Cast In England Tempered In Wales.

Cast In England Tempered In Wales.

The first time I went west to Wales I was thirteen years old. My scout troop leader in the 4^th Aldershot Division was a serving soldier. As a result of his service, he managed to persuade the army to lend him a driver and four-ton truck to transport a bunch of Aldershot teenagers down to the mountains of South Wales to go camping for a weekend.

After school on Friday, we all gathered in Ash Vale, near Aldershot and clambered onto the great green monster that would carry us away. As boys from a garrison town, we had seen these trucks drive past us with tough uniformed men sitting next to the drop-down tailgate looking out onto the world. We all vied for that space, the place where we could be seen and imagine ourselves as soldiers.

‘Wrap up warm’ our leader said it’s a long journey. Back in 1970 the great motorways were not as prevalent nor the vehicles so fast. After an hour it began to get dark the cold began to seep into our bones. The attraction of sitting at the back diminished quickly and the rolled canvass flap was tied down leaving us to rock to sleep, soothed by the delicious aroma of exhaust fumes. Who would throw up first was a question being asked by the laughing boys who were snuggled close to the front and the warmth of the engine.

After three hours of boredom, a voice said we were approaching the Severn Bridge, the great connection that joined England to South Wales. The flap was rolled up so we could look out, but it was dark, so there was little to see. Once over the bridge we were in Cymru, Wales and we were immediately welcomed by that most famous of Welsh products – rain. Which seeped through the roof canvass and ran down the inside walls. The tail canvass was promptly dropped again for the remainder of the journey. Along the M4 motorway which was now only two lanes, past Newport, and Cardiff, to eventually turn right up the A470, signposted to Merthyr Tydfill. The truck now swung along the narrow valley roads and climbed slowly up the southern ridge of the Brecon Beacons to eventually turn down a tiny lane. It came to a halt in a field by a white walled pub called the New Inn.

After six gruelling hours a group of tired, grumpy, hungry, teenage boys clambered down and watered the wall with urine while they waited for instructions. The rain fortunately had ceased for now; some hurricane lamps were shedding light on some l tents that had been erected in advance. We were beckoned over by a man dressed in white who issued us with a set of army mess tins, a plastic cup, and a very clever knife fork and spoon set that clipped together. ‘Don’t lose them’ he said, ‘you won’t get another.’

We lined up for hot food which we devoured like starving wolves, cleaned our utensils in an old, white, enamel sink with a cold-water tap at the side of the field. The tents were dry with long green army issue sleeping bags laid out on the floor. We were told to get our heads down and be ready to get up early.

Ystradfellte, as the village was known. consisted of a pub and a church that served the local farming community. The gravestones harked back to 1730; older ones were probably buried below. But the valley held hidden treasures. This was where the rivers than ran under the limestone mountains exited south to form the headwaters of the Taff and Rhondda. Over millions of years, they had carved deep caves and waterfalls beneath the soil. Ysradfellte, this tiny crack in the walls of the mountain was full of adventures.

After breakfast we marched a mile or so to the entrance of a cave, where helmets were issued and after being regaled with gruesome stories about cavers who had been drowned by flash floods we were led into the great hole in the ground. The next two days were filled with marches up the beacons, short climbs with ropes and songs next to campfires. We never got into the pub. I arrived home late on Sunday night. Wales was the most exciting place I had ever been. It wouldn’t be long before I returned.

At the tender age of fifteen, I joined the British Army and was posted to Oswestry an ancient town on the English side of Offa’s Dyke. A year later I returned to Wales, only this time to Snowdonia, to compete in a mountain race called the Welsh 3000s. As Junior soldiers under the age of eighteen we did two thirds of the course. In preparation we spent every weekend in the Ogwen Valley marching the route. Our race went from The Pen y Gurig Hotel at the end of Llanberis pass over Cader Fach, down to Llyn Ogwen, up Pen-yr-ole-wen. Over Carnedd David, Carnedd Llewellyn and along to The Drum, climbing a total of 12000 feet over twelve miles in less than four hours. I loved it; I recall bouncing along a ridge through a thunderstorm the lightning flickering around me. Rock to rock, running, sweating, breathing, and breaking out of the clouds to look down northwards over the Menai Straits, and the ocean. I never felt so alive, so strong. Those tired legs that had carried me over the Beacons three years earlier had become blood filled sinews of steel, which could drive me upwards and onwards to eventual 3000s victory.

