Charlotte Leadbeater: West Wales Artist: Her Life in her Own Words

This book is the memoirs of Charlotte Leadbeater, well-known West Wales artist, as recorded shortly before her death and run through speech-to-text software by her husband, Tim ap Hywel, who has written continuity, notes and commentary. It narrates her life from her birth during WWII, to being caught up in EOKA fighting in Cyprus, to art school in Canterbury and London, to being at the heart of the action in swinging-sixties London, to moving to Wales in the 70's with her first husband, who wanted to study to become a mage on a Welsh mountain-top, to her divorce and her remarriage to a chapel-going Surrey-Welsh returnee, to Head of Art at Christ College Brecon, to many colourful adventures in communist Russia and Bhutan, to extra-mural art teaching ledled Cymru from Swansea to Aberystwyth, to managing and running Swansea's own civic ballet company, Swansea's Ballet Russe, to teaching in a Welsh-language primary school, to trying to start a West-Wales art centre in Llandeilo, to being mayor of Llandeilo, to managing and leading a prestigious artists' cooperative and gallery in Carmarthen, to chairing the Tywi Valley annual open-studios event. The biography is accompanied by numerous illustrations of her paintings to show off her distinctive style.