Walking to Scotland 1965

1: The Forest of Dean and Wales

 “There’s a cottage down there, tin out-buildings, an old car on its side, a stream and some chickens. Go down to the cottage and a women wearing a beret and her old man’s old jacket – stained on the lapel – tells me I’m on the wrong track. ”  –  Forest of Dean, March 23, 1965.

Introduction   Between March and June, 1965, Le Patron walked over the hills and through the dales from Wales to England and then on to Scotland eventually to Kishorn in Ross and Cromarty, staying in youth hostels along the way.  He was nineteen.  He funded the walk by saving hard whilst working the winter of 1964/1965 on a building site near Bristol.

On some sections of the walk, where there were gaps of more than 25 miles between a hostel and the next hostel he hitch-hiked.  In the 1960s drivers were usually ready to stop and give a lift.  This was partly a left-over from the Second World War and from National Conscription, when servicemen and women and civilians regularly hitched.  Many of these in turn, back in civvy street, would often give hitchers a lift.

Le Patron kept the weight of his Karrimor rucksack to a minimum by, for instance, sending Ordnance Survey maps he no longer need back to his parents’ address.  Basic equipment included a cheap compass, a small torch and, for emergencies, a whistle.  He had read that to gain attention if he had fallen or was in other serious difficulty, steady blasts on the whistle was the recognised help signal.  He’d also read that date block was high in energy, along with other sugary things like biscuits.  In the 1960s date blocks were readily available from village and town shops.  A date block was a rectangular block of compressed dates (the stones removed) in cellophane, about 4½inches long by 1¼inches deep (11.5cm x 3.2cm).  There were several brands.  They are now a rarity in shops and supermarkets.  In the daily notes that Le Patron wrote in cheap exercise books as he went from hostel to hostel he refers to them as “date bars” – but they were the date blocks as outlined above.  Date bars as understood and marketed in 2017 did not exist in 1965.

The other essential item he carried in his rucksack was the England and Wales Youth Hostel Handbook for 1965, and the SYHA (Scottish) Handbook.  The England and Wales handbook listed all the YHA hostels, giving details of the individual hostels, where the nearest railway station or bus stop was, along with the local shop half closing day, that in in 1965 was still part of village and small town life.  It also noted whether the hostel took SJPs: School Journey Parties.  SJPs were a curse for the lone walker as some small hostels accepted them, and these hostels could be unexpectedly full when arriving at them having done a twenty mile hike across the hills.  Unless you were part of a largish organised group, the handbook stated that hostellers were not allowed to use a car to arrive at or travel between between hostels.  On the whole this wasn’t abused too much, although it happened, with cars discretely parked out of sight of the hostel and the warden.  In Scotland, because of greater mileage between some hostels, there was a tolerance from the Scottish Youth Hostel Association (SYHA) about the use of cars by hostellers.

The Youth Hostel symbol on an Ordnance Survey was, and continues to be, a red triangle, as above.  Contour lines and hill and mountain heights on the Ordnance Survey Seventh Series One Inch maps were in feet.

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TOWN….

March 22, 1965.  Northolt tube station, north west London, and the A40.  Monday morning.

…..and COUNTRY

March 22nd, 1965.  Mitcheldean Youth Hostel, Gloucestor. Monday night.

 

Just made a meal and am now sitting in an empty Common Room.  Raining outside, but it’s warm in here:  there’s 6 cane chairs with cushions arranged around one of those big old range fires.  The place looks like old stables, cream painted stonework with crimson paint and an archway leading into a yard.

This morning I was at my parents home in Essex.  Left home at quarter past eight and it took me 1½ hours to get to Stratford (East London) station. Stop start, stop start.  Drivers all mad, one long queue.  It’s stupidity – you do an 8 hour day and it takes you 30% of that time, if not more, getting to work, and getting back.  From Stratford the Underground to Northolt and A40. Start hitching.  Don’t wait long.  Bloke in Bedford delivering meat pies gives me a lift to 10 miles from High Wycombe, stopping on the way to deliver his pies, whilst “Music While you Work” (Music on BBC Light programme) blares out the radio he’s got in the van.  Don’t have to wait long after he drops me off.  I get a lift in a Cortina from a youngish late 20s, early 30s good looking bloke, and doesn’t that Cortina go – feel it pulling away from under you.

Automatic transmission.  Don’t talk much at first. Notice a box of Kleenex tissues, a Daily Sketch and a pair of hi-heels in the front.

Get talking and it turns out he’s a theatre director, just come back from Canada and returning to the Oxford Playhouse.  Tells me about something he heard when he was in Canada – some students in the U.S. went round with a petition in a town and 84% refused to sign it – and it turned out it was the First Amendment of the American Constitution.

“The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, ensuring that there is no prohibition on the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble, or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.”  (Summary by Wikipedia).

