It was a strange combination of Gavin and Stacey and the Welsh Assembly that gave Jonathan Edwards the confidence to write poetry about The Valleys where he grew up.
And it paid off for the English teacher from Crosskeys who won the Costa Book Awards prize for poetry, just missing out on the overall prize for his first book My Family and Other Superheroes.
“The Valleys’ sense of humour, that kind of stoical vitriolic, sarcastic thing is just wonderful”, he says.
“The Welsh Assembly, on one hand, and the rise of Gavin and Stacey, that sense of humour and that sense of nationhood, that sense of Wales as somewhere that’s fun and a great place to be, gave me the confidence to write about Wales and write about my surroundings.”
Whether it’s Dai Evans, who went from rugby playing friend-next-door to drug mule, or Owen Jones who “lives outside the William Hill shop in Risca and just stands there constantly smoking a roll up”, the stories of opportunities lost are intertwined with themes of working-class and Welsh pride throughout Edwards’ work.
“I’m very aware of the opportunities that pupils have and I’m aware of the amount of talent there was in the people that I grew up with.
“Perhaps in this area we don’t get the opportunities or the recognition for talent that those people if they were living somewhere else might get.
“For me growing up you felt the idea of being a writer was as far off as the moon, so it’s really important that kids from this area get to see these things are achievable, because it can seem growing up here, as though you can’t.”
‘One of the real gifts for a writer from this area is that you have this incredible history of rage’
It began at Waunfawr Primary School for Jonathan Edwards – and a re-enactment of the Chartist march on Newport as a pupil.
“We walked down to the Royal Oak, which is the pub where John Frost and the Chartists met before marching to Newport.
“That experience was a way of accessing the history of the area and the history of working-class dissent and just understanding what your inheritance is coming from this area.
“I think that’s one of the real gifts and one of the real luxuries for a writer from this area that you have this incredible history of rage.
“There’s a poem in the book called Capel Celyn, about the village in North Wales that was flooded in the Sixties to create a reservoir to take water to Liverpool.
“Those sorts of moments in Welsh history have an importance in the Welsh psyche.”
The politics in My Family and Other Superheroes, intertwined with the humour of everyday Valleys’ life provides a moving account of Welsh communities, families, happiness and hardship.
‘It was a family tragedy when Rob Brydon spoke against Scottish independence’
For Edwards the way to improve opportunities and develop the nation is “devolution – the more of it the better”.
“When you look back at the history of the relationship between Wales and England, children being punished in schools for speaking Welsh and all that sort of malarkey, I think we’ve absolutely got to go down the direction of more independence.
“One of the family tragedies we had was when Rob Brydon came out and spoke against Scottish independence.
“I suppose what people are worried about is whether we would be economically self-sustaining enough, but I tend to have an absolute optimism in it and think that these views come from spin doctors playing on fear.”
It’s clear Edwards’ family is a big influence in his writing and he describes his paternal grandmother as a “comic genius”.
The poem Evil Knievel Jumps Over My Family, inspired by The Simpsons, shows this unity as four generations of “Edwardses” hold hands while they fear for the stuntman.
“So much of the thinking of the book came out of The Simpsons and the way that it layers pop culture reference and reference to fantastical figures, but as a way of getting to the family ultimately.”
‘Getting sued by the estate of Evil Knievel would have made all my dreams come true’
The poem was also Edwards’ preferred title for the book, but publisher Seren was concerned about legal action from Evil Knievel’s family.
“I was very dubious about the title of the book and because that was the poem that had most success, at one point I was proposing to call it Evil Knievel Jumps Over My Family .
“Apparently Evil Knievel or whoever in his family’s alive, are desperately protective over his image and his name.
“But I loved that idea, the idea of a poet getting sued by the estate of Evil Knievel. That would have made all my dreams come true.”
The title didn’t hinder the book’s success and the prize has resulted in a massive rise in sales.
Edwards said: “It was madness. To get short listed for the Costa was way beyond what I thought could happen and then the other people on the shortlist were writers that I’ve read for ten to 20 years”.
“Writing the book was really just looking around me at people in The Valleys and the situation around me and reflecting that.
“So I think it’s a compliment to what we’ve got in The Valleys, the life that we’ve got in The Valleys.
“We have the best people in the world and the best landscape in the world and I think it’s an area that we’ve got to celebrate.”
• Edwards will be performing with the Red Poets at Blackwood Miners’ Institute tomorrow, February 20 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £4 on the night.