TAILS OF OLD MERTHYR: A HISTORY OF THE GELLIGAER HUNT 1898-1939. By Dr. Fred Holley and others.

ND (1983) 1st edition. A5 stapled paperback (148 x 211mm). Pp115. B/w photographs.

"This nicely illustrated little book is clearly a collective labour of love by the Holley family. It chronicles in detail the history of the Gelligaer Hunt, and shows something of its role in the sporting and social life of its own very special 'country', the Glamorgan Valleys. As such it may properly be considered as a continuation or updating of part of Edwin Wathen Price's monumental book Horn and Hound in Wales (1891), ...The book contains short notes on the predecessors of the Gelligaer Hunt in the nineteenth century, and then accounts of each of the hunting seasons from 1898 until 1928 (when the hounds were split into the Talybont and District and the Gelligaer Farmers), and then concentrating on the Gelligaer until 1939. The seasons' accounts include many verbatim contemporary descriptions of particular meets, supplemented by and interspersed with short biographical sketches of Masters and other hunt personalities, details of usual hunt activities ...and special events. ...Much of this material has been assiduously culled from local newspapers and the national hunting press, but much of it is local oral history. Two contributions of special value, both dealing with the 1930s, are the recollections of Mr. W. Hearnden, whipper-in, and extracts from the hunting diary of Mr C.W. Morshead. ...an important contribution to the chronicling of the rural and social history of our county." William Linnard.