He drops me off on the Oxford ring road.  A bit of a wait and then a lift from a young mechanic driving a 15 cwt van going, returning to Gloucester.  I’m knackered and almost fall asleep, and the continual noise of the engine gives me a headache.  We don’t talk much.  He drops me off on the Gloucester ring road.  Standing outside some industrial site – Brackley Builders, Instant Car Wash, caravans, flags flying…Behind me post war, just post war, council houses, a patch of green and a glimpse of Gloucester Cathedral.

Lift at last to near Cinderford, bloke driving a Fiat 600 on his way to Newport.  It starts to rain.

The driver drops me off where the road goes to Cinderford.  It’s still quite a way and a small country road so wait for a bus as hardly any traffic.  Wait and wait, I’m getting wet, my rucksack seems to weigh a ton and I’ve still got the headache, and the scenery’s dull.  At last an old 1952 type double decker comes, a firm called Red and White.

The scenery starts to get more interesting, more valley like. The bus goes to Cinderford.  Cinderford’s one of those big/small places – coal mines, heath, forest, hillocks and vales

I have to get off the bus at Cinderford and get into a stationary bus waiting for Mitcheldean.  It’s just gone 5.  It starts to fill up with workers who all seem to know each other, and the bus conductor.  Some talk with a Gloucester accent and some with a Welsh accent. Curious.  As the bus fills up they chat to each other. “Did you see that try on the TV, Dai?” – and with a ding ding of the bell we’re off and get into Mitcheldean quarter of an hour later.  It’s a bit like Cinderford, less industry, just as old and narrow streets and small grubby shops.  Go in one and buy a loaf, and sugar.  Find the youth hostel and enter. First thing that happens is a youngish plump woman crosses the archway – there’s a door on it – it leads straight onto the street in the village.  She’s  carrying a pile of blankets.  She tells me I’ll have to hang on as she’s got to move them, then asks for help.  I drop my rucksack and help her carry them into the Drying Room.  She’s trying to stack them properly and swearing “Bloody things… Bugger this”.  Two kids looking in annoy her, she shouts at them, and at an old man who is also looking in. He’s got a displaced jaw that makes him look mental, and deep set eyes and prominent cheek bones.

Make a meal.  Still got the headache.

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March 23,  St Briavels Youth Hostel, Tuesday evening.

 “There’s a cottage down there, tin out-buildings, an old car on its side, a stream and some chickens. Go down to the cottage and a women wearing a beret and her old man’s old jacket – stained on the lapel – tells me I’m on the wrong track. “

A test of character today as it rained all the time.  Slightly aching as I write this in the Common Room and a damp body, but otherwise OK.

Left Mitcheldean about nine in drizzling rain.

I’m wearing my ex-WD (War Department) cape, over-trousers and sou wester. Climb up a hill that overlooks Mitcheldean, but there is  a misty cloud hanging over the village. The village nestles in a valley surrounded by low hills.  Then walk through Forestry Commission land and come onto cross roads and then realise I am lost.  Start on a track that goes past a small quarry and curves round to a cottage – green hillside, wood on one side and looking down on steep little valley.  There’s a cottage down there, tin out buildings, an old car on its side, a stream and some chickens.  Go down to the cottage and a women wearing a beret and her old man’s old jacket – stained on the lapel – tells me I’m on the wrong track.  So climb back up and retrace my steps to the cross roads.  Bit of a bleak view but not too dismal.  A woman waiting at a bus stop with a young girl points me in the right road to Speech House.

The track goes across bog, waste ground and small coal slag heaps with grass growing on them.  The track winds around to a small brickworks, and crosses a railway line.  The brickworks is old and small; long low sheds and four square shaped chimneys.  Inside you can see a furnace glowing red.  The track then goes steeply up, through woods, and I come to an old railway track – the rails removed and the track now a flat green elevated path through the forest.  Come to an old railway station. (Drybook Road station, closed 1929,  in Birch Wood.)   There’s a platform and a cottage, right here in the middle of the forest.  Someone is still living in the cottage but the platform is crumbled and overgrown with grass and here I must turn left and follow another a forest track.  It’s conifers on each side.

It’s still raining when I come out at the Speech House, an expensive looking inn with an expensive looking car parked outside.

I walk along a road that goes past a school, it looks like a Special School, it’s by the road but surrounded by trees, a Victorian building with a modern well designed extension,  Off the road and on to the track again through more forest.  As it gets wetter I realise my 9/6d plastic leggings are useless – great gashes/splits in them, so that’s that on Day Two.  There’s a couple kissing in a car, and I wonder what they’re doing out here, right out here in the forest, more than just kissing I reckon.  I descend to the same railway track of earlier and another platform but no station.  There’s a large swing crane, perhaps used for swinging large stone slabs onto the platform from trucks when there was a railway once here – for past a lake and a long artificial water chute/waterfall there’s a stone works. It’s a long shed with open sides and there are about six cutting machines and some blokes are working there, half in the dry, half in the rain. One machine is cutting stone into five thin slabs, like so:

  Pennant Sandstone online site, 2016:

