How Green Was My Valley

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY
by Richard Llewellyn

 Award: National Book Winner 1940

 Date Read: August 22, 2019

 How Green Was My Valley is a lovely coming-of-age story of Huw Morgan who is growing up in a mining community in Wales. He learns the harsh realities of life and work, all while being embraced by his expansive family. In the green hills that surround his family home, he comes to learn the meaning of love, work, commitment and courage. In these hills he learns to fight, has his first kiss, disappoints himself and his family and experiences love and loyalty.

 The Morgan family are hard-working coal miners who are initially blessed by a decent wage for a hard days' work. I once again marvel at how simple humans' desires truly are - to be with family, feed them well and work and live with dignity. Once greed is introduced, dignity is tossed aside and it's an immediate race to the bottom. Huw's brothers experience this almost as soon as they join their father in the mines and agitate for basic wages and a minimum commitment from the mine owners.

 After many trials and tribulations, the close and loving Morgan family are scattered to the wind with his brothers off to America, his sister in Cape Town, another to Germany and another to Ireland. Huw is the last remaining Morgan on the mountain, certain of his leaving but unsure of where he will land. He is able to remember with love and longing all the wonderful and awful lessons he was taught on this mountain and truly know in his heart that nowhere is as green as the mountains of his memory.

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