egafd.com

fuvking brilliant, and 1 man with his dog

Stop being German.

Eh?

Either he has a personal manservant called Kermit, or he's referring to the 1970s TV adaptation of the book about a Welsh mining family (starring Stanley Baker and Sian Phillips, if I remember correctly).

How Green Was My Valley, 1939, by Richard Llewellyn (a Londoner). Hollywood film of 1941 by John Ford, which looked as if it was filmed in the Cotswolds iirc, anyway a very unrealistic location for what was supposed to be 'Cwm Rhondda' in the book.

The Beeb did a version in the 1970s with Stanley Baker as the patriarch, Alec.

Ta for the info Alec, I haven't got a clue why I posted that, Mr Jameson made me do it, although I have heard of the book.

I didn't mean to imply that they didn't, though I never saw that version.

There was a terrible thing with Bette Davis as a schoomar'm, IIRC set in
the Valleys.
Ring a bell?

The Corn is Green.

Don't think I've seen it, but most of these were a load of sentimental tosh, e.g. in How Green Was My Valley, a mother applauding the fact that her son opts to go down the pit rather than become a schoolteacher (in the film anyway, not sure if it was in the book as it's decades since I read it).

If you can put up with the over-exuberant language and the exaggerations (i.e. tall tales, but not sentimentality), read Gwyn Thomas, who actually was born and brought up in the Valleys. If not, Jack Jones, but I doubt if he's in print these days.

Sentimentality is probably why Llewellyn was suited to Hollywood's taste. Ditto A. J. Cronin. I wonder why they didn't pick up on Alexander Cordell.