The Journey is Home

by John Sam Jones

Overview

In this clear and absorbing memoir, John Sam Jones writes of a life lived on the edge. It’s a story of journeys and realisation, of acceptance and joy. From a boyhood on the coast of Wales to a traumatic period as an undergraduate in Aberystwyth, and on to a scholarship at Berkley on the San Francisco Bay as the AIDS epidemic began to take hold, before returning to Liverpool and north Wales to work in chaplaincy, education, and sexual health. A journey of becoming a writer and chronicler of his experiences with award-winning books and the somewhat reluctant compulsion to become a campaigner for LGBT rights in Wales. The adventure of running a guest house in Barmouth where he eventually became Mayor with his husband, a German academic, whom he had married after a long partnership. Just days after European Referendum they put the business on the market... and then moved to Germany. John is still on that journey.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912681747
Publisher:	Parthian Books
Publication date:	11/01/2021
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 5.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

After working in ministry, education, and public health for more than thirty years, John Sam Jones lives in semi-retirement with his husband and two Welsh Collies in a small German village a stone’s throw from the Dutch border. John realised he was gay as a teenager at the beginning of the 1970s and quickly came to understand that his life would be lived always on the edge—between truth and lies, rejection and ridicule, self-doubt and a search for acceptance. He ultimately chose to negotiate a route through life where honesty and integrity, in an often toxically homophobic society, were not always appreciated. In 2001 he became the first co-chair of the LGB Forum Cymru (which was later renamed Stonewall Cymru), set up to advise the Welsh Government on LGB issues. He studied creative writing at Chester. His collection of short stories Welsh Boys Too was an Honour Book winner in the American Library Association Stonewall Book Awards. His second collection, Fishboys of Vernazza, was short-listed for Welsh Book of the Year which was followed by the novels, With Angels and Furies & Crawling Through Thorns.

Table of Contents

1 Until one day in June 1

2 Rooms with Views 25

3 Approaching Manhood 53

4 Ty Gwyn 64

5 WDR4 - Thunder in my Heart 73

6 Electricity 77

7 WDR4 - Puppy Love 85

8 WDR4 - San Francisco 88

9 One Bread, One Body 100

10 Ferry Cross the Mersey 112

11 Bohemian Rhapsody 126

12 Taizé Chants -and Nuclear Weapons 138

13 WDR4 - Falling In Love Again 142

14 Welsh Boys Too 150

15 WDR4 - Penny Lane 165

16 Mordkommission Istanbul 168

17 Dros y Dwr 178

18 Heimat 193

Editorial Reviews

On Welsh Boys Too:

“John Sam Jones’s charming, thoughtful collection of Welsh stories, Welsh Boys Too, is a joy to read.” —Sebastian Beaumont, Gay Times

 

“Hugely enjoyable” —The Big Issue

 

“A bold adventurous collection.” —The Western Mail

 

On Fishboys of Vernazza:

“This slim, stylish collection is sheer joy.” —Peter Burton, Gay Times

 

“These stories are sometimes poignant, often witty and always perceptive. As he grows older, John Sam Jones is becoming raunchier.” —John Davies, author of The Penguin History of Wales
 

“clever, poignant and perceptive...” —The Daily Post
 

On Crawling Through Thorns:

“A challenging and compulsive read – often harrowing but ultimately uplifting.” —Suzy Ceulan-Hughes, GWALES.com

From the Publisher