“Barnill Quarry sits at the head of Bixslade, close to Broadwell village. Our office and production plant, Bixslade Stoneworks is around a mile away, next to Cannop Ponds. The man-made ponds were built in 1825 and 1829 to create a head of water to drive a wheel at the ironworks at Parkend. Today we use the Ponds to power our micro hydro turbine generating electricity for our works.” –  Forest of Dean Stone Firms Ltd

A bit further on I come to and cross a road and follow a very muddy track up a slight valley.  There’s a lorry with fresh cut tree trunks, stuck in the mud.  The driver in the cab shrugs at me, not sure what he can do.   My boots are sticky with clay/mud and I realise I’m lost.  End up in a hill billy looking place – hummocks, streams, some houses.  Ask a bloke the right way.  He directs me back in the way I came, only following a stream lower down.  Eventually ascend and descend to Oakwood Inn, ascend again, accompanied by wolf whistles from two yobs on the road below.

And at last get onto the road that leads into St Briavels.

Buy some food in the village shop, and after she says “Be careful with the eggs” I go and drop them on the pavement outside as I make a grab at the door to close it, my other hand loaded with milk, spuds, grapefruit, etc.  Hurriedly scoop eggs off the ground and put them in my billy can and trot off to the YH.

Old Norman castle.  Enter through one of those keep doors, small door in a very big door, so small you have to stick your rucksack etc through first, and then follow.  Yes, very old castle place.

Me and four others here tonight – a young German couple on bikes and two students who have gone down the boozer.  I’m sitting in the dining room, the room with the fire and am writing this.

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March 24. Llandogo, Monmouthshire. 11.20 a.m.

“When the bus comes it’s a single decker painted red and pay as you enter. Sitting, riding along, two women chat behind me. “That Mrs Jones is a very nice person”… – “Do you know Mr Thomas?”… They talk about music, and choirs and people they know, and we’re coming into Crickhowell.”

Trying to rain when I left the hostel.  German couple passed me on their bikes, free wheeling down the hill, the long descent to the Wye Valley.  When I get down to the Wye there’s a new steel bridge which I cross.  The river’s chocolate treacle colour, bulging, flowing fast, pieces of hay and branches getting swept along.   On the other side a steep wooded slope and hugging the slope and the river is the main road and below, at a second level, a ripped up railway track and disused station.  Walk along the railway track and pass two men shovelling earth from a dumper, down the side of the railway bank.

Walk into Llandogo which is round the corner and it looks exactly like somewhere in the Rhine Gorge.

Houses up on the hillside, and dug gardens, which from a distance could be mistaken for terraced vineyards.  The Wye has a sharp corner here.  There’s a few houses down on the main road and tourist cafes.

The drizzle has stopped, the sun is now shining, there’s a slight breeze and birds are whistling and looking down on Llandogo I feel moderately good.

Treworgan Common. 3.5 p.m.

Sitting for a cig near a farm house.  Grey stone, blue/grey slate roof, green painted door and windows.  Grey stone outbuildings with rusted tin roofs, and a stone bridge crossing a stream.  Daffodils, dandelions, violets, bluebells and snow drops beginning to bloom.  There’s pussy willow and green buds on the trees.  Sheep and lambs baa-ing, some cattle and on the way here rain followed by a hail storm for five minutes.  Earlier,  about 12 a.m., back near Tintern Forest/Cecil Ford I asked a sewage bloke in a lorry if I was on the right road.  I was. Welsh accent, long oldish face, needed a shave.

Flat country around here.

Crickhowell YH, Breconshire. 9.50 p.m.

Back to this afternoon: In Raglan at 3.45 p.m. and buy a grapefruit, tin of soup, packet of biscuits and get on the A.40.  I’m hitching the other side of a round-about but there’s not many cars.  Then at 4.15 a yellow Consul stops and he’s going to Abergavenny.  Get in – the interiors a mess, papers, empty fag packets.  Nice ride to Abergavenny, there’s a lot of school children around, just out of school as we get there.  He drops me off.  It’s a moderately big place.  Buy more food as it is half day closing in Crickhowell.

In Abergavenny roll a cig as I wait for a bus to Brecon that will take me to Crickhowell. When it comes it’s it’s a single decker painted red and pay as you enter.  Sitting, riding along, two women chat behind me. “That Mrs Jones is a very nice person”… – “Do you know Mr Thomas?”… They talk about music, and choirs and people they know, and we’re coming into Crickhowell.

I find the YH.  According to the Handbook the warden lives in a house adjoining.   Knock, her son comes to the door “She’s out”, he says, and takes my money and takes me to the YH and shows me around.  It’s a sort of Georgian House, and tonight I’ve got the place to myself. Explore the kitchen as I start to cook a meal.  Some previous hostellers have left a load of moulding food in one of the cupboards.  As I’m throwing it out the warden turns up.  Not worried I’m here, and doesn’t ask me to sign the hostel book yet.  Pretty lax here.

Go out for a drink, a pint of bitter, but I didn’t really enjoy it. Youngish bloke in the  near- empty bar telling anyone who cared to listen a. how he applied and failed to become a prison warden at Horfield, Bristol and b. how the law was cock-eyed. “Done away with this hanging, see.  S’not right, is it?”  The woman behind the bar chimes in with “They only get 15 years now.”  Only?  And I kept drinking.

