Ruth Bidgood

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,{{Cite book |title=Poetry Wales |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D9JlAAAAMAAJ |year=1992 |publisher=C. Davies |page=73}} near Neath, Wales, on 20 July 1922. Her mother, the former Hilda Garrett, was a teacher.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/08/ruth-bidgood-obituary|title=Ruth Bidgood obituary|date=8 April 2022|author=Merryn Williams|website=The Guardian|access-date=25 June 2022}} Bidgood's Welsh-speaking father, Rev William Herbert Jones, became vicar of St Mary's Church, Aberavon,{{cite web|url=https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2019/07/title-224726-en.html|title=Welsh poet and local historian receives Honorary Fellowship|date=17 July 2019|website=Aberystwyth University|access-date=14 March 2022}} 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, she served in the Wrens as a coder, at Alexandria in Egypt.{{Cite web |url=https://www.serenbooks.com/author/ruth-bidgood |title=Ruth Bidgood |website=Seren Books |access-date=22 July 2019}}

After the war, Bidgood worked in London helping to prepare a new edition of Chambers's Encyclopaedia,{{cite web|url=https://www.serenbooks.com/newsentry/ruth-bidgood-obituary|title=Ruth Bidgood Obituary|website=Seren Books|date=8 March 2022 |access-date=14 March 2022}} 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.{{Cite book |author=Jane Aaron |title=Welsh Gothic |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QcgmDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT135|year=2013 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78316-559-9 |pages=135}} 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, on 4 March 2022, at the age of 99.{{cite news |last1=Gower |first1=Jon |title=Beautiful Hieroglyphs: A Tribute to Ruth Bidgood |url=https://nation.cymru/culture/beautiful-hieroglyphs/ |access-date=7 March 2022 |publisher=Nation Cymru |date=7 March 2022}}{{cite news |title=Ruth Bidgood Obituary |url=https://www.serenbooks.com/newsentry/ruth-bidgood-obituary |access-date=8 March 2022 |publisher=Seren Books |date=8 March 2022}}

Collections

In April 2011 her collection, Time Being, was awarded the Roland Mathias Prize.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13023960 'Veteran poet Ruth Bidgood wins Roland Mathias Prize'], BBC Wales, 9 April 2012> Retrieved 2012-10-31.

A book-length study of Bidgood's work, written by Matthew Jarvis, was published in 2012 by the University of Wales Press in the "Writers of Wales" series.{{Cite book |author=Matthew Jarvis |title=Ruth Bidgood |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hlSuBwAAQBAJ |date=15 June 2012 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-0-7083-2523-0}} The book was launched together with Bidgood's Above the Forests collection at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on 27 July 2012.

Works

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The Given Time, 1972
Seven articles in Transactions of the Radnorshire Society, (1974–1980) on Llandewi Hall
Not Without Homage, 1975
The Print of Miracle, 1978
Lighting Candles, 1982
Kindred, 1986
The Fluent Moment, 1996
Abergwesyn: Bwlch y Ddau Faen (1997). Newtown, Powys: Gwasg Gregynog. {{ISBN|0-948714-72-7}}
Singing to Wolves, 2000
Parishes of the Buzzard, a local history of Abergwesyn
New and Selected Poems, 2004
Symbols of Plenty, 2006
Hearing Voices, 2008
Time Being, 2009
Above the Forests, 2012