Ponty is it? Travels in a Valleys Town

Let's face it, there is only one Ponty. Pontypridd: birthplace of Tom Jones and the Welsh National Anthem, and home to what was once the most famous bridge in the world. With their penchant for gossip and addition to frothy coffee and chips, Ponty people have acted, played, swum, worked, and written their way into the history books, and always with their unique brand of humour. In Ponty is it? Daryl Leeworthy journeys from the isolation of Llanwonno to the unmarked border between the true metropolis of Wales and that southern pretender, Cardiff, and on the way learns what brings him back to his hometown every time he tries to leave and what now really keeps him there. Whether perfecting the art of eating a custard slice, braving the bus up and down car infested valleys, or trying not to lose his shoe in hilltop mud, Leeworthy takes in the sights, the sounds, and the smells of this strangely compelling but universal place.

Daryl Leeworthy was born in 1986 and, despite numerous efforts to escape, has lived in Pontypridd for most of his life. His previous books include biographies of Gwyn Thomas and Elaine Morgan, and several landmarks of historical scholarship, most notably Labour Country: Political Radicalism and Social Democracy in South Wales, 1831-1985 and A Little Gay History of Wales.