Poppies Grow on Broken Ground

＂Gripping human story ... passages on the front-line among the best I have ever read ... rich and interesting insight into Welsh life during the ’war to end all wars.’＂ Dafydd Iwan, singer-songwriter and Welsh activist

When Welsh soldiers left for war in August 1914, their families were promised they’d be home by Christmas. But the war raged for more than four years and over 40,000 soldiers never returned.

Everyone in Abercolwen, a coastal farming village in The Vale of Glamorgan, must endure the fear and uncertainty wrought by the savage war on the continent and must cope with the many ways it transforms their daily lives, tearing at the social fabric of their community.

In the wake of her father-in-law’s unexpected death and her husband’s deployment to France, Megan devotes herself to the hard work of managing the family sheep farm, while coping with her increasingly vindictive mother-in-law whose long-held secrets could derail the family.

Haunted by his experiences in the trenches, her childhood friend Jac arrives in Abercolwen with tenuous hopes of returning to his former life as a shepherd. He reconnects with another villager, Alys, and hopes that their love can help him start a new life. But as he re-integrates into farm life and their relationship develops, Jac is forced to come to terms with the invisible wounds he has carried home from the war.

With the war raging on, the villagers persevere until they receive shattering war news which means they must regroup and work together like never before.

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This is a World War One novel, but it does not follow the well-worn path of glorifying war, but rather concentrates on the human cost, and the human tragedies that war creates. However, it does not shirk the harsh reality of trench warfare and the fortitude of young men under intense circumstances; indeed, some of the passages describing conditions on the front-line are among the best I have ever read. But the main story is around the relatives and loved ones struggling to keep things going at home, or coping with returning soldiers who are scarred, mentally and physically, for life.

The novel tells the story of families and farms in the Vale of Glamorgan, and the Welsh context is a powerful presence, based mainly on the resilience and perseverance of the women folk. It is very much a human story, full of tragedies, but also of uplifting examples of joy and happiness despite the omnipresence of war. It is a story well told, with delightful depictions of nature and of sheep farming, as well as doubts about faith at times of war, which shows the author’s wide-ranging knowledge, as well as diligent research. And one of the more unexpected aspects of this gripping human story is the central role played by the WI as the women strive to keep their community on a positive track. This debut novel by Tesni Bevan gives us a rich and interesting insight into Welsh life during the terrible ＂war to end all wars＂.

Dafydd Iwan, singer-songwriter and Welsh activist

Mehefin / June 2025