Welsh Journals

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At last, we were there. The elders climbed stiffly down, but others leaped with me, and then we were off, rolling and tumbling and leaping the stream, or nearly leaping it. I have never yet arrived the other side of a stream with dry feet. Mother grew wise and always took spare socks and shoes, but after the first wetting, I was allowed to paddle in and out of the icy water. Almost too soon, although I was ravenous, we stopped for tea. Snippets of interesting chit-chat went on around me. I learned a great deal about life from those picnics because I ate steadily, and listened. Afterwards we ran races. Somehow every- one won a prize although I was usually last, after all the cherry cake. Our most exciting day was when a group of us ventured a little way down the valley. We found a high peak, crumbling with loose rock. At the top we found ourselves above a gorge. Resting on a ledge half-way down, was a dead sheep. Revolted, we gazed in spite of ourselves. Then, as the nauseating smell arose, we fled with one accord. My last picnic was as a young lady of seventeen. We were all a little older that year, no tiny tots for some reason. It was late harvest time, and we stayed, greatly daring, to have a moonlight supper in Pwlldu Bay. An enormous golden orb laid a path across the water. We were awed into silence by the grandeur of the scene. We munched our sandwiches and, hardly speaking, strolled back through the shifting shadows of this strange night- time valley. My friends and I have changed a great deal since then, but the valley is as beautiful as ever and will be, I hope, another sixty years from now. This Gower Valley Needs Your Help In the current National Trust booklet circulated to all members, Trust Properties needing your help, a photograph of Bishopston Valley taken by one of our members, Mr. J. A. Stirling, introduces an appeal for funds for clearance work The time has come when clearance and some under- planting of the woodlands must be undertaken if the charm of the Bishopston Valley is to be maintained. Also clearance work must be done on the footpaths to keep them from becoming overgrown. Funds are not available for this work, some of which cannot be tackled by voluntary labour. Appeal is made for f4,000 to provide £ 200 a year for the part-time employment of a woodman