Welsh Journals

A NATION AND ITS BOOKS* TREVOR FISHLOCK Thirty years ago, The Times of London made a determined effort to be more thorough in its reporting of Britain to the British. It posted staff correspondents in Wales and Scotland and in the North and the Midlands of England. An editor was appointed to represent these reporters in the daily battles for space in London. (The growing troubles in Northern Ireland demanded a different editorial response.) The Times wanted a kind of foreign reporting from the component parts of the United Kingdom so that, quite apart from reports of news events, readers would find commentaries and vignettes giving the feel of the country or region. These ideas were backed with money. Staff journalists, after all, were expensive; and since they were salaried and not part-time stringers there was a commitment to publishing them. When I applied for a reporter's job on the paper the Managing Editor said, 'There are two vacancies, one in London and the other in Wales. You may choose, but my feeling is that you will find far more rewarding an independent command in Wales.' I agreed. Independence was a great gift. Within reason I could write about the country as I wished, reporting the mainstream of news while pursuing the tributaries of my own curiosity. Up to a point, I could invent my own Wales. Jan Morris has remarked that if you write *Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees (eds.), A Nation and its Books: a history of the book in Wales (Aberystwyth, 1998).