No Time to Dream

NO TIME TO DREAM is in many ways reminiscent of HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY.The background of both books largely centred on the mining valley of the Rhonddain Wales during the depression of the early twentieth century. The author Rita Molyneuxherself lived in this mining valley and witnessed at fi rst hand the harshness of daily lifeduring that period and vividly recounts them in her book. Indeed her own father suffereda broken back in a colliery accident. The Rhondda as Gwyn Thomas once described itpoured out enough coal to have coked the world at one stroke. The valley was majesticallyransacked and the coal owners became very rich men. Cruelly little of this money stuck tothe fi ngers of the people who mined the coal. Yet these people laughed sang worshippedand propagated at record levels and were far more precious than the coal they hauled outof the ground.In NO TIME TO DREAM the author richly evokes those times in technicolour and bringsto life those characters who fi ll the pages. The story also tells of emigration of some ofthese characters to Australia where they faced with bravery the vicissitudes of the newenvironment. In real life Rita and her husband Arthur paralleled the story of this novelemigrating to Australia in 1964 initially to Canberra and then to Sydney. It was this experiencethat allowed Rita to complete the second half of her book.NO TIME TO DREAM is a rich evocation of the human spirit and a unique description oflove kindliness and courage surrounded and deepened by the dangers of the times.Read it!