I pointed towards a solitary sign, took my foot off the accelerator and edged the hire car to the side of the road. We were there. We were at Fron, Powys, mid-Wales.
I got out of the car, took a photo of the sign and then a celebratory photo of Sarah. It was just after ten o’clock in the morning; the air contained a touch of cold, reminding me that we were now in autumn.
“Shall we have a walk about?” asked Sarah.
I had spent a few minutes studying the map before we had set off; I had a slightly different idea.
“I want to go up one of these roads; I’ve seen one on the right which looks like it might be, you know, the village”. I turned the ignition, put the car into gear and pulled out onto the A483. As soon as I was on the main road, I took a right turn onto a residential street.
“This is nice!” said Sarah, who was looking at all the houses as we passed. “Look! That one’s for sale! We could move to Fron!”
The hill got steeper, then narrowed and began to wind its way up the side of a valley. I passed a pair of well-maintained iron gates and drove into an empty church car park. We got out and found a path that led us on a route past the side of a well maintained building that looked less like a church and more like a residential home; there was signs of life, but nobody was about. The path led us to an unkempt graveyard, complete with tall grass, gravestones with faded lettering and a warning sign that said they were dangerous and may cause serious injury.
We rounded a corner and found another graveyard. This one was different; it was tidy and well maintained and was situated on a steep hill. As I climbed the hill towards the boundary of the church my eyes caught the names: Evans, Jones and Morgan. I saw something else: distant hills filled with light valley fog. This was the Wales of my imagination.
Wales features little in my personal biography. I have one main memory which has faded with time. It is a memory of when I was fifteen; I had joined a scout group out of my own volition after realising that I had inadvertently become a teenage recluse. I lived in a different part of London from where I went to school and I felt as if I was under house arrest since I wasn’t yet allowed to roam the streets and hang out with my friends; joining ‘scouts’ seemed a way around this.
My fifteenth year was punctuated by a trip to ‘climb’ Snowdon. It was an adventure that I remember finding entirely baffling. I didn’t understand why anyone would walk up a mountain ‘for fun’, especially when you had to share bunk beds with a group of malodorous teenagers. There was another aspect of bafflement: the endless car journey from London to our simple hostel was accompanied by a soundtrack of endless heavy metal music that was favoured by the nineteen year old driver who gave the impression of being impossibly grown up.
One thing I did get out of that particular adventure, other than a profound feeling of exhaustion, was a sense of achievement, awareness of different way of being or living; the scenery I encountered during the adventure was an overwhelming contrast to the urban environment in which I was familiar. In some respects, that trip had changed my teenage self. I had returned tired, but happy.
This trip was very different; Sarah had booked an AirBNB that was a ten minute drive away from Fron. Our journey had taken us to the borders of Birmingham and into the county of Herefordshire. Our route had changed from dull motorways into A-roads that were devoid of traffic. Strips of asphalt and bridges had given way to picturesque landscape of gentle hills and pretty settlements. Half an hour of post-motorway travel made me realise that I had thoroughly escaped my familiar urban environment of buses, crowded trains and streets packed with idling cars.
Leaving London had been brutal. Although we had set off outside of rush hour, it took us over an hour and a half to wrestle free from the urban traffic and onto a densely packed but free flowing motorway. Our route out of the city took us past districts of Forest Hill and Shepard’s Bush, rural suggestions that were at odds with the claustrophobic city.
Our AirBNB in Fron was a 17th century stone cottage, owned by Michelle and Peter who were, like us, both in their mid-forties. Michelle took us through a hallway, past Peter’s dismembered Ducati motorcycle and into a kitchen that was warmed by an exotic emblematic fixture that you only tend to see in rural homes: an Aga. Michelle talked us through how to use it, before returning to the lounge area where Peter explained how to use the wood burner. Our room was on the first floor through a second living area that also doubled up as a bed room. I remember highly varnished stripped floorboards that sloped downwards from one side of the room to another. Our room was small; a dark structural beam was set in the wall. My eyes later traced the grain of the wood, following a line from the top of the room to the end of the beam, my imagination trying to visualise a network of beams, all working together to support the structure of the building. It was very different to the beige box of a house that I had in London.
