ABSTRACT
By the end of 1942 John Petts was running a small farm, Tyddyn Cynal, some way up the river from Conway on the west bank. Tyddyn Cynal was an interesting environment for Petts. If John associated Brenda with the innocence and wilfulness of nature, he also harboured a desire for a more complete man-woman relationship. In 1944 Petts applied to join the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), but to his disappointment was redirected to the despised Non-Combatant Corps (the NCC) where he found himself engaged in little other than unloading railway trucks and army supplies. During his period of service in the Middle East, Petts was engaged with a project that helped ease the transition back to civilian life. The wood-engravings he produced between the summer of 1945 and the beginning of 1946 for Gwyn Jones's The Green Island signals a return to the skills he had been compelled to put aside following his entry into the RAMC.
