disturbing. In fact it was merely comfortable underfoot.
All my trepidation was banished by an assumption of rectitude. That was it. I had an aura of Leslie Stephens, that Victorian mountain pioneer, about me now. Only mortal petty-bourgeois fuddy-duddies would stand askance and trembling. This was what real men of the mountain did. It separated the wild horses from the sheep. I even reached down and casually disentangled various bits of my frontal arrangements.
Sod everybody. I dropped down into the black water. It was more soft than freezing, speckled with raindrops and wrinkled with wind. And then I struck out and swam away across the deep area, where a legendary invisible fairy island once stood. The legend says it tempted the locals. They took part in an annual Beltane feast, out in the middle of the dark waters, until one stole an apple. It turned to maggots in his hand and the door was shut on mere mortals forever.
The water, like all lake swimming water, was sweet in the mouth: no chlorine, no salt. It had a peppery, slightly silty taste. No limestone filters here. I wondered, as I splashed about and completed this âCeltic Challengeâ, whether this really did link me with my Welsh roots. Surely not many of my fellow countrymen, lurking in the shopping centres of the post-industrial Welsh hinterland, actually swam in wild waters?
And thatâs what swimming in a Welsh mountain lake did for me. An unappealling sense of my own specialness surfaced alongside my pallid dugs in the black water. I think Shelley and Alan Clarke probably felt much the same. Roger Deakin, on the other hand, was far too nice. But at least, for a moment or two, I was at one with Welsh wilderness and away with the fairies.
â3â GO WER WILD RUGBY FOOD
â BEACHED WALES â
If Wales is a geological âcontinent in miniatureâ with its mountains and lakes, populous sea ports and a vast unending steppe (except that last bit, of course, unless you include parts of Borth), then the Gower is a continent in miniature, in miniature: a jut of land that reaches out in the north of the Bristol Channel towards the Atlantic Ocean between Swansea and Llanelli. It seems to cram the lot into its 15 mile length.
Gower is not especially rugged, except on a few cliff tops, although almost a third of it is a nature reserve. It is comfortable and reassuring. It has deep woods, and sunken lanes with high beech canopies. It has foggy marshes, stony coves and high wild moorland. It has untroubled farmland, hidden meadows, long wild strands and bleak outcrops. Just about the only things it lacks are a geyser and a grizzly bear problem. And all this just a short bus ride from Swansea.
The bus is vital. There is no train station in the Gower. In the nineteenth century the Lord of Margam thought âthe rail would destroy the countryâ. His order not to build a railway has been followed to this day. In 1956 the Gower became the first area in Britain to be designated an Area of Outstanding National Beauty.
So I started in Swansea, which I love. I know it well and I feel entitlement. I used to own it â if only in Russell T Daviesâs imagination. In the early part of the century he wrote a drama series for ITV called âMine All Mineâ and I played a taxi driver who, thanks to an ancient title deed, found that he had inherited the ownership of the city. We filmed everywhere, enjoying the ice cream from Joeâs, the fishing from the Mumbles pier and the lascivious murals by Frank Brangwyn in the town hall (if you are invited to a âBest Welsh Sausage Awardâ, go.) The paintings are extraordinary and were banned from the House of Lords for being âtoo flamboyantâ. Too many naked breasts, they meant.
I remember the grand sweep of the beach and the curry houses by the university. Russell said at the time that if âMine All Mineâ failed to take wing, then it was probably the end for modern
All my trepidation was banished by an assumption of rectitude. That was it. I had an aura of Leslie Stephens, that Victorian mountain pioneer, about me now. Only mortal petty-bourgeois fuddy-duddies would stand askance and trembling. This was what real men of the mountain did. It separated the wild horses from the sheep. I even reached down and casually disentangled various bits of my frontal arrangements.
Sod everybody. I dropped down into the black water. It was more soft than freezing, speckled with raindrops and wrinkled with wind. And then I struck out and swam away across the deep area, where a legendary invisible fairy island once stood. The legend says it tempted the locals. They took part in an annual Beltane feast, out in the middle of the dark waters, until one stole an apple. It turned to maggots in his hand and the door was shut on mere mortals forever.
The water, like all lake swimming water, was sweet in the mouth: no chlorine, no salt. It had a peppery, slightly silty taste. No limestone filters here. I wondered, as I splashed about and completed this âCeltic Challengeâ, whether this really did link me with my Welsh roots. Surely not many of my fellow countrymen, lurking in the shopping centres of the post-industrial Welsh hinterland, actually swam in wild waters?
And thatâs what swimming in a Welsh mountain lake did for me. An unappealling sense of my own specialness surfaced alongside my pallid dugs in the black water. I think Shelley and Alan Clarke probably felt much the same. Roger Deakin, on the other hand, was far too nice. But at least, for a moment or two, I was at one with Welsh wilderness and away with the fairies.
â3â GO WER WILD RUGBY FOOD
â BEACHED WALES â
If Wales is a geological âcontinent in miniatureâ with its mountains and lakes, populous sea ports and a vast unending steppe (except that last bit, of course, unless you include parts of Borth), then the Gower is a continent in miniature, in miniature: a jut of land that reaches out in the north of the Bristol Channel towards the Atlantic Ocean between Swansea and Llanelli. It seems to cram the lot into its 15 mile length.
Gower is not especially rugged, except on a few cliff tops, although almost a third of it is a nature reserve. It is comfortable and reassuring. It has deep woods, and sunken lanes with high beech canopies. It has foggy marshes, stony coves and high wild moorland. It has untroubled farmland, hidden meadows, long wild strands and bleak outcrops. Just about the only things it lacks are a geyser and a grizzly bear problem. And all this just a short bus ride from Swansea.
The bus is vital. There is no train station in the Gower. In the nineteenth century the Lord of Margam thought âthe rail would destroy the countryâ. His order not to build a railway has been followed to this day. In 1956 the Gower became the first area in Britain to be designated an Area of Outstanding National Beauty.
So I started in Swansea, which I love. I know it well and I feel entitlement. I used to own it â if only in Russell T Daviesâs imagination. In the early part of the century he wrote a drama series for ITV called âMine All Mineâ and I played a taxi driver who, thanks to an ancient title deed, found that he had inherited the ownership of the city. We filmed everywhere, enjoying the ice cream from Joeâs, the fishing from the Mumbles pier and the lascivious murals by Frank Brangwyn in the town hall (if you are invited to a âBest Welsh Sausage Awardâ, go.) The paintings are extraordinary and were banned from the House of Lords for being âtoo flamboyantâ. Too many naked breasts, they meant.
I remember the grand sweep of the beach and the curry houses by the university. Russell said at the time that if âMine All Mineâ failed to take wing, then it was probably the end for modern
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