When the tour of the cottage was done and Michelle and Peter had left I suddenly began to realise this was their main house; I had initially thought that it might have been a second property, an investment holiday let, or a house that may have once belonged to a deceased relative. It was immaculately clean and well prepared. Although we were paying for the privilege, I was also struck by their trust: all their possessions were on show, which included a guitar and accompanying music, a CD collection and a carved wooden duck.
The outside was equally lovely: the back yard was small but offered adventure. I later found a small path that followed a steep incline, arriving at a weathered bench. Peter later told me that there was more land beyond the house, which now I understood had been built in what appeared to be a semi-sheltered cove.
The front garden was different. To complement a stone outbuilding, which doubled up as a motorcycle workshop, Peter was building what appeared may become a warm wooden hut, or some kind of showroom where he could store his motorbikes. Beyond the garden lay a gate, a single track road, a neighbouring farm, and a stream.
An hour later, it was dark; we had followed the single track road and had driven to the nearest major town, Llandrindod Wells, to find a supermarket.
“Did you see that woman?” I whispered to Sarah as we walked back to the car, laden with milk, bread and pasta.
“What woman?”
“That woman! The woman we just passed!”
“No. What about her?”
“She smiled at us.”
“What did she want?”
“I don’t think she wanted anything.”
I unlocked the car and put the bags in the boot. Minutes later we were back on the road, heading towards our cottage, anticipating the very middle class challenge of figuring out how to use an Aga and wood burning stove.
---
We were up early the next morning, ready for our trip to Fron. Our journey was straightforward; a short ride over scrubland, a right hand turn towards a settlement called Crossgates and then onto Fron and a layby; the point where I got out of the car and took a photograph of the sign to document our arrival.
“There’s something satisfying about seeing a random place on a page and actually getting there” said Sarah.
I couldn’t help but feel that there must be more to Fron than a bunch of houses and a church. Fron is a part of a community called Llanbadarn Fawr. I had a need to collate stories and facts to get a sense of the area; I chastise myself for not taking time to visit the Crossgates community centre, or loiter in the only pub in nearby Penybont. Later, I would think: ‘maybe I need to go back, to find those stories’. In some ways, the visit to Fron had morphed from journey of accomplishment to a journey of tourism. Instead, we were again drawn to the more urban environment of Llandrindod Wells, a couple of miles to the south.
We parked up not too far from our previous visit to the supermarket and started to walk around. We discovered an imposing municipal council building called The Gwalia, a park, and a pleasant high well-used high street. A trip to the town museum had an exhibit that explained how the town had become a tourist attraction due to its natural spa.
“The waters contain lithium! That might explain it!” whispered Sarah, as we walked around the museum.
Before our trip Sarah had found a survey that reported that Llandrindod Wells was the happiest place in Wales (and twelfth overall in Britain). A bit of research revealed that I lived the 145th happiest place in the country, and Sarah lived in the 124th, but neither of us could identify any qualitative difference between our two locations other than my area had a park and chicken shops and Sarah’s area had a Tube station and Irish pubs.
After being forbidden to use the museum toilets by an enthusiastic receptionist, we popped into a local landmark, the Metropole Hotel and Spa, to inspect their plumbing. There was a conference going on. We found ourselves surrounded by very jolly farmers, most of whom were wearing tweed, clearly relishing the opportunity to network and discussing loudly the subject of farming processes and development; a subject entirely alien to us both.
Following the advice of Elena, who worked in the tourist information office that was practically attached to the museum, we drove across town and parked up next to Llandrindod Wells Lake. The lake sits just on the edge of the town. In summer, it would be glorious; in deep autumn, it was merely ‘pleasantly quiet’. I could imagine myself looking forward to a walk around the park, ending up at the café called The Lakeside, which was a clear draw for locals. I began to see why Llandrindod Wells was a happy place to be.