Age seventeen I was back in Brecon at the Parachute Regiment Battle Training School. Running over Pen y Fan the highest peak in South Wales was a ‘doddle.’ The mountains were my playground, but we were to be sent onwards to that great Welsh sponge, Sennybridge, a temperate swamp. It rained three days out of four and was cold. There were only three thoughts that ran through my head in that place. Get there, get dry, and get warm. I lived wet; I should have grown gills. Wales was where they made Paratroopers. Get them cold, wet, dirty, and tired and then do it again.

In summer 1978 I drove my shaky Vauxhall Viva down to a small campsite in Cym Du in the Abergavenny Black Mountains, parked up and pitched my pup tent. This was where I would remain alone for the next three weeks to prepare myself for Special Air Service Selection. I had my army wages, my car, my rucksack, and my waterproof clothing. That was me, alone with a target to achieve. There were times when I yearned for some company, but for the most part, I would wear myself out in the day then eat and sleep. I was twenty-one years old.

In January 79, I saw the Brecon Beacons at their worst. That winter was the coldest since the great freeze of 1963/64. Up on a ridgeline at 0500 the the rain and hail was hitting me sideways from the south in forty mile per hour gusts. The snow was about ten inches deep and frozen on the surface and it was pitch black. I knew if I didn’t get down, I would die. There was no shelter up here, I had never experienced weather like it. As I turned back to descend, I saw three men struggling to put a waterproof coat onto another soldier. I left them to it, they knew what they were doing, I needed to get out of the wind. An hour later I dropped beneath the cloud and walked to Talybont Reservoir. The sun had risen and down in the valley there was little indication of the hell I had encountered up above. My Sergeant Major was sat in the cab of a waiting truck. I told him how bad it was and commented ‘Someone is going to die up there today.’ Sadly, someone did.

That incident aside, I still love the mountains. I took my young brother Wayne to Snowdon and taught him the climb. I took my three kids to Grwyne yr Fawr reservoir or Talybont to camp every summer. Sitting with my children by a campfire drinking a cup of hot chocolate and watching the moon rise over the mountains with them are joyful memories I will carry to my grave.

I live in the Welsh Valleys now, the place where the industrial revolution began, where coal and iron were torn from the ground to make enough steel to conquer the world. A hundred and fifty years ago it was the richest place in earth. Rich of course for landowners and coal barons not so much for the huge immigrant labour force that worked the pits, foundries, and factories.

Today nature is turning the once black and brown surfaces green, trees are struggling to grow on giant hills made from mine spoil. I live by the Cynon a small river valley between the Rhondda and the Taff. Trout are struggling to return in a constant battle with pollution and plastic decorates the riverbanks after floods, but there are compensations. In the evenings, the only sounds are the occasional dog barking and there is no hum of traffic; I can see the stars at night, which blend with the twinkling lights of my village. The people are happy in their own skins and pleased to talk to strangers, a great medicine that modern society lacks.

My great-grandson Elija Robin Horsfall was born in the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfill last year. I’m not sure if that makes him Welsh, but it makes him eligible for the National Rugby team. I hope I have time to take him up my mountains before I pass on. Perhaps that’s going to be one hill too far.

My father was Danish, my mother English. On my mother’s side I hail back to Le Mans in France. I’m English through and through, because when England play Wales at rugby, I am wearing white!

The Red Dragon of Wales (I’m told) is really a Griffin, half eagle and half lion taken from the Romans, but the dragon mythology goes back beyond them. Although my body was cast and founded in England, my sinews, heart, and lungs were tempered to hardness by the rocks, ice, and rivers of Wales. If they ever cut me open, deep inside I think they might find a dragon. I have the wings

Hywl fawr

Who Dares Shares.

Robin Horsfall

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