UP THE RHONDDA. This item is unavailable.UP THE RHONDDA

"...on every page, and in pretty much every paragraph, the author’s love for the place that shaped him shines through..."
- Nation Cymru

“The values celebrated in these chapters make me understand why I feel so proud to come from the Rhondda... Wherever you’re from, you won’t fail to be inspired.” - Sophie Evans, West End singing star

The Rhondda: a valley that fueled the world. In this kaleidoscopic portrait, John Geraint fixes – with a filmmaker’s eye – the experience of living in this vibrant former mining community. The valley springs vividly to life as John takes us down crazily angled terraced streets, on magical mountain walks, to ‘Bracchi’ cafés and, with teenage sweethearts, to see Rhondda heroes on the silver screen. We meet eccentric schoolteachers, working-class ‘billionaires’ and the man who invented Corona pop. Comic and evocative, this is no conventional catalogue of hiraeth: John’s pointed observations reveal how his valley has changed and is changing, and how the values it has lived by can help guide the Rhondda – and the wider world – towards a better future. Up The Rhondda! will delight Valleys people, and fascinate and entertain anyone the world over who has a lively interest in how places and the past shape our understandings and convictions in the present.

Multiple-BAFTA winner and recipient of a Royal Television Society award for his Outstanding Contribution to Television, Dr John Geraint is one of Wales' most experienced and successful documentary filmmakers. He has worked for major international broadcasters such as National Geographic, the History Channel and France Télévisions, as well as ITV, Channel 4, S4C and the BBC– for whom he directed the landmark history of the nation, 'The Story of Wales'. As Head of Production at BBC Wales, he led more than 400 program-makers producing hundreds of hours of output each year. His 2001 film, 'Do Not Go Gentle', a celebration of Dylan Thomas’s great poem, was nominated for one of the world’s foremost media prizes, the Banff Rockies, alongside globally renowned programs 'The West Wing', 'Blue Planet' and 'Band of Brothers'. He remains active as an Executive Producer, his most recent credit for the BBC being 'Wales: Who Do We Think We Are?' (2022). He has also held a number of public appointments, including membership of the Wales Employment and Skills Board; Trustee and Chair of Audit, Arts Council of Wales; Chair, Skillset Cymru National Board, overseeing the work in Wales of the Sector Skills Council for the Audio-Visual Industries; and Chair of the young people’s media charity, Zoom Cymru.