AN Abergavenny author whose story of the harsh realities of growing up on a valleys farm proved a hit with Chronicle readers has died. Beryl Fury, a former trade union activist and campaigner, collected tales of the places and characters of her youth in an entertaining and often hilarious autobiography, ‘The Way We Were’.

Octogenarian Beryl was one of eight children brought up on the farm with no electricity or running water–but it was the happiness and love of family and the free spirit of youth that shone through in her writing.

It was, she told, relentlessly hard, luxuries were few and every penny had to be wrung from the unforgiving land. not for Beryl the luxury of pets, although she did adopt a litter of fox cubs and suffer her father’s wrath after bringing them into the farmyard.

She recalled trips to Abergavenny Market during school holidays when, she says, ‘Dad and Mam would leave the eight of us in the Park by the Bandstand while they went off to market to do what they had to do. We would play happily there all day long until they came to pick us up.’

Her book was inspired by a desire to ensure there was a record of the hilarity and hardships for her grandchildren and all those coming after stating, ‘It is a world that they will never see for themselves.’

Beryl leaves behind a large family in the Abergavenny area and her funeral is set to take place on November 15th in St Mary’s Church, Abergavenny.