Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1 Cefneithin’s cradle
2 Rhydlewis over the rainbow
3 When coal was landlord
4 Yellow socks and Miss Dora
5 A student by the sea
6 Special Coder James
7 Chalk and whistle
8 Floreat Landubriense
9 Renaissance
10 The world beyond the gates
11 Small screens and pages
12 Coaching, Springboks and politics
13 Lions and the Long White Cloud
14 Carwyn the Trinitarian
15 The year of four milestones
16 The day the pubs ran dry
17 After October: Barbarians and wives
18 The rejected coach?
19 At the city gates
20 Ti voglio bene
21 Books, suspension and The Priory
22 Amsterdam and the end
23 Carwyn In Memoriam
24 A mirror and a closet
25 Marriage, children and a photograph

Reviews

This comprehensive biography, published to coincide with the Lions tour to New Zealand in summer 2017, looks at various aspects of Carwyn James’s career and contribution to public life in Wales. Detailed research by the author brings new disclosures about his work as a rugby coach, his academic and political interests, his life in Italy, as well as his role in the Cold War during National Service. His private life is also discussed. He was a tortured soul, and his personal battles unfold in this biography, offering fresh insights into the life of this public man. A great number of documents and photos from private collections which have never been published in an English-language book, and some of which have never been seen before, will also be included.
About this book: Alun Gibbard’s achievement in this new biography of Carwyn James is a considerable one: revelatory in its fresh information and sensitive in its interpretation, so that now, at last, we can see Carwyn whole. Not an easy task to pin down this particular Welsh chameleon, but wherever Carwyn swerved, whether in his often troubled life or on those fields of play he so adorned, the biographer is there to make the judicious tackle. Then, in cameo after cameo, the action is stilled to let us grasp the lines of force, social and cultural, which ran through this remarkable son of Cefneithin and Cymru. When you finish this moving account of the dreams and deeds of Carwyn James you will, too, have a wider sense of the complexities of living in twentieth-century Wales with one eye cocked, as was that of Carwyn James, for the Land of Lost Content from which he had strayed, and which he always sought to find again. A Triumph of a book. Professor Dai Smith (Co-author, Fields of Praise: Official History of the Welsh Rugby Union)
About the Welsh-language version of this book: ‘This is a Grand Slam of a biography, breaking new ground... One of the books of the year, without a doubt.’ Professor Gareth Williams
‘A lively and comprehensive portrait of a profound Welshman who lived two lives in one – a politician, teacher, communicator and author as well as the best rugby strategist in the world. In this book, Carwyn again inspires us.’ Jon Gower
A masterpiece. One of the best books I’ve read for a while. Carwyn James is one of the true Welsh greats, without a doubt. Jonathan Edwards MP
*Publisher: Y Lolfa*