Addlands

Tom Bullough

Addlands is the moving and engrossing story of the Hamer family and their home, the Funnon Farm, deep in the hills of the Welsh borders.

There is Idris, proud and insular, a man of the plough and the prayer sheet, haunted by the First World War. Then there is the boy Oliver, who grows to be a near mythic giant in the community, a fighter, a drinker, inescapably rooted in their hard, remote valley. And there is Etty, Oliver's mother, the centre of this close constellation, who navigates old ways and new technologies as she struggles to ensure her family's survival.

From the ancient silence in the hills to the encroaching roar of modernity, spanning seventy years, Addlands tells of human and animal; it speaks of the land and lets the land speak for itself. It is as vast and complex as a symphony but as pure and moving as a solo voice in an empty church.