In the space of a couple of hours, we had walked around the lake, got vaguely lost in a wood, and traipsed back into town to look for something called the Bicycle Museum, which was closed. Realising that we had covered a lot of ground, we returned to the car and set off, heading south, to the nearby town of Builth Wells.
Builth Wells is a small market town that sits next to the rivers Wye and Irfon. After crossing a road bridge over the Wye, we parked up and set off on a walk that was listed in a guidebook that Michelle had said we could borrow. I looked at my watch; we had a couple of hours of light left. I looked at the sky; it wasn’t going to rain. We found a riverside path and followed it until we found the Irfon, and then tried to follow that too, until we realised that we didn’t really understand what the guide was telling us. After a few turns, we followed some increasingly steep roads that took us onto a housing estate, before following other roads that made a gentle descent into the town.
In the town, we found evidence of its rural heritage; a large livestock market situated at the back of the high street. In the late afternoon, shops were starting to close. We also found a smart looking café that was still open. It was empty except for ourselves, and a solitary customer.
“Is there anything to do around here, in the evening?” asked Sarah. The café owner paused, before eventually saying: “Not around here… You could go to Llan’dod, but there’s not much going on there either; there’s more going on in Newtown”.
We found a sofa and sat down. Sarah had bought a copy of the Radnorshire County Times and Gazette. Amidst stories of local tragedy, and a feature about a potential ‘tourism tax’, there was a report that Preseigne town council had made a decision about the species of cherry trees that they were going to plant. The story, sadly, omitted to mention the name of the species.
I liked Builth Wells. I liked the houses that we passed on our walk, and the fact that there was a group of middle aged motorcyclists congregating by the bridge next to the river Wye, perhaps out for one of their last rides of the year. I liked the quietness, and that there was a café where I could read about cherry trees. A visit to Builth Wells marked the end of the day that we had visited Fron, but we had booked another day in Michelle and Peter’s house. We traced our route, heading north to Llan’dod to Crossgates, and then across the scrubland to our cottage.
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Rhayader is eight miles to the west of Crossgates. Like Builth Wells, Rhayader is a market town. At its heart lies a war memorial and a simple clock tower which sits adjacent to a road junction. We parked up and walked up and down the high street, which took around fifteen minutes. I liked it for the simplicity of its topography and practical array of useful shops: a newsagent, a picture framer, and a kebab shop named ‘Turkish Delight’.
We stopped off at the local tourist information office to learn more: Rhayader’s heyday was between 1893 and 1904 when the nearby Elan Valley reservoirs were being constructed. Thousands of workers flocked to the area to work on a series of dams and reservoirs which were designed to provide clean water to the Birmingham area; a necessity due to the industrial revolution.
After our wander, we took a drive to one of the reservoirs, parked up, and attempted to follow a trail that had been recommended to us by a chap who manned the Elan Valley visitor centre. Well-made paths led to well used foot paths, and then onto a roughly marked woodland trail that was encouraging us towards the shores of a reservoir. This unexpected and somewhat muddy hike, complete with confusion about which direction to take, led thirty year old memories to resurface. There were differences; this time my legs didn’t ache as much and I wasn’t engulfed in a tiredness that gave way to an existential teenage crisis. Rambling around a series of muddy hills and fields was, in some ways, something that I had been looking forward to.
In anticipation of this trip, I had tried to make contact with some community groups through social media. I had been mostly unsuccessful; perhaps my limited success had been down to my choice of social media tools and unfamiliarity as to the communities that I could approach. There was one online community that were willing to chat, and they were based in Newtown.
Newtown caught my attention since it was the largest town on the main road that runs from Fron to Crossgates. The journey from Rhayader, to Llangurig and then onto Newtown was fast, quiet and lovely. The main road we followed sat in a valley and traced the path of the River Wye. As I drove, I remembered a vague plan that Sarah and I had discussed some time earlier; a plan to visit the Machynlleth comedy festival. Sarah would catch a train and I would go by motorcycle to experience the elements and drama of the countryside. The scenic roads reminded me of those thoughts, as did a road sign as we approached Newtown.
