Bitter Slate

This is a story of love, contrasts and conflicts. Set in the 1890s, it is paradoxically played out in the rural gentleness of the Isle of Anglesey, the Parry family home, and the stark beauty of the mountains of Snowdonia, north Wales, where the powerful Sadler family lives. They own a large slate quarry in the area where Geraint Parry and his twin sons live and work throughout the week. It centres on these two families from both ends of the spectrum.

Master and workman have nothing in common except the need to produce a vast number of slates. Inextricably bound together by this, their worlds are otherwise miles apart in every sense: wealth, worship, politics, morality, greed - even their language! With natural suspicion, and where union membership is barred, trouble is always bubbling beneath the surface.

But a serious accident in the quarry and a chance meeting between Thomas Parry and Alexandra Sadler throws the established balance into turmoil. The code is broken, battle lines are drawn and powerful pressures are exerted on the couple from all sides in the form of threats, insults, isolation and desperation. Is their love enough to combat the overwhelming opposition? Who can tell how wide it will spread or where it will ultimately lead?