FEW would recognise his name in Newtown these days.
However during his lifetime the town was home and inspiration to author Geraint Goodwin.
Today he is remembered with a plaque on Barclays Bank building at the town's cross.
He was born in nearby Llanllwchaiarn on May 1, 1903.
He grew up in a rapidly changing town which was unrecognisable from the one his parents had been born and such societal transformation would prove to be his inspiration.
His father, Richard, died in 1911 and his mother Mary married Frank Humphreys, her third husband and 20 years her junior.
Geraint got on well with his step-father with a shared love of the outdoors, particularly fishing and shooting.
Geraint Goodwin.
However Geraint's career would lead him to a lifelong love affair with the written word, starting as a journalist with the Montgomeryshire Express before moving to London to work as a reporter with The Daily Sketch.
Geraint's step-brothers also followed him into the printing trade.
In 1930 he fell to a bout of TB but survived and married fellow journalist Rhoda Storey two years later.
His experience with illness inspired him to pen his first novel, the autobiographical Call Back Yesterday which was published in 1935.
The book was a huge success and he signed a two book deal and moved to Hertfordshire to become a full-time writer.
Just a year later he wrote his most acclaimed work, The Heyday in the Blood.
The book was inspired by his childhood and younger years in Newtown, contrasting the old and declining ways of a village on the Welsh border with new ways of England, where many migrate, and is a vibrant work of both tragedy and farcical comedy.
Newtown Market Hall as it is in the 21st century. Picture by Henry Spooner.
Newtown Market Hall is also featured in the story.
While his novels are set in and around a town he named Moreton it is accepted the town is in fact Newtown.
The descriptions of the town are so specific that they have become an important source for the history of Newtown while the characters seem to be based on Goodwin himself, his half-brothers, his parents and all the people of the town.
Almost 90 years after its publication the Montgomeryshire town is still beset with losing many of its younger people who move to English towns and cities in the hope of a better paid job and more affordable housing.
In 1938 the family moved to Corris near Machynlleth where Geraint wrote his final book.
Come Michaelmas, published in 1939, is set in a barely disguised Newtown.
The same year he became ill again and spent sometime in the sanatorium at Talgarth while the family moved to Montgomery
However his health failed to improve and he died in Montgomery in 1941 aged just 38.
The plaque in Newtown.
Ever since critics have looked back at his work, describing it as "still extraordinarily fresh and vigorous" and in 1975 the The Heyday in the Blood was translated into Welsh.
A society was formed in 2010 to appreciate the novels, short stories and poetry with the aim of encouraging readers, old and new, to discover and share an enjoyment of his work.
Geraint Goodwin's daughter kindly accepted the invitation to be the first president.
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