My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People

In Short

This satirical collection depicts the interconnected lives of Welsh countrymen at home and as immigrants in London. Driven by a severe, hypocritical strain of Nonconformist Christianity, the characters navigate farm life, drapery shops, religious politics, and family rivalries. Preachers claim to be the "Big Man's photograph," while laymen manipulate scriptures, family members, and business associates to secure earthly gain. Caradoc Evans’s unsparing satire, vivid biblical dialect, and tragicomic vision of human self-deception have sustained the book as a landmark—and controversial—portrait of early twentieth-century Welsh society.

The Story

The book presents a collective portrait of Welsh life stretched between rural homesteads and London's commercial districts, bound together by a shared religious vocabulary and a ruthless drive for self-preservation. In the opening, Evans establishes a cosmology where God is envisioned as an enormous, silk-hatted Welsh preacher peering through the floorboards of a glass chapel, demanding total obedience and financial devotion to the local capel. The preachers enforce a strict code that banishes art, drama, and folklore as sinful time-wasters, keeping their congregations fearful and compliant while extracting their meager coins.

Across the narrative, individual lives unfold within this unforgiving cultural frame. Sisters Olwen and Lisbeth manage their meager inheritances under the shadow of bomb damage, fire, and shifting family promises, striving to preserve a nest egg for young Jennie, whose own desire for marriage upends their sacrifices. Elsewhere, Abel works his six acres of land at Tybach through relentless labor alongside his wife, whose health dries up after bearing seven daughters. Their son, Ben Lloyd, leverages his family's sacrifices to finance his education and rise to prominence as "Fiery Taffy," a champion for abused shop-assistants in London. Yet Ben’s zeal is easily co-opted by wealthy drapery owners like Enos-Harries, who entice him with social prestige and platform opportunities on St. David's Day, illustrating how moral crusades surrender to vanity.

The scene shifts repeatedly between the rural farms like Rhydwen—where figures like Sheremiah exploit their own children's labor and drive hard bargains to acquire land—and the crowded shop-floors of London. In the city, shopkeepers and drapery assistants like Joseph squeeze every penny to send money home or purchase land, resorting to petty theft while bargaining with God to avoid exposure. Meanwhile, church leaders and laymen alike weaponize their prayers for material advancement, engaging in fierce sectarian squabbles even in apocalyptic visions of the Judgment Hall.

Tragedy and farce overlap constantly: keepers of the chapel, Tim and Martha Davies, spend their lives cleaning the Tabernacle only to be cast out in disgrace by the minister when their daughter Winnie falls into crime and prostitution. Through deathbed scams, fraudulent boot sales between brothers, and hollow public prayers, the characters continually reframe their moral failures as divine favor, creating a relentless cycle of hypocrisy that persists through every stage of life and beyond.

How It Unfolds

The heavenly pulpit The book opens by laying out the rigid spiritual world of the Welsh Nonconformists, where God is pictured as a grand preacher in a frock coat and silk hat, demanding utter submission and financial tribute to the chapel while forbidding secular pleasures.

Sacrifice and discontent In the wake of disaster, sisters Olwen and Lisbeth entrust their affairs to Charlie, settling for a diminished sum to secure a future for Jennie, whose eagerness to marry an older shop worker challenges their frugal lifestyle.

The rise of Ben Lloyd Born to hard-working rural parents, Ben manipulates his father into mortgaging the family farm and courting a wealthy widow, eventually moving to London where he gains fame as "Fiery Taffy" defending drapers' assistants before being seduced by elite drapers.

Judgment and division In a visionary sequence at the Judgment Hall, Welsh Dissenters and Church folk physically assault one another over sectarian pride, while corrupt leaders Ben and Towy attempt to bribe God and bargain with Satan for their salvation.

The dairy plot Evan seeks to buy a milk business, relying on Mary to count the shop's foot traffic, unaware that the sellers have staged a crowd of local children to inflate the property's value and trick him into paying an inflated price.

