Book of Travels: March
Difference and division, dolphins, and remote Welsh castles.
Each month I share stories from a week of roving.
Monday 3rd March
The Church of St Michael and All Angels, Castlemartin, Wales
Outside the churchyard, a six-step mounting block stands beside a wrought iron lychgate.1 Latches shaped like clenched fists challenge those who would enter. By the foot of the ancient boundary wall, snowdrops, and at its upper reaches, pea-green coins of pennywort, each round fleshy leaf the size and shape of a pleasing penny.
Over the bed of blended birdsong woodpecker rattles. Disturbed, it cries out in alarm and takes flight with a loud tchik-tchik. Another bird chimes in from on high, indistinguishable at the top of the church tower. The stones of the belfry are warming under the rising sun. Beneath the crenellated crown, two slatted windows peer down.
In the far corner, five slate-grey tombstones in close formation: drowned sailors from the steel-hulled steamship Ionian, torpedoed by the Germans at nearby St Govan's Head in 1917.
The Church of St Michael and All Angels, at Castlemartin, in Pembrokeshire, is cut into a steeply sloping rocky bank. Climbing it affords a long-ranging view over the farmer’s dew-soaked fields. Grass glistens in the early morning sunlight. A herd of dairy cows makes an appeal for breakfast.
Before the Second World War, most of the land in Castlemartin, six-thousand acres, was requisitioned and cleared by the Government to be used as a military artillery range.
…
Dawn on Monday morning. A white-hot sun, just risen, throws spears of tiger-light across the mountain basin. Black and white cows wander in from stage left.
…
Later, breakfast on a cliff top overlooking Caerfai Beach and St Bride’s Bay. There may be blue sky and sunshine but the cool wind demands a layer or two: 'cast ne'er a clout before May is out'.2 At sea a small fishing boat makes its way through placid waters.
St Davids,3 the cathedral city on the River Alun, is within striking distance. Walking towards it along a quiet Welsh lane my youngest, North, spies the first butterfly of the season: a rust-red peacock, sitting on daffodils. Also in the hedgerow, purple periwinkles.
On the beach after lunch, a cheap set of boules bought in town proves to be a poor purchase: the yellow plastic ball explodes at the climax of a vigorously contested round. It’s cheap-shit-from-China but since we are using the Halifax Bomber Technique4 we must share some of the blame.
Play abandoned, the children go off to swim in a cold pool by the rocks.
…
Strumble Head, on the north west tip of Pembrokeshire, looks across St George’s Channel to Ireland, the approach via a sinuous narrow road. Tonight the sun is smouldering in the sea behind the lighthouse. The tower stands on its own islet (St Michael’s Island), separated from the mainland by a narrow gorge. It was built by Trinity House in 1908 to mark the dangerous stretch between Wales and Ireland and offer safe passage to nearby Fishguard Harbour.
As the sun sets the eldest two seek out the perilous ravine. The tide is out. Oak goes over the top of the headland to the iron bridge spanning the gap. A locked gate bars his way. His older brother Thor forges a low path, stands alone in the bottom of the gulley, then climbs the steep slope from the depths of the sound. They meet at the top and scarper.
Tuesday 4th March
Strumble Head, Fishguard, Wales
It’s pancake day today.
Cold clean sea air this morning, and breezy. Rabbits scurry ahead. Gulls chatter. Frost decorates the west facing banks. Grass and gorse surround. Yellow flowers colour-pop the prickly bushes. Scattered stones are covered in a patchwork of white lichen.
The sun appears over the dark hill and illuminates the lighthouse tower. The lamp still flashes its four-beat rhythm.
Around the island the sea is restful, and the great expanse of smooth water is pregnant with the possibility of breaching whales or leaping dolphins. Two gulls dive in, emerge, shake off, and take flight. A shag flies arrow-straight past a small boat.
Down the slope an old radar building sits squat in the scrub. A Second World War relic, it was part of a chain of stations designed to locate mine-laying German aircraft whose pilots were avoiding the early warning radar detection system (Chain Home) by flying at low altitudes. The new radar system (Chain Home Low), developed at Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk, could spot a plane at five-hundred feet.
In the 1980s wildlife watchers, including Bill Oddie, began to use the shell of the building as a shelter and persuaded the local authority to do basic repairs rather than knock it down.
