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Famous People
Plas Gwyn
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Mrs Mair Wyn Hughes
Cliciwch yma am y fersiwn Cymraeg
The famous author, Mair Wyn Hughes lives at Pentraeth and has taught at
Ysgol Pentraeth between 1951- 1959. She has written 51 books
and has won the Tir Na Nog price three times. This is a transcript of a conversation she
had with Miss Lynne Jones and Year 5 and 6 pupils
on 11th April, 1997.
Bethan: Which one of your books do you like best and why?
M.W.H.:It’s difficult to say that because when I am in the process
of writing them or just completed them, that one is very often the favourite but ..., have
you seen the Wali Wmff books? I am very fond of Wali Wmff and there is a new Wali Wmff
book being published this month - Wali Wmff yn Y Syrcas. To answer your question, Wali
Wmff I think.
Carol: Are you writing at the time being?
M.W.H:Yes.
Carol:What is the book please?
M.W.H:. It is not for you, it is one for the Secondary Schools, a horror
book, a story about rising from the lake, a book to scare you!
Catherine: When you were in school were you good at writing?
M.W.H.: Quite good! I wrote when the teacher asked me but I never thought
that I would write books myself one day.
Amy Jo: Who worked with you at this school?
M.W.H:. Miss Ross Davies. She lives down by the beach. She was in this
school at the same time and Mr Lloyd Owen was the headmaster.
Jade: What motivates you to write?
M.W.H:. It is very difficult to say that. You must have an idea to begin
with. Sometimes I get a newspaper to see what is happening in this
neighbourhood or I look at the television or listen to the radio and an
idea will be in my head for a very long time and then I write a story
about the idea.
Kim: What was different about the school when you taught here?
M.W.H:.It was much smaller. I am sure that there were only about 56 at
the school and with only the headmaster, Miss Davies and myself as
teachers, it was very small.
Rochelle: What was the title of your first book?
M.W.H.: The very first book was a story about Sioni Sbonc, a little black
dog who was in trouble all the time and I wrote this book for the children of Ysgol
Pentraeth because when I was teaching at Pentraeth there were not many Welsh books and
therefore there were not enough
stories for me to tell the children and therefore I began to write for
school children and therefore I began as an author.
Sarah: Which year did you start at Ysgol Pentraeth?
M.W.H:.1951. That was 46 years ago!
James: What are your plans for the future?
M.W.H:. To write many, many books again!
Emma: When did you finish working at the school?
M.W.H:. 1959.
Bethan: How do you go about writing a book?
M.W.H:. I told you that I get an idea, then I think and think about the
idea and then one day I decide that I’m ready to begin. If I have had
characters, the people or children who are going to be in the book I
think of somewhere where something happens to them and remarkably
enough the story grows from the first paragraph. When I have thought
of the idea and about the children in the book or the character such as
Wali Wmff I sit down by the processor and I start to write and I am not
very sure what is going to happen in the book but as I write one
sentence comes, one after the other and then a paragraph and it has
grown by itself nearly and all I have done is sit down in front of the
processor and type and see the words coming on the screen.
Carol: Did you enjoy working at the school?
M.W.H:.Yes, I did. There were some very good pupils here. I liked being a
teacher but I got married and then I had Rhian and Iona, my two daughters. I was at home
for a while looking after them and then I did a little bit of work here and there in
different schools. It was quite
nice because I was a farm wife living at Hendra. It was difficult being
a farm wife and teaching because you did a lot of outside work. By
now I’m retired and I have left that Hendra and gone to live to a
house I have called Hendra Cennin. I am very happy there.
Bethan: Do you enjoy writing?
M.W.H.: Yes indeed. Very often I start at around 9 o’ clock in the
morning, I have a cup of tea mid-morning and carry on until about lunchtime, have my lunch
and go back to the processor and carry on writing until about half past three. That is a
good day! Sometimes I get up and say, right I am going to write a great deal today and I
sit in front of the processor and write nothing. At that time I go and do housework such
as ironing and clean the windows. I don’t like doing things like that, particularly
the windows and I am glad then to go back to the writing.
