AUTHOR Hilary Shepherd, who lives near Rhayader, launched her new novel with an event at Llanwrthwl Village Hall last Saturday with light refreshments with a suitably Spanish theme to go with the subject of the book, which its memories of a boy who lived through the Spanish Civil War and is still haunted by the experiences years later as an old man of 88.

‘Albi’, short for Alberto, was only nine when Franco’s fascist soldiers arrived in his village in 1938 shattering the rural idyll.

Suddenly there were curfews, permits and penalties, not to mention punishments of imprisonment or death. Life in El Rancon became regimented with the soldiers ever present guarding the local reservoir. But there was also resistance and rebellion and the forces of the maquis rebels which also brought reprisals, the taking of prisoners and executions.

The arrival of the Guardia Civil only served to tighten control searching houses for rebels and to requisition provisions while the residents were reduced to hunting frogs, rabbits and birds to survive as they cope with the rise of starvation and disease.

Secrecy becomes a big part of their everyday lives and years later Albi still carries those secrets until memories of what happened and what might have been said are stirred by the arrival of Carla, the daughter of an old friend, who wants to record memories of those fateful days before they fade from living memory.

The book alternates between the two time zones 80 years apart, evoking equally the fear and daring of a young boy and the the dreams that haunt the elderly man.

‘Albi’ is Hilary’s second novel for Honno Press following ‘In a Foreign Country’ which was set in Ghana where Hilary had lived for several years as well as in the Sudan, working for the United Nations.

She grew up in Hertfordshire but came to the Welsh borders with her husband when they bought and farmed a small farm for 20 years.

Since then Hilary has advised farmers on how to go into organic conversion and worked as a carpenter renovating an old house in a Spanish village as well as teaching at creative writing workshops and appearing at literary festivals.