A NEW project starting this spring is seeking to bring together readers, singers and music makers to consider the life and legacy of local literary figure Allen Raine.

Allen Raine was the pseudonym of Anne Adaliza Puddicombe. Born and raised in Newcastle Emlyn, Raine spent the last decade of her life living at Tresaith where she wrote and set her novels and short stories.

Styled ‘sandcastle dynasties’, her books were bestsellers depicting the coastal communities of Tresaith, Aberporth and the surrounding area at the turn of the twentieth century.

Though traces of her work continue to be evidenced in the names of some of the houses in the area, Raine is not widely remembered today.

‘Allen Raine: the opera?’ will explore Raine’s legacy with the intention of using her fiction as inspiration for creating a collaborative site-specific opera - an idea drawn from the novels themselves.

Raine’s stories are full of songs - songs, hymns and arias often punctuate the text - and singing plays a central part in the lives of her characters.

Her books are also a significant document of Welsh village life. Her 1906 novel Queen of the Rushes (reprinted by Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press in 1998) presents an almost contemporaneous account of the 1904 Welsh revival, whilst Evan Roberts, whose charismatic leadership of that movement was catalysed at a meeting at nearby Blaenannerch Chapel, is an important character in the book. ‘Allen Raine: the opera?’ aims to revive interest in the neglected author and foster an understanding of how her work continues to be relevant to the community today.

Project activity will include a talk by Dr Rita Singer, Diversity Project officer with the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, an Allen Raine ramble mapping her fiction to the place of its writing and a series of collaborative music and storytelling workshops to be held in the spring at the newly-opened Aberporth Village Hall.

If you have an interest in being involved in the project or finding out more an informal meeting will be held at the Ship Inn, Aberporth, on Sunday, February 18 from 3pm with the intention of setting up an Allen Raine Opera Study group devoted to exploring the author’s work.

To find out more please contact Rowan O’Neill via email oneill.rowan@googlemail.com or simply come along on Sunday, February 18. The project has received research and development funding from the Arts Council of Wales’ CREATE fund.