Inside, Ken Barnett, an accomplished wildlife photographer whose work adorns the walls within, has his spotting scope trained on a pod of dolphins. He has located them by following the gannets, which are gathering to take a share of the fish the dolphins drive to the surface. Fins cut the surface, followed by glistening black backs.
Wednesday 5th March
Dinas Mountain, Spring Hill, near Fishguard, Wales
The rocky outcrop of Dinas is high and exposed with views over Fishguard Bay. It’s a slow descent along the crooked miles, negotiating tight turns and s-bends to get to the valley of Cwm Gwaun.
In the lush, steep-sided vale created by torrents of Ice Age meltwater, past the pub and the primary school, a young woman walks in the sun, a team lays out their tree-planting kit, and an old farmer nods from his bright-red all-terrain vehicle. He’s in no rush.
At the edge of the village, Sychpant Woods offers a pleasant place to stop for breakfast. The sun is shining, the sky is tiffany blue, and pretty yellow flowers proliferate: daffodils, buttercups, Celandine, and lemon primroses atop the old stone wall. A spring gurgles toward the River Gwaun. The old farmer shuffles to and fro, seeing to his cows. A red kite hangs overhead.
The wooden gate at the entrance, hung between two standing stones, looks handmade. It’s rough but precise, simple yet clever. The vertical bars swing further off-centre as they progress toward the hinges, suggesting rays of sunlight.
Thursday 6th March
Mwnt, Ceredigion, near Cardigan, Wales
Mwnt, formerly anglicised as Mount, gets its name from a steep hill which rises seventy-five metres above the beach. Just after sunrise, North climbs it with me. The wind hits hard at the rocky summit, with views over St George’s Channel and the Irish Sea. A waterfall picks its way carefully down the hillside, past an old lime kiln, to the beach below.
A tiny but determined tug tows a bright-red barge past Cardigan Island. Inland, down on the flats, sheep stand at the gates of the chapel, seeking entry into the kingdom of sod.
The Church of the Holy Cross, painted white, is nestled at the base of the mount, surrounded by a small spread of gravestones. It's a thirteenth century medieval chapel of ease: a church for sailors and others far from home. The font is made from Preseli Bluestone, from the nearby Preseli Hills.5 A small tower supports a single bell, to summon the people. Through lashing storms they would come, and sit on the cold hard pews.
Tara and Oak return from walking on the pristine beach, one of many on this stretch of Cardigan Bay which runs north-east from here through Aberystwyth and up to Snowdonia.
There’s bacon sandwiches, cups of tea, and singing in the van: 'yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum'.6
Spring shows itself: snowdrops at the roadside, daffodils on grassy banks and lambs skittering about in fields.
…
At Cwmtydu Cove three pallets need dismantling for firewood. As I set to it, Tony from Wigan comes over to talk. He is travelling in a van, part-time, just him and his dogs. Ebullient during conversation he shows off his fighter’s fists, and his favourite tool: a Chinese Army military shovel. Although cheerful and friendly, Tony is bemused by the world and the people in it, hence his solitary roving.
Friday 7th March
Cwmtydu Cove, Cardigan Bay, Wales
Heavy rain in the night. The river has swollen. It is deeper and flowing fiercely. Oystercatcher barrels past noisily.
A mother and her daughters arrive and walk across the stony beach. I have seen them before, in Mwnt. We talk: they moved to Wales to escape city life, schools, the daily grind. When their house fell through they were forced into temporary holiday lettings and the dreaded Airbnb accommodation. They’re still looking for a home. There is a long lament about ADHD, autism and being neurodivergent. They are wearing lanyards. She applies these terms to herself and her children, liberally and interchangeably.
Without getting into the dubious grouping of these ‘illnesses’, as if the experience of severely autistic people and their families7 is somehow comparable to that of someone who can’t concentrate for more than five minutes, it’s quite clear to the sane and self-aware that many of these conditions, which have exploded in numbers in recent years, often through self-diagnosis, are simply made up.8 They do not exist.9
Mental illness does not exist. Selfishness exists, sadness exists, fear and violence and addiction all exist, but they are not medical problems. They are automatically seen as medical problems by the system, which cannot allow individuals and their societies to take responsibility for their lives. The reason that the system cannot accept the true cause of ‘mental illness’ is because actually ‘curing’ it entails the revolutionary act of improving reality.10
It is the system that is sick, not the people. Who wouldn’t experience difficult thoughts or react ‘divergently’ when faced with the madness of modern reality?
