The Writers of Wales Database

JONES, PETER

Email: ptjones@sceneandword.org

Journalist, writer and letter cutter. Born 1952 in Tremadog, Gwynedd, Peter lived in the Cricieth and Penrhyndeudraeth areas until 1981, and now lives in Reading, Berkshire. He worked as a letter cutter during the 1970s in the workshop of his father, the sculptor Jonah Jones. After reading Central and South-East European Studies at Lancaster University in 1980 he became a journalist specialising in East European affairs. He worked as an editor at BBC Monitoring from 1985 to 2006, covering Eastern Europe as well as the Soviet Union, Far East and Middle East. Between 1997 and 1999 he worked on secondment as a research analyst at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Under the name of Pedr Jones, he has contributed to Radio Cymru and S4C for 30 years commenting on the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. He has also written on the same subjects in Barn, Golwg and Y Faner.

Peter has been retired since 2006, and has been working on recording the life and career of Jonah Jones and preserving the artist’s public work. He is now working on a new project.

Selected Publications:
Jonah Jones: An Artist’s Life (Seren, 2011)

Contributed to:
China and the Soviet Union, 1949-84 (co-compiler) (Longman, 1985)

Jonah Jones: An Artist’s Life (Seren, 2011)

Sculptor, painter, letter cutter, stained glass maker, novelist, art educationalist; Jonah Jones (1919-2004) was a Twentieth Century renaissance man. Much of his early work was at Clough Williams-Ellis's Portmeirion village. The two became close friends and Jones widened his circle to include Richard Hughes, Bertrand Russell, John Cowper Powys and Huw Wheldon. In a varied career Jonah Jones produced intimate sculptures, monumental works and beautiful inscriptions, in addition to writing novels published by leading London houses, a biography of Clough Williams-Ellis and a praised survey of the lakes of North Wales.

To purchase this title from the publisher, please click on the front cover