L.J.: Have you found it difficult to discipline yourself?
M.W.H:. You must have some discipline.
Naomi: Is there anything else apart from writing that you like doing?
M.W.H.: Long ago I used to teach children to play the piano. That is what
I liked doing long ago but I only write now.
Carol:Why did you want to be a teacher?
M.W.H.: The world has changed much by now. When I was your age there were
only two choices for girls really, either you became a nurse or you became a teacher and I
didn’t want to become a nurse because I don’t like to see blood. Therefore I
decided to become a teacher. In any case I liked being with children.
Carol: What made you start writing?
M.W.H.: As I told you earlier, when I was teaching there were not enough
books for the children in my class, and I had been thinking and
thinking what I was going to do. When I thought of Wy Bach Sionc I
didn’t write the story down, I only told the story. I was telling you,
when I write a story the story comes somehow, well the same thing
used to happen when I told a story. I started the story and I never
knew what was going to happen. There was a little boy in my class,
his name was Derfel and he was very fond of Sioni Sbonc stories. He
would ask me to repeat a story I would perhaps have told weeks
before. Since I had not written anything down I did not remember how
exactly the story went. Perhaps Derfel would ask me to tell the story
about Sioni Sbonc going to town and I would begin something like
this ... Sioni Sbonc was going to town in his yellow trousers and
Derfel’s hand would go up, Please Miss, he had blue trousers! Well
you cannot tell a story with someone interrupting all the time and
therefore, in order to keep Derfel quiet I had to write the stories
down. After I started writing, especially when I saw my name, Mair
Wyn Hughes written on the cover I knew very well that I was going to
be an author.
There is one thing about being an author. Now you write in school in
one lesson, perhaps between playtime and lunchtime but when you
write a book you have to write every day - today and tomorrow and
the day after and next week and so on until you have finished the
book. Therefore you have to remember one awfully important thing,
you must have perseverance, it means you have to carry on. I said that
I sometimes went to do housework but that does not last long. I very
soon go back to writing.
L.J.: Do you draft your work at all?
M.W.H.: If I don’t have to I don’t, I don’t like to re-do
things. That is what is good about a processor, you write and the words come on the
screen. If you have a sentence or a long piece that isn’t right all you do is press a
button and it disappears. If you hve made mistakes or you
have spelt a word wrongly you can change it. But if I am able not to
do so I don’t re-do my work.
Carol: Has one of your books won a prize?
M.W.H:. Three books have won a prize. There is a very important prize for
people who write for you and Secondary school children, the Tir Na Nog prize. I have won
it three times but it is very odd because I have won it every six years - I won it first
of all eighteen years ago and
then six years after that and I won it again in another six years then.
It is nice to have a prize but it is also nice to have a lovely big dinner
and go to a big hotel. You get the prize in an envelope with a cheque
inside it and people say how good you have done and you get your
story in the newspaper.
Ann Louise: Who draws for you?
M.W.H.: I never know. Do you know what happens to a book after I finish
writing it? I type the book on the screen and then I press the button and it is thrown out
in one long strip. I send the this script down to Aberystwyth and the people at
Aberystwyth read it and say, right then this book is alright and then they give the book
to the press and they say we shall give you a grant to publish the book. I thought long
ago that I would send the script away and in a month or two I would get the book finished
ready and going to the shops. But perhaps I wait for months and one day a thich envelope
comes and what it will be is
what they call proofs - the very first proofs. They ask me to go through
that and read it all carefully and look whether there are mistakes in it.
If there are mistakes there are special marks to put by the text to say
what the mistakes are and then I send it back. Perhaps I shall be
waiting for months then but one dsay another parcel comes to me and
this time instead of a long strip they have been placed in pages and
they ask me to dso the same thing again, ask me to read through it,
look whether there are any mistakes or words left out and place marks
on the side of the page. After sending it back perhaps I wait months
again and one day a parsel comes for me, ten to twelve books.
Completed books and this is the first time that I see the pictures: I
haven’t seen them previously. I don’t know who the artist is, I don’t
know who has done the cover. The first thing that I do - months after I
write the book is make myself a cup of tea and read my book.
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