CWMTWP: Gossip from the Valleys

The author of best-selling books on Welsh valleys humour, dialect and characters has changed direction and published a book full of spoof newsletters called CWMTWP (Valley of the Stupid). It all began when Cwm Carn based author David Jandrell was making up weekly humorous news stories to cheer up a sick friend in hospital. He found out that they were being distributed further afield when he received complaints from readers he didn’t know that they had not received the latest installements.

David Jandrell, a lecturer at Ystrad Mynach collage said,

“When my friend got better I was sending out around a 150 emails, and I’m sure many of those were being forwarded to other people as well. I never intended to publish them.”

Y Lolfa publishers, aware of the success of his other books, believed the stories deserved an even wider audience. To tie the stories up Jandrell invented a scenario set well in the future about an archaeologist finding a mysterious object called a CD-ROM containing the village newsletter What’s on in Cwmtwp. The result is an entertaining dose of whacky humour that everyone who has experienced life in the Welsh valleys will be able to connect with.

CWMTWP: Gossip from the Valleys is available for £3.95 on www.ylolfa.com and in bookshops throughout Wales. David Jandrell worked in the steel industry, as a youth worker and as a teacher before becoming a lecturer at Ystrad Mynach Collage. His book Welsh Valleys Humour won the Welsh Books Council award for best-selling non fiction book in English in 2005.