Real Llanelli

Llanelli stands on several borders in Wales. Industrial town, or still belonging to its rural Carmarthenshire hinterland? Welsh or Englishspeaking? Plaid or Labour? Shaped by its workers or by the small number of families who employed them? It all makes Llanelli that much more interesting than a town of its size has any right to be. Jon Gower has written a lively and engaging account of Llanelli and its environs, from how to pronounce ''Llanelli'' to how a village in rural Carmarthenshire became a European centre for iron, steel and tinplate. He examines this industrial heritage but also its residue today, hitching a lift on the delivery of Llanelli-manufactured widgets to a manufacturer in Germany. Shaped by and shaping all these things are the people: steelworkers, farmers, professional and amateur sportsmen, artists and writers, the small local bourgeoisie, the famous who may have left the town but still carry a part of it in them.The Llanelli identity may be complex but it is embraced by an almost tribal people.