Back at the hostel I noticed, which I hadn’t noticed before, “Victoria Toilet Fixtures” on the toilets in the bog.

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March 25. Thursday. near Bont, Black Mountains.

“Suffering from misguided romanticism I ache, I’m wet and I’ve sore feet.”

Back towards Crickhowell it was blotchy black and blue a minute ago and jet black clouds were rolling over the brow of Pen Cerig-calch on my left.  The hills around here are in some respects like the Yorkshire Dales, but with different colouring.  They are black on top, probably some kind of grit, otherwise they are fern covered limestone.  The fern and bracken is dead, a sort of ginger colour.  There are small patches of forest – mixed colours: olive greens, light browns, burnt reds, and on the farthest mountains there are patches of snow.  There are quite a few cottages and farms in the valley and a lot of the hill slopes are fenced/walled in green pasture.

12 o’ clock.  Grwyne Fechan valley, by the Hermitage.

The Hermitage is a derelict stone two storey building, no roof, with two Elizabethan or possibly Gerogian looking chimney stacks.  This winding, steep sided valley is beautiful with  a wide fast flowing mountain stream hissing over the boulders, on its way down to Crickhowell.  I’ve passed about half a dozen derelict cottages/farm houses right by the water’s edge.  There was one set back from the stream in some trees.  The roof had fallen in and crows were flying in and out of it.  But you’d have to have about £3000 to rebuild them to live in.  Further back still there were a couple of houses that had been converted, looked like rich men’s country cottages.  But I’m not rich.  Now for some date bar.

Further Up the Valley  Could so easily be raining, but it isn’t. Most of the time the sun is out despite the black clouds. I’ve left the Hermitage and woods behind.  The valley is in its earlier stages here, the slopes are less acute and the valley floor is wider.  Crossed a flat stone bridge with no walls that spans the stream.  Made a sketch of the view.

3.20 Reservoir. Abertilly Reservoir, built 1928, 1,750′ above sea level.

I continued climbing up the Grwyne Fechan valley and to my surprise there was a path that went over Waun Fach (2,660′).  It’s not shown on the map and I don’t think it was a sheep track.  Great panoramic view from Waun Fach. Snow on the Brecon Beacons.  There are a lot of patches of snow around where I am – snow and ice.  Snow on my boots.  The ascent and the descent was very boggy with the melting snow.  Luckily not much wind.

Later, in Crickhowell Y.H. evening.  Suffering from misguided romanticism I ache, I’m wet and I’ve sore feet. To pick up the story from where it was left off.  After leaving the reservoir it started to rain (and me saying ‘It could so easily be raining’ earlier).  I thought it would clear up, but it didn’t.  It went on and on and I started to get wet.  I’m walking down the wooded valley of Grwyne Fawr, getting wetter and wetter.  Instead of going the long way round on a road that eventually goes into Crickhowell I try a short cut across the mountains, but it misfires, I come out of a wood back onto the same road.  By this time – 4.30 – I’m about as wet as I can be, jeans soaked, sticking to my legs, water squelching out of my boots as I walk along.  I’m swearing as there is no short cut back (well, no easy one) to Crickhowell.  Come to a road junction with a sign that says Crickhowell’s 5 miles.  Teeth literally gritted together, I set off as fast as I can, looking down at the road thinking psychologically this will make me think I’m covering a lot of distance, but the road’s unending and the rain’s unending.  Eventually come to a point where I’m looking down on Crickhowell.  It looks like a small German town, and irony of ironies – it’s now 7.15 p.m. – it’s stopped raining and there’s a strong wind.

Descend into the town and at last, at 7.35 make the YH.  In and change my clothes, empty my boots of water.  There’s a young Civil servant here tonight, besides me.  He’s got a pot of tea and offers me a cup which I gladly take.  Seem to spend all of the evening hanging up my clothes to dry and trying to dry my rucksack.  Later, in the dormitory, in our beds before we go to sleep, me and the Civil Servant discuss the mental make-up of dachshunds.

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March 26. Ty’n-Y-Cae Youth Hostel. 8.55 p.m.

Having a sort of little crisis at the moment.  The weather was nice today as I walked to Tyn-Y-Cae but my boots suddenly hurt like fuck, big blisters on my heels.  Maybe because the woman warden at Crickhowell dried them in an oven for me overnight.  She said it would be alright, but I think they’ve shrunk.  Walking today was hardly tolerable and my pack seemed heavy, and the scenery, apart for one or two spots, was dull, as because my feet were hurting I decided to walk most of the way along the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal.

