful Honno Press www.honno.co.uk , the UK’s longest-standing independent women’s press. Honno is a Welsh word meaning ‘that one (female) over there’ and its award-winning list puts the focus on Welsh women writers, past and present, living in, or writing about, Wales.
During its 30+ year history, it has given voice, in English and Welsh, to those whose stories might otherwise not have been heard and so played a vital part in taking the literature of Wales to the world.
Honno has enabled me to tell my story of twenty-one-year-old Ellen Thomas, born and brought up at ‘Mount Pleasant’ farm in the estuary village of Llanrhidian on the Gower peninsula, south Wales. In 1902, this independent and free-spirited girl set out on her own aboard a steam ship from Liverpool to Ellis Island on the eastern seaboard of America, with just £10 in her purse.
My novel focuses on six months of her life, when two years later, in December 1904, she is summoned home to try and save her alcoholic father from destitution and death, and stitch together her fraying family.
This was my first foray into period fiction and so involved a lot of research: old photographs, census records, ships’ manifests, oral testimonies from my ninety-one-year-old mother, and a lot of walking.
It’s been a strange and wonderful feeling to follow in the footsteps of my great-aunt – to whom I have attributed a fictional narrative – as she would have tramped her own patch of Llanrhidian. Some landmarks have changed (The Welcome to Town Inn; The Dolphin Inn; the Post Office which is now my parents’ home), but the setting and some landmarks seem untouched by the passage of time: the broken cross and the standing stone on the village green; the church of St. Illtyd and St Rhidian, the old mill; the stone barns at Mount Pleasant; and the vistas out over the Loughor estuary.
My husband, Philip, a designer and photographer www.nb-design.com has captured some of these moments. I think you’ll agree his images tell stories and convey a real sense of place.
To read the story of Ellen Thomas, you can follow the links on my homepage to purchase. To find out what others have thought of Advent, you can read their reviews here.
https://booksaremycwtches.wordpress.com/2021/01/21/review-advent-by-jane-fraser/
https://bookertalk.com/advent-by-jane-fraser/