Carolyn Hitt has been a regular sports columnist for the Western Mail since 1999. Combining the passion of a fan and the insight of a journalist, she attracts readers beyond the back pages. When she became the first woman to win the BT UK Sports Journalist of the Year, the judges praised the way she appeals to a "crossover audience with genuine wit, originality of approach and thorough knowledge of the subject". Also an experienced interviewer and public speaker, she has taken part in a number of high profile events such as the Hay Festival, The Welsh Book of the Year and The Welsh Sports Hall of Fame.
The argument over Wales’s national game persists unabated, with
rugby and soccer aficionados jealously and defiantly defending
their corners. During one specific decade, however, rugby really
ruled over all, and this assumption is central to this evocative
and celebratory volume. Carolyn Hitt in her Western Mail columns is
often mischievously controversial but always intelligent and, in
this instance, spot on in her claim that our 1970s rugby defined
Wales. The introduction itself in a few hundred words recreates the
decade that provided us with cheesecloth attire and Curly Wurlies,
watchable sitcoms and punk and glam rock, Bagpuss and the Clangers
– all peppered with social problems such as redundancies, power
cuts and uncollected and rotting bin bags. Central to it all was
rugby, a golden age never witnessed before or since. Not only did
we think that Wales was the best rugby side in the world, we damn
well knew it. As we are reminded, it was the decade of Grand Slams,
of Gareth and Barry, Gerald and Phil, Mervyn and JPR, and the
Pontypool Front Row. How we crowed, and rightly so. They are all
here in fulsome and glorious prose and explosively colourful
illustrations. The book is aptly described as being ‘fun-packed and
bumper-size, like those much loved annuals of the 1970s’. To those
of us who were young back then and who were THERE with Max Boyce,
it is unashamedly nostalgic and romantic, a jubilant romp rather
than a stroll down memory lane. To those of you unborn back then,
it will turn you green with envy. But believe me, this is what it
was like. To quote Wordsworth, ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be
alive, but to be young was very heaven!’ Within its 100 or so pages
there are profiles of players and fans, of teams and sports media
people, of Gren and Grogs and our lovable rugby poet laureate from
Glynneath. There is, rightly, a chapter on ‘Grand Slam: the Movie’,
in itself still a classic caricature. It ends with the author’s
self-confession to an obsession that began when she was only nine.
The above quote from Wordsworth described the poet’s joy in
witnessing the French Revolution of the 1790s. It is just as apt in
describing Carolyn’s reflected joy in witnessing the magical rugby
of the Welsh Revelation of the 1970s, perfectly captured in this
rip-roaring kaleidoscope of words and images of celebration. Read
and rejoice!
*Lyn Ebenezer @ www.gwales.com*
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