Childhood

"I like very much people telling me about their childhood, but they'll have to be quick or else I'll be telling them about mine' said Dylan Thomas, and it is true that childhood – real and invented – exerts a particular fascination for writers.

Perhaps the world is more vivid to children, or their growing realisation about relationships more intense, or perhaps the child is less constrained by the responsibilities of adult life. Whatever the case, by the time we have reached adulthood we are aware of an innocence left behind – sometimes sooner rather than later – and an Eden forsaken.

Childhood surveys the pleasures and pain of childhood, mostly in Wales, across the centuries.

Among the contributors are some of the best writers about childhood from any culture – Henry Vaughan, Siân James, Glenda Beagan, Trezza Azzapardi, Dylan Thomas, Kate Roberts, Robert Graves, Dannie Abse, Leslie Norris, Francis Kilvert, Glyn Jones, Gillian Clarke, Gwyn Thomas and many others. Through poems, stories, novels and autobiography readers will recognise the common currency of childhood and re-engage with the child within.

Dewi Roberts is an acclaimed compiler of anthologies. His books include Christmas in Wales, A Clwyd Anthology and Birdsong. He has also published a travel book, The Land of Old Renown, and is an essaysist and reviewer for a number of publications. Apart from literature, his main interest is local history.