Ruth Bidgood (née Jones; 20 July 1922 – 4 March 2022) was a Welsh poet and local historian who wrote in English.

Life and career

Ruth Jones was born at Blaendulais, Seven Sisters, near Neath,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

, on 20 July 1922. Her mother, the former Hilda Garrett, was a teacher. Bidgood's Welsh-speaking father, Rev William Herbert Jones, became vicar of St Mary's Church, Aberavon, where Ruth was brought up. She was educated at a grammar school in Port Talbot, and went on to read English at St Hugh's College, Oxford. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, she served in the

Wrens Wrens are a family of brown passerine birds in the predominantly New World family Troglodytidae. The family includes 88 species divided into 19 genera. Only the Eurasian wren occurs in the Old World, where, in Anglophone regions, it is comm ...

as a coder, at Alexandria in Egypt. After the war, Bidgood worked in London helping to prepare a new edition of ''

Chambers's Encyclopaedia ''Chambers's Encyclopaedia'' was founded in 1859Chambers, W. & R"Concluding Notice"in ''Chambers's Encyclopaedia''. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1868, Vol. 10, pp. v–viii. by William and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh and became one of the mos ...

'', but eventually she and her husband, David Bidgood, whom she had married in 1946, moved to Coulsdon in Surrey. She and her husband had two sons and one daughter, Janet (died 2007). Bidgood and her husband bought a holiday bungalow at Abergwesyn, near Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys. During the 1960s, she became concerned about the construction of reservoirs and introduction of forestries in mid Wales, which she felt adversely affected the life of the region; this influenced her 1970 collection, ''The Zombie-Makers''. In the 1970s, after her husband had left her, she made her home permanently at the bungalow, and began publishing poetry and researches into local history. Bidgood died at Bryn Gwy residential home in

Rhayader Rhayader (; cy, Rhaeadr Gwy; ) is a market town and community in Powys, Wales, within the historic county of Radnorshire. The town is from the source of the River Wye on Plynlimon, the highest point of the Cambrian Mountains, and is locate ...

, on 4 March 2022, at the age of 99.

Collections

In April 2011 her collection, ''Time Being'', was awarded the Roland Mathias Prize. A book-length study of Bidgood's work, written by Matthew Jarvis, was published in 2012 by the

University of Wales Press The University of Wales Press ( cy, Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru) was founded in 1922 as a central service of the University of Wales. The press publishes academic journals and around seventy books a year in the English and Welsh languages on six genera ...

in the "Writers of Wales" series. The book was launched together with Bidgood's ''Above the Forests'' collection at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 27 July 2012.

Works

Sources

External links

Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bidgood, Ruth 1922 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Welsh poets 20th-century Welsh historians 20th-century Welsh women writers 21st-century Welsh historians 21st-century Welsh poets 21st-century Welsh women writers 21st-century Welsh writers People from Seven Sisters, Neath Port Talbot Anglo-Welsh women poets Women's Royal Naval Service ratings Royal Navy personnel of World War II Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford British women in World War II British encyclopedists Welsh women historians