The little crisis is that at one point as I was walking along the tow path I thought “Fuck it! I’ve had enough of this.”   Three months hike to Scotland was a glorious big misconceived idea! Besides the boots and heavy rucksack, nearly all the hostels seem booked up in the coming weeks, and also there is a pressure to get to a youth hostel before local shops close at 5.30 to get food for myself, and sometimes with the distance between hostels or the terrain, that isn’t always possible. (Small hostels often did not have a hostel ‘store’ selling basics such as tinned food, or  milk.)  Still, what would I do if I packed it in.  Spend three months writing TV plays?  I don’t think so.  Let’s see what I feel like this time next week, next Friday.

Incidentally, Tyn-Y-Cae is dead smart and nice.  Quite a few walkers turned up.  Friendly lot.  It even has a proper hot bath.  I soaked in it.  Staying here tomorrow so I can hike to the Brecon Beacons.

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March 27.  Saturday. Tyn-y-Cae YH

“There was a slight diversion this evening (he’s gone to bed I think) of a Welshman staying this evening, muttering about “immorality” in the YHA.”

Today was good, very good.  I went with a group of Cardiff hostellers over the Brecon Beacons to Storey Arms.  They were: Anne with blond hair; a small dark wearing glasses girl and two blokes, one tall and one short.  Thank goodness my boots were comfortable, I’d dubbinged them the evening before.  It was quite a climb, leaving Brecon by the old Roman Road, up to the three peaks, the highest which we went to being Pen-Y-Fan. (2906′)

It clouded up there and there was a bit of a wind, but otherwise walking up it was sunny.  Made our way down to Storey Arms YH on the main road that goes through the mountains.  In the same house there is a cafe. We all bought something.  I had a cup of tea and two buns. Old couple run the cafe.  Some army blokes and birds came in. (The Brecon Beacons are still used by the Army for training and other exercises.)  The blokes drank tea and they had pop.  Anne and the Cardiff hostellers were going to stay at the Storey Arms, so I started hitching for Brecon.

Get picked up in a new maroon coloured Mini and taken to Brecon.  Shops still open so buy postcards, OS 128 map, Shreddies and walk to the YH.  A new list of booked hostels has been put up by the warden.  It’s not good.  It’s fucking terrible.  Because of Easter in April and school holidays some I had planned to stay in are now fully booked up.  Instead of being spontaneous I really have to plan very carefully with that nagging worry, because I can’t afford bed and breakfast, which would eat desperately into my weekly budget, and this is not the best time of year for sleeping out.  However, there was a slight diversion this evening (he’s gone to bed I think) of a Welshman staying this evening, muttering about “immorality” in the YHA.  He didn’t make it clear what sort of “immorality” he was talking about.  Was he religious?

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March 28.  Sunday.  Glascwm YH.

“It’s dusk, almost dark now. Start the walk along an uninhibited valley to Glascwm, after putting my anorak on, taking out my torch and eating chocolate. On one side of me the sound of a stream in the valley, on the other side a dark hill slope running up to a dark sky, with stars starting to show.”

Left Tyn-Y-Cae YH at 10.  Blue sky, warm day.  Walked up the main road that goes to Hay on Wye.  Hitched for half an hour but being a Sunday road very quiet, so thought “Sod it” and started the long walk to Glascwm, which it’s turning out to be.

Yes, it’s a warm, sweaty, pleasant day.

Walking along quiet back roads.  In one two girls looking for eggs in the hedge.  Past a church, it was more like a house, near Llwyn Cynog. No-one around. Church – Chapel? -goers Austin’s and Morris’s parked on the grass outside.  There’s a cat sitting on one of the car bonnets looking at me.  Start on the steep road for Pentre-newbry.  A dog back near the church starts barking at me.  At Pentre-newbry it’s flatttish heather clad highland. Then on to Mynydd Fforest (1312′) where I make a bad mistake.

 It’s all grass tracks up there and I took the wrong one, although it took me to as far as Llyswen to realise it.  Ten miles out of my way.  I should have come out onto the road further up, to the north.  It’s four o’clock and I’m weighing up my chances to getting to Glascwm across the hills before it gets dark.  Meet four lads with rucksacks who’ve been camping in the town, as small as it is.  I cross the Wye to Boughrood.  The river is cleaner, fresher looking here.   It’s 4.5 p.m.  Buy a bottle of Corona Clarade  – it tastes like cherryade –  and some chocolate – long walk ahead of me.

Cross the hills and come down into Pentre.  Ask a woman where the footpath is that crosses the stream and up over the next hill is.  Her hubby sits on a tractor a way off.  She shows me.  I have to cross the stream but there’s no bridge so take my socks and boots off, cross and start the climb up.  I get up to the ridge and it’s 7.30 p.m.  The sun’s setting and there’s five horses – golden silhouettes against the sinking sun.  They look good.

Then a knee deep walk in bracken and heather to a deserted house called Ireland, and follow a track down into Rhulen, which is a few farms.  It’s dusk, almost dark now. Start the walk along an uninhabited valley to Glascwm, after putting my anorak on, taking out my torch and eating chocolate.  On one side of me the sound of a stream in the valley, on the other side a dark hill slope running up to a dark sky, with stars starting to show.  And before I calculated it I’m in Glascwm.  It’s 9.5 p.m.

