Book Reviews Roly Smith
Rivers of Wales
Jim Perrin Gwasg Carreg Gwalch , £ 18.50 ( hb )
Following on from his previous affectionate re�lections on his beloved homeland – The Hills of Wales ( 2016 ) and Snowdon ( 2012 ) both published by the now sadly-departed Gomer Press – multi-Boardman-Tasker winner Perrin now turns his meticulous , painstaking and passionate attention to the rivers of Wales . Not all the Welsh rivers could be covered in a 300-page book , of course , and in a series of discursive essays Perrin covers his choice of seven of the great river systems of Wales which are , in his admittedly Welshchauvinistic view , “ more beautiful than those of any other area of Britain .” The rivers – the Afon Gwy ( the Wye ); the Afon Tei�i ( the Tivy ); the Cynfal , Dwyryd and Glaslyn , and the Dy�i and Dysynni , with an affectionate look at his personal favourite , Afon Dwyfor , which rises in the beautiful surroundings of Cwm Pennant .
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But this is much more than an historian ’ s and naturalist ’ s travelogue along the course of these lovely watercourses , although it accomplishes that with Perrin ’ s usual grace and style . As ever , Perrin is scathing in his fury about the catastrophic disasters which have sullied so many of our rivers , from unrestricted pollution to overzealous riparian engineering .
He quotes liberally from some of his favourite Welsh nature writers , from George Borrow and Francis Kilvert to Robert Gibbings and William Condry , and praises their intimate and knowledgeable observational skills as they record riverine wildlife . But he reserves most of his thinly disguised disgust on the new breed of so-called “ New Nature Writing .” He describes their writing as “ ego-infused , hothouse-lexis and rent-asentence syntax ” and agrees with James Fisher , former editor of Collins ’ masterful New Naturalist series , when he described “… authors whose excessive consciousness of the exquisite nature of their prose , and the distinction conferred on the reader by a peep at their personalities , are so grotesque as to baf�le description .”
That ’ s a criticism which could never be levelled at Perrin , who is surely a worthy successor to Condry and Kilvert .
The Women who saved the English Countryside
Matthew Kelly Yale University Press , £ 20 ( hb )
It ’ s good to see some of our most formidable and often overlooked women conservationists given due credit for their tenacious defence of the English countryside .
No one could argue with the four subjects chosen by Northumbrian academic Kelly – Octavia Hill , Beatrix Potter , Pauline Dower and Sylvia Sayer . But other exceptional women activists , such as Ethel Haythornthwaite in the Peak , Esme Firbank in Snowdonia and in more recent times , Marion Shoard and Kate Ashbrook , immediately sprung to mind as notable omissions , surely worthy of much more than just a passing mention .
But Kelly ’ s exhaustive biographies of his chosen four do much to correct the balance of a usually male-dominated coterie . He classi�ies them as the Public Moralist ( Hill ): the Philanthropist ( Potter ); the Technocrat ( Dower ) and the Activist ( Sayer ) and goes on to describe in forensic detail their battles against the entrenched forces of the landed gentry , bureaucracy and societal values .
From Hill ’ s founding zeal in the
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