When I learned that the novelist J.L. Carr was christened Joseph Lloyd, I assumed a Welsh family connection. Later discovery that he was born in 1912 persuaded me otherwise. His parents were solidly Yorkshire, Joseph his father’s name, and Lloyd in all likelihood an indication of liberal-leaning politics and a salute to Lloyd George, then famed as a great reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer. In any case, and for reasons unfathomable, the writer preferred to be known as ‘Jim’. Yet there is a link to Wales in his writing. I have been reading A Month in the Country – again, for I feel the need to pick it off the shelf once or twice a year. It’s a short read, leaving one wanting more, yet always strangely satisfying. The book ends with a brief note of where and when, his tale told, Carr laid down his pen: Stocken, Presteigne, September 1978. Presteigne (its Welsh name, Llanandras, meaning the church of Saint Andrew) is no doubt the postal address of Stocken Farm, just over a mile to the north of the town centre, and at that point fifty yards or less from the Welsh border. Some of its land is quite possibly in Powys, our side, as is Presteigne. Powys is Wales’s largest county in area, its smallest in terms of population. For a time I had responsibilities there that entailed driving upwards of twenty thousand miles a year. Most of the roads were, and probably still are, narrow, but traffic was always light, often absent. I confess that on occasion, travelling between destinations on the moorland east of Llandrindod Wells, given a fine day, I would stop ...