The YH is a small school house.  The warden’s house is across the road.

Two others staying there – oldish couple, cycling.  The couple give me a welcome cup of coffee, and then I go across with them to pay the bed night fee, buy some eggs, chocolate, biscuits, milk and there’s a letter for me I was three quarters expecting from Judith.  Read it as I have tomato soup followed by coffee.  Nothing startling but an amusing letter none the less.  The oldish couple act like a couple of 18 year olds.  I like them, spirit, guts.  Living in the present.  The sky is now jet black and intensely starry.

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March 29.  Monday. 10.7 a.m. Near Little Hill, 1,601′.  Starting on my way to Llandrindod Wells.

“Leisurely descent down to Llandindod Wells. It’s a weird place. I walked into it along a tree lined avenue – it was like walking into a Sunday afternoon from 60 years ago.”

Woke up this morning around 6.30 and I can hear the couple talking. “I say, isn’t it beautiful!”  She’s a bit of out-of-this-world pleasant nutter.  Like an 18 year old unsophisticated girl.  She holds her age well, I can’t guess it – perhaps 40?  They cycled off before I left.  I left at 9.30. I’m near Little Hill.

 

Its peaceful here.  There’s a blue sky, a warm sun and there’s a bird singing somewhere in the burnt chocolate coloured heather.  The only other sound is my watch ticking as my hands are behind my head as I look up at the sky.  There’s a sudden fluttery noise and that bird has just flown over.  A plane flies slowly overhead,  wonder where it’s going, wonder who’s piloting it. I sit up and read Judith’s letter again.

1.55 p.m. Just past Pawl-hir. Descended from Little Hill, crossed A 481, quiet country road, no traffic on it, and then walked to Frank’s Bridge and partially followed the road by the River Edw, and then climbed up a track that went past a tree plantation, conifers with a sign saying Economic Forest Group.  Spoilt by the barbed wire going around the plantation.

This is a pretty leisurely day, compared with the long hike yesterday.  I’ve paused to have my dinner – bar of chocolate, water and a cig. From here there’s a path descending eventually down into Llandrindod Wells.

4.30 p.m.  Waiting for the YH to open.  Still warm. Leisurely descent down to Llandindod Wells.  It’s a weird place.  I walked into it along a tree lined avenue –  it was like walking into a Sunday afternoon from 60 years ago.  No one around, came to the town centre, a square, a few people.  A policeman talking to a bloke, a dog chasing another dog.  The place is like a Victorian New Town – nearly all the buildings are Victorian suburban houses.  If you took the cars away it would be like being back 60 years.  Some of the “main” buildings are monstrous – 4 storey high, red brick, glass veranda with ghastly turret towers shooting upwards from the side.

9.35 p.m.  The YH, Llandrindod Wells.

This hostel gets me down.  It’s not a YHA hostel, but YHA members can book in to it.  It’s part of St Christopher’s Holiday Centre, what ever that may be. (St Christopher, Patron Saint of Travellers. YHA hostellers could use its facilities between 1962 – 1966.  The holiday centre is believed to be now closed.)  I’m sitting in what I’ve been told is the ‘temporary’ common room.  Presumably they’re doing up the regular one.  There’s Catholic scrolls encased and hanging on the walls, which gets me down, which smothers me.  There’s also a weird framed large head and shoulders painting of Christ with long sort of blond hair, and wherever you are in the room, he seems to be following you – the eyes.  There must be some trick with it.  It’s a craphole of a hostel and I wish I hadn’t booked in for tomorrow night, but I have.  A lone cyclist here, waiting to go to Birmingham University.  Went to a pub with him and had 2½ pints of bitter.

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March 30. Tuesday.  Near Cefn-y-grug, 1,542′.

“This waterfall looks like the Consulate Menthol Cig ad on the back of last weeks’s Observer.”

Left the hostel at twenty to nine and caught a bus to Penybont.  The bus runs on Tuesdays only.  Run by a company called Cross Gate Motors – even more decrepid than Pennine Services in the Yorkshire Dales.  Cross Gate buses are old Bedfords.  There’s me and just two other people on it

From Penybont I take a track and then footpath up to the summit of Cefn-ygrug (1,542′), and I’m having a cig before I follow the path along to Nyth-grug (1,767′) and then down to Water-Break-Its-Neck.

 The sun’s out, it’s a warm day and just had dinner of an orange and chocolate.  Bits of the landscape here remind me of the Yorkshire Dales. It’s a good place.

2.28 p.m.  Water Break It’s Neck is the name of a 100′ waterfall – the highest in Central Wales, which I’m sitting near the foot of.  It’s not that impressive as it isn’t a sheer drop.  There are Forestry Commission woods around here, mixed conifers including larches.  Lovely blend of colours.  The path here crossing the hills was a wild flat plateau top, and dropping down on the way to here is a shooting range belonging to Imperial Metal Industries.

Actually, this waterfall looks like the Consulate Menthol Cig ad on the back of last weeks’s Observer.