Newtown was more than twice the size of Llandrindod Wells and felt noticeably busier. Our timing, however, was unfortunate. After chatting to the manager of a co-operative store that was called Newtopia we discovered that all the key attractions, the Robert Owen Museum (which celebrated the founder of the co-operative movement), the Oriel Davies Gallery and the Newtown Textile Museum were all closed. To kill time, we wandered around Newtown, exploring its streets and studying its character. I liked it. It was a town with a definite centre. Although it had the same type of shops you would see on any high street, it appeared to be punctuated by independent businesses. Before heading off to a restaurant we settled down for a pint in a back street pub called The Sportsman.
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“This is it…” I said, turning to Sarah. An hour and a half had passed. It was now dark. We walked towards a community centre situated on the corner of a small housing estate. I pushed a set of red double doors that opened up into a short corridor and into a large open room, where we met a chap called Patrick who had invited me to ‘bell ringing’. Patrick greeted me enthusiastically, said hello to Sarah and introduced us both to his wife, Sam.
Patrick asked me what we were doing in Newtown. I explained that we had just done an ‘F’, and that meant visiting Fron.
“Did you know that Fron means ‘breast’ in Welsh?”
Patrick ran Newtown Handbell Ringers. As we talked, furniture was moved around and cases of hand bells were unpacked and carefully placed on tables that had been covered by a thick felt-like material and arranged in a simple horse shoe configuration.
“Can you read music?” asked Patrick.
“No.” I replied. I admit to being slightly worried; I had musical baggage. I had once been fired from the school orchestra due to my inability to play the triangle; my ineptitude was down to a bad case of day dreaming.
“You don’t need to read music; you just follow what everybody else does; it’ll all make sense”. Sarah had grade seven for flute and piano. I felt out of my depth.
I assumed that his group attracted a diverse group of people but this particular evening Newtown Handbell Ringers was comprised entirely of retired women.
“Stand over there, next to Sally. You’ll be taking over from Gladys. Gladys can’t make it because of her sciatica”.
Each ‘ringer’ was given two bells and a music book. Each book was different and had been annotated for each performer; Patrick has highlighted exactly where each bell should be rung. Further annotations connected the notes to the left hand and the right hand. With books allocated, bells grasped and a few directions offered about how to hold the bells, it was time for first performance of the evening: a rendition of Waltzing Matilda. Patrick stood at the front of the tables and conducted, enthusiastically pointing and announcing each note. Our performance was halting, confused and yet vaguely recognisable. We gave it another go. This time our rendition was slightly better, even though I managed to confuse my left hand with my right hand.
We soon moved onto another song: a Christmas carol; I forget what it was. I have never been in a band or a choir. This session of bell ringing is one of my very few experiences of communal music making. While this experience might be familiar to some, the translation of highlighted notes in a photocopied book, to the movement of two different bells, and onto the creation of a simple collaborate enterprise felt unfamiliar and exciting. Although I didn’t know who Sally, Edith or any of the other bell ringers were, I know what they did; they were different notes in time, connected through Patrick’s highlighted score.
After our visit, I asked Patrick why he ran Newtown Handbell Ringers. His answer was brilliant and simple: it gives something to the community; it makes Newtown become a better place.
“It allows non-musicians to play music” he continued. “There is something good for the soul to play in a group or band or orchestra. It has a bit of physical exercise and mental stretching, which is good for preventing dementia. When you perform, there is an element of fear; you should know about that, and it's good to face fears. [I run it] because the members of the group want to play and I get a thrill out of giving them music arrangements that no one else has ever played, and I get to hear them play it for the first time ever.”
Our drive back was fraught; our simple journey back past Fron and onto our cottage was interrupted by a road closure. I adopted a simple and pragmatic approach and decided to retrace our route through Rhayader.
In the car, we were silent. I couldn’t quite believe that we had played Waltzing Matilda in a community centre in Powys with a group of pensioners. What’s more, I was surprised that I had thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
“We could move here” said Sarah. “We could live in a stone cottage and I could take Aga lessons”. It was a thought. It was a thought that was not entirely unappealing.