Disgrace at the Tabernacle Tim and Martha Davies devote their lives to maintaining the Welsh Chapel, but when their imprisoned daughter Winnie becomes a public scandal, the minister callously evicts the pious couple into the London streets during an air raid.

Sisters and burial money Following the death of Jacob in a London lodging-house, his brother Simon deceitfully collects his final wages and bullies his impoverished sisters into paying for an overstated funeral, pocketing the excess money for himself.

The People

• Ben Lloyd ("Fiery Taffy"): A shrewd, ambitious young Welshman who extracts money from his laboring family to advance his career. He champions oppressed shop workers in London, but readily compromises his crusade for social standing and political influence among wealthy drapers.
• Abel: Ben’s long-suffering father, who endures severe beatings in his youth before becoming a tireless farmer. He submits to his son's financial demands, mortgaging his land and sacrificing his daughters' welfare to fund Ben's education.
• Sheremiah: A cunning, opportunistic farmer who uses trickery to acquire the Rhydwen estate, works his disabled sons without mercy, and aggressively accumulates property and power within the chapel community.
• Tim and Martha Davies: The humble, deeply religious caretakers of the Welsh Tabernacle in Kingsend. They endure hard manual labor and social obscurity, only to be cast out by their preacher when their daughter suffers public disgrace.
• Simon Griffiths: A cold, hypocritical brother who uses the veneer of Christian grief over his brother Jacob's death to skim money from his employer, cheat his sisters, and turn a personal tragedy into a profitable transaction.

In Its Own Voice

"Wales is Heaven on earth, and every Welsh chapel is a little Heaven; and God has favored us greatly by choosing to rule over us preachers who are fashioned in his likeness and without spot or blemish."

This opening declaration establishes the absolute, unchallenged authority that Nonconformist ministers wield over every aspect of community life.

"I have all-round experience. Flannelettes three years in Niclass, Cardiff, and left on my own accord. Kept the colored dresses in Tomos, Zwanssee."

Joseph recites his qualifications to a London drapery engager, illustrating the constant migration of young Welshmen seeking advancement in the urban retail trade.

"There is no writing of the last of the Welsh."

God speaks to Satan during the Judgment Hall sequence, highlighting the stubborn, inescapable presence of the Welsh faithful within the author's satirical cosmos.

What It's Really About

At its core, the collection exposes how religious dogma can be weaponized to justify greed, cruelty, and self-delusion. Evans probes the psychological cost of living under a rigid, fear-based Nonconformist theology that substitutes external piety for genuine morality. The characters constantly translate their economic ambitions into the language of divine providence, convincing themselves that material success is a mark of God's grace and that tricking a neighbor is merely being "cute." Beneath the comical negotiations and absurd prayers lies a tragic study of community erosion, where filial duty, maternal love, and romantic devotion are systematically hollowed out by the imperative to acquire money, land, and respectability.

Why Read It Today

My Neighbors remains a striking example of early twentieth-century British regional satire, valuable for readers drawn to unvarnished, iconoclastic portraiture. Evans eschews romanticized nostalgic views of rural life, offering instead a sharp, darkly comedic look at the immigrant experience and religious subcultures.

The primary difficulty and delight of the text lies in its style: Evans constructs an invented, highly stylized English dialect that mimics the syntax and cadence of the Welsh language, filled with literal translations ("boy bach," "in your pockets trousers") and biblical phrasing. Readers accustomed to modern realism may initially find this formal, repetitive phrasing challenging, but it quickly develops a hypnotic rhythm that underscores the characters' distorted worldviews.

Those interested in the history of Welsh literature, the dynamics of immigrant communities in London, or classic satire will find Evans's fierce precision both startling and unforgettable. His refusal to offer comfortable endings leaves the reader with an enduring impression of human vulnerability lost in the machinery of self-righteousness.