3.34 p.m.  On the long track back across the hills to Penybont, stopped by a beck to have a cig, lying on its bank and look up at the blue sky.  Rusted barbed wire across my field of vision against the blue ceiling, and rotting wooden posts.

8.45.  Llandrindod Wells YH.  Got to Pennybont five to six and waited until 6.30 by which time I reckoned the bus wasn’t coming, so started walking, when a Civil Defence van, woman driver, two blokes, stopped and gave me a lift into Llandrindod.

_______________________

March 31.  Heading for Nant-Y-Dernol YH.  11.25.

“This is the greatest place I’ve seen yet. It’s beautiful”

On Rhiw Gwraidd, 1,429′  Stiffish cold breeze but the sun’s out.  A view from here of rolling hills and patchwork fields: that’s Central Wales.  All farm dogs around here seem to be black and white scruffs. (Given his semi-suburban upbringing Le Patron didn’t realise that these “scruffs” were pedigree Border Collies that all hill farmers in Wales, England and Scotland use because of their exceptional ability to round up and control sheep and cattle.)

 

Franklyn’s Mild is the cig tobacco around here.  Hardly ever see it in England, usually AI Light or Sun Valley.  Yes, rolling hills around here.

 

 

1.5 p.m. Near Gaufron.

Instead of going across the hills to Rhayader I ended up on the A44 going to Rhayader having taking the wrong track.

It’s now a hot day. Asked a farm worker at Nantymynoch where I was.  Old bloke, woman by a farmhouse weeding, two blokes with a tractor in a stream, washing it.  I find a track that’s running above the A44 which I’m now on.  It really is hot here.

2.25  On unclassified mountain road to Aberyswth, as I write this.  Rhayader is a great place – a real country town in mid Wales, genuine and not like Llandrindod.  Bought a Cornish pasty and date bar in the town, which also has several hotels, classy as well, but a nice place.  The scenery around here starts to pick up.

3.10 p.m.  This is the greatest place I’ve seen yet.  It’s beautiful.  It’s on the mountain road between Dderw and Craig-ddu.  A great, great valley with the road slowly climbing on one side, and you look down and see the slopes covered with silver birch and there’s a small lake in the bottom.  Looking up the slope from the road all you can see is knarled twisted silver trunked trees, flaking grey limestone slabs and just about, the blue sky.  But amongst all those trunks and branches it looks almost black.

Up here at the pass you look down and that wooded hill slope looks fantatsic – lime/olive greens, ginger (from the dead fern), silver from the birches, sand yellow colours and the grey of the limestone and the faded yellow green turf on top – all this in a clear blue sky and Spring sun.  Where I’m sitting, either side of me, great slabs of flaking limestone jutting out of the hillside, and there’s some sandstone and slate too.  And dotted along the roadside white painted posts for the weary driver at night.

3.55 Pen-rhiw-wen  It’s one big cotton grass and turf plateau top up here.  From Ryadader it’s been the best walk so far.  Weather’s great, I’ve been lying back on the turf feeling the sun on my face.  A few people pass in cars, sight-seers, like me.

5 o’ clock  Near Dernol, on hill slope overlooking the Wye Valley.  Yes, the River Wye again.  It’s in it’s early stages here.

Now for the YH, about half an hour’s walk.

10 to 10 p.m.  Nant-Y-Dernol YH.  This place is even better than Glascwm.  Nearest shop is 7 miles away, in another valley.  The hostel is on a valley slope, by a track.  The warden’s house is ½ a mile down the road, and I’ve got the hostel to myself.  No electricity, sanitation or water.  I have to fetch my water from a well that’s further up the track.  There’s a very old looking range with side compartments and there’s a red coal fire burning.  There’s a pile of wood in the corner and light comes from two gas lamps that are run off a Calor Gas cyclinder.  Black beams above, and the floor is old stone slabs. I got fresh milk and eggs from the warden, who’s an old woman who milks the cows on the farm down the valley.  Another great starry night.  I look out and you can see the dark outline of the hills opposite.  This is the sort of place I’d like to live in.

______________________

April 1. 10.40 a.m., near a ford, sitting on the banks of the River Wye, north of Nant-y-Dernol.

“When I was waiting for the Y.H. to open, two small boys walked up to the spot where I was, one carrying a yellow balloon, and came and joined me and then interrogated me as I started to walk back down into the town.”

What a difference from the Wye I crossed last week near St.Briavels.  Here it is crystal clear, about three to four foot deep, moving leisurely, about 25 foot wide with a few pebble banks.  Valley is quite wide here, a bit of meadowland and then the hills rising up on either side.  Another great blue sky warm day.   Left Nant-y-Dernol YH at 9.30.

12.35 p.m.  Llangurig is a nice small village.  Bought a packet of biscuits in the village shop/Post Office and then a steepish walk out of Llangurig on the unclassified road.  Talked to a shepherd as he moved his sheep along the road from one field to another.

After talking to the shepherd I sat on a bank and being the pig I am I ate the packet of biscuits – this being lunch, this  being 11.30, this only intending to eat four.  Wide valley ahead, a view of Llanidloes and sound of children playing in the distance.

