The Riches of Morgan's Orchard

Description

A working-class mining town boy’s rise to war hero

Derfal Morgan is the youngest son of a collier in a South Wales pit village. Unlike his five brothers who enter the pit – where their different fates lie – his life is fortunate to be enriched by a Grammar School education, subsidised by his family.

Charting Derfal’s illustrious career, leading to his appointment as a squadron commander as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), The Riches of Morgan’s Orchard is a chronological tale that traces the growth of a young boy into a man against the background of the First World War. Alongside the action, there is a tender love story intertwined between Derfal and the Stationmaster’s daughter, Ruby.

David Meaton lives in Dorset in semi-retirement after a forty-plus-year career in education starting in the early 1970’s teaching English in secondary schools and progressing through an international career in six countries within the military training network and as the principal of two technical colleges within the vocational higher education sector. He finished up managing vocational and technical education reform in Saudi Arabia as Vice President of the funding agency that managed sixty colleges within the region. His final overseas post was as Managing Director of a new university college project in Qatar specializing in degree-level courses in business and computing. David was also commissioned in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve for nineteen years and for seven years in the UAE military training and has drawn on some of that experience in his writing.