(Except for Tim Bridges-imagine how differently Deb's marriage might have turned out if she'd been able to tell him why her stepmother really needed her at home!) It was the chapel-reared characters who repudiated their upbringing (except Owen Jenkins) that were the real rotters! Having quite a few Welsh and Welsh-American friends, as well as a Hugh Rice Morris on my family tree, I was rather sorry to detect this prejudice in one of my favorite authors!īarbara posts on 7:29:02 PM I hadn't picked up the anti Welsh strain Mary, though I well remember the awful chapel guy 'pesticided' in his greenhouse! I think I had put it down to chapel rather than Welsh- I'm thinking of Humphrey Shadbolt's father (well, not father actually, was it? ) in 'A Calf For Venus', aka 'Letty'. As for the chapel link, remember that she usually depicted Methodists pretty sympathetically. Mary posts on 9:25:04 PM I had forgotten Dave Glenny-one of NL's few characters with no redeeming qualities! Yes, he was definitely Welsh. After that I think its The House Trilogy and Bless this House Susan posts on 9:13:14 AM Has anyone read Afternoon of an Autocrat by Norah Lofts? One of my favourites of hers. But I'm a litle curious about her naming a woman of that time Linda. For another, for those of us interested in the geography of the Baildon-Layer Wood area, it gives a detailed description of physical layout of the Shelmadines' parish. Mary posts on 1:32:54 PM Yes, I think Afternoon of an Autocrat is one of her absolute best! For one thing, it has one of her most complex plots-several different threads developing simultaneously. I emailed several times asking for them to attnd to the technical problems with thid messge board, but I never even get an automated answer so I assume thay are not really interested Barbara posts on 12:29:42 AM For some totally unknown reason the site wil not let me respond to the Linda thread, in which I listed all the other Lindas and Lindy's NL has.

Checkmate by Norah Lofts