4 p.m.  Walked into Llanidloes at about half one.  It’s a beautiful place.  Georgian, with two wide main streets. A lot of grey/blue slate in the buildings and slate cobbled paths. Hardly anyone around.  It’s warm, quiet and peaceful. Serene.  Went into the Public Conveniences, as the Council calls them.  And out again.  A few old men standing around.  There’s a great black timber and white plaster market building in the centre with arches going through it –

– yeah, well something like that, and so onto the road for Newtown.  Light traffic – green fields, river – donkeys in the field, rolling in a dust patch.

Van stops, dark green Austin van, get in, going to Newtown – incredibly, gloriously untidy inside.  Forestry bloke, shrubs, private, not Forestry Commission.  Gives me an Embassy, tells me about the floods they had in Newtown last December, pointed out the caravans where flood victims now live.  Apparently it hit the whole town, smashing down buildings and smashing in shop windows.

Goes out of his way to drop me off at the YH, an old church by the looks of it.  I walk to the only shop that’s open – half closing day – the Co-op, and get some food I didn’t intend to get as they haven’t got what I wanted – i.e. grapefruit, and a Vesta meal.

Despite its name, Newtown is another pleasant old town with wide streets. I’ve taken a steep walk out of the town, in the countryside,  to wait ’til 5 0′ clock and the YH to open, and write these notes.

11.35 p.m. Newtown Y.H.   When I was waiting for the Y.H. to open, two small boys walked up to the spot where I was, one carrying a yellow balloon, and came and joined me and then interrogated me as I  started to walk back down into the town.  One of them asked to hold my map case, and the other one showed me where a milk vending machine was in the town.  They left me when I went into the Y.H. which was now open.  A woman there in the office takes my card and says the warden will be up later.

Eating my meal in the self-catering kitchen he turns up and turns out to be bent – calling me Pete, offering me cigs – which I took – and dropping his cig ends all over the floor.  Lights a fire in the women’s dormitory and sits by it, with me, while I pretend I’m reading the Observer.  He eventually pushes off – (warning) telling me he’ll be back at 9.

Two Israeli girls turn up, who at first I mistake to be French.  Nice to look at, nice to talk to.  They drop off their stuff and go out to the town to find something to eat and in the meantime Cyril returns.  (“Cyril”, as written in the notes, is not his real name. The real Cyril was a sports teacher at one of Le Patron’s former schools, who enjoyed ogling the boys in the showers as his glasses steamed up and  later left teaching to join the Church of England.)   Stilted, suggestive comments and conversation for half an hour and getting nowhere with me he pushes off again.  The girls return from the town and the three of us talk solid ’til ten past eleven – mainly – well – spiritual things, philosophy – call it what you will. Sartre, existence, etc.

_______________________

April 2.  Harlech station, possibly 4 p.m.

“Suddenly – from nowhere – a load of scruffy looking, shouting, squealing school children – and I guess I was like that once – black blazers and grey flannels and hats on the back of their heads – and ties off – the heat – and scruffy looking. They pile into the 4.13, me with them. And the amazing thing is the majority are speaking Welsh. I always thought use of Welsh was isolated, but here are tens of school children speaking Welsh – a foreign language to me – but their first language.”

Watch has packed up, so that’s why I’m vague about the time.

_____________________________

“To The Warden,Youth Hostel, Greenfield Road,  Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Yorkshire.

Dear Warden,

I would be grateful, if it is possible, if you could reserve a bed for myself (male) for the nights: Thurs, Friday and Saturday, April 15-16-17th.

I would also like to order in advance 3 pints of milk, 2 loaves of bread and a dozen eggs for that period.  I enclose a P.O. for 16/9 to cover overnight charges”

(The dates requested were the Easter weekend in 1965.  16/9 = 84 pence)

_____________________________

That was written a couple of minutes ago but I’ve changed my mind as it will be absolutely useless trying to book in advance, without seeing the hostel booking lists and with me having no definite YH address for the warden to write back to.  So, to pick up the story after last night in Newtown.

Got up early, though didn’t realise it as, as I said, my watch has packed up.  Didn’t realise it ’til later.  Had breakfast, two cigs, and then hesitant if I should knock on the girl’s dormitory and wake up Sima and Shula to say goodbye.  Saved by hearing their voices.  So I knock. “Good morning” they say from inside. “Can I come in?” – “Wait a moment please” and I do.  In the meantime the woman from yesterday turns up to give us our YH cards, and the girls emerge.  The three of us exchange addresses and promises of seeing each other again – in Israel?  It’s an idea.  So I leave and cash some money at the Post Office.

Get on the road for Dolgellau.

Get a fairly long lift in a new Austin van, bloke delivering paint, going to Towyn.  Hot, hot day, pleasant valley scenery.  He dropped me off at Machynlleth a pleasant old town, and I bought a date bar and the O.S. map for Snowdonia.

Walk past a railway station, over a bridge – wide, clear river.