Geraint Roberts - Ramblings of a would-be published novelist

The Turn of the Wheel - A synopsis

Synopsis - first crack at it...

I remember my first day down the mine. 1873 it was and I’d been four years working in the dressing mill before Dad decided I was ready.

In late nineteenth century Cardiganshire, the changes of the Industrial Revolution have been slow reach the many lead mines. Here, horse is still king and water powers the heavy machinery that run these grey operations that form grey scars on the sides of the
rolling hills and valleys.
Owain Lloyd is fourteen, when he starts a new life as a miner at the Frongoch mine, working in a team with his father and a Cornish father and son; Ben and David Treveglos. Owain’s dreams of finally achieving manhood are swept aside by the harsh reality of the lot of a working man. He finds a world of darkness, bad air and dust and the ever present nightmares that are the miner’s lot.
He befriends Ceridwen Hughes, daughter of a local pariah who was blamed for a mine accident and has nothing but bitterness remaining in his heart. This friendship leads to Owain having to make choices as to who, where and how his life will unfold.
Weaving fiction with history and told in his own words, the first tale of the saga of Owain Lloyd paints a picture of the changing way of life during the late nineteenth Century and the human aspects of a forgotten industry and the people who lived and died in it.

posted by Geraint @ 10:38 pm