To celebrate Women’s History Month and the unveiling of the Elaine Morgan statue in Mountain Ash, Cynon Valley Museum will be hosting a history talk focusing on the life and work of Elaine Morgan.
Biography
Dr. Daryl Leeworthy is the Rhys Davies Trust Research Fellow at Swansea University and the author of Elaine Morgan: A Life Behind The Screen (Seren, 2020).
Synopsis:
This talk tells the remarkable story of the life and times of Elaine Morgan (1920-2013). From her early days living just above the poverty line in Pontypridd, she went on to study English at Oxford University. After a few years teaching for the Workers’ Educational Association, she married the International Brigade veteran Morien Morgan in 1945, and moved to the north of England. On her return to Wales in the 1950s she began to write short stories, poems, and items for the radio and for current affairs magazines such as the New Statesman. Soon she embarked on her screenwriting career, specialising in television drama. Perhaps best known for her adaptations of How Green Was My Valley, A Testament of Youth, and the original screenplay The Life and Times of David Lloyd George, she was one of the foremost television writers of her generation. In the early 1970s, at the height of the women’s liberation movement, she penned Descent of Woman – which marks its fiftieth anniversary this year – restoring women to the story of human evolution. It was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. In the last decade of her life, she returned to journalism, writing a rich and well-loved column for the Western Mail called The Pensioner. Yet, despite an enormous international reputation and regard, Dr Morgan was a quintessential Valleys person. The Cynon Valley was her home for more than half a century and is now the apt site of a statue in her honour.
This event will take place at the Cynon Valley Museum, Thursday 24th March, 3pm – 4pm. Please make sure you book a ticket for this event. Tickets will be limited to allow for social distancing.
Eventbrite ticket page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dr-daryl-leeworthy-elaine-morgan-and-her-times-tickets-289500272107
If you have any further questions, please email admin@cynonvalleymuseum.wales or call 01685 886729
