pp vi96 1991 paperback
ISBN 0-7083-1093-1
This is the first study to be made of the work of one of the pioneers of oral history in Britain, George Ewart Evans (1909-88), who left his native Abercynon in the 1930s to achieve lasting fame as the unrivalled interpreter of the vanishing customs, working habits and rich language of the East Anglian peasantry. This important critical study is based on original research in his private papers, letters and diaries and on the recollections of those who knew him.
Best known for his classic Ask The Fellows Who Cut The Hay, the first of a series of books which offer a unique social portrait of rural Suffolk, he was also an accomplished short-story writer, poet and novelist. Gareth Williams presents a vividly-written critical assessment of the work of George Ewart Evans as an oral historian, and relates his historical achievement to his wider output and to his formative upbringing in the south Wales valleys.