…the best way to deal with so-called ‘mental illness’ is to improve reality. For the doctors, therapists, politicians, managers, academics and journalists of the capitalist market system, ‘society’ may be to blame, but serious attempts to deal with the stress, loneliness, confusion, boredom, fear and alienation of living separated from our communities, our nature and our own selves by allowing us to return to these domains, is out of the question. You are unhappy because of a fall in your serotonin levels, or because you don’t have a sufficiently well-qualified therapist, or because you’re not doing enough meditating. It can’t be because you’re forced to spend your life running on a hamster wheel with lead boots. What you need, sir, is cognitive behavioural therapy and a mantra! You’ll stay on the wheel, and keep the boots, but feel less miserable about it. Getting off the wheel is as unthinkable, as unsayable, as the greatest taboo of all in psychology, the word guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of every mental-health professional; sanity.11
We all react to the world around us with broadly similar emotions which bring with them suffering and joy: the human experience. There is no neuronormal standard that we should be aiming for.
To keep the system running, adults turn up at work each day, and children are sent to school. This requires high levels of emotional detachment: suppressing or ignoring troubling thoughts, feelings, and emotions when faced with a reality that is inhuman, objectionable, meaningless, and morally bankrupt.
People who fall by the wayside or buck the system, far from being mentally ill, are reminders of our humanity in the face of an inhuman world.
Hyper-wealthy owners and controllers profiting from the continuation of this reprehensible system don’t want anything or anyone upsetting the perilous balance. Using false labels prolongs the status quo, which is dividing the many and enriching the few.
Everyday folk could build alliances, push back against the ongoing destruction of our shared human goodness and wonder, but we focus instead on differences and disagreement, defeating ourselves.12
In conversation with this woman, I could try harder, be kind, seek connection, build conviviality, and challenge her lovingly. But I can’t be bothered.
Here we stand alone again
Divided by the same old men
Hands behind our backs again
And our backs against the wall againExcuse us if we take offence
Each action has a consequence
And yours caused nothing but laments
And our backs against the wall againI pray our pain will be your pain
As you use and hold us back again
And profit from our loss again
Until the straw that breaks this camel's chainsSome day soon, the time will come
To rid the world of greedy scum
When that day comes, I'll get my gun
You'll be the first against the wall, my friend13
Saturday 8th March
Ynyslas Beach, opposite Aberdyfi, Ceredigion, Wales
Up the Welsh coast past the Cambrian Mountains with Snowdonia in sight, through Aberystwyth, toward a great expanse of estuary sand: Ynyslas National Nature Reserve.
Morning brings a grey dawn over the dunes with distant mountains lit up like the fires of Mordor. The wind whips up the top-sand so it surges like water. Marram grass bends to its will.
Some distance ahead, the River Dyfi spreads to estuary while seeking the sea. Here at its lower reaches we stand on the old understanding of the border between North and South Wales.
The flat sand-scape stretches out where rockets once flew.14
Saturday folk, freed from their work cells for forty-eight hours come to take liberty. The kite-surfing clan circles the wagons and middle-aged men emerge from the vehicles, disgorging kit onto the sand. They are out of shape, and plod about wearily, squeezing into wetsuits, stopping to chat, fussing, and procrastinating. They look like they’ve misplaced the pub, the pints and the pies.
A tall bloated man lumbers over to the wide river, board in hand and kite overhead. He disappears for a moment as he steps down the bank and then reappears on the water travelling at speed. Leaning back comfortably into the harness, kite control immaculate, surfing the water on a bare board with no foot straps. He tacks and flips both the board and the kite in a sumptuously smooth motion before heading back across the wind in the opposite direction. His belly is massive. His kite surfing is sensational.
Overweight ageing men join him. They’re good too. Out on the water, they shine, showing off great skill, enjoying the thrill.
Enthralled, confused, and clearly outdone, I sit quietly in the van and swallow the medicine.
Sunday 9th March
Castell y Bere, Llanfihangel-y-pennant, Gwynedd, Wales.
Dawn chorus beside Castell y Bere. A cock crows, in Welsh; not so much cock-a-doodle-do, as cocky-doodle. A pink wash begins to spread in the eastern sky. The sun is hiding behind a ridge where two hills meet. Sheep sit quietly in the morning calm.
Pied wagtails bob. Woodpecker, crow and buzzard call, only to be out-sung by song thrush. Catkins and green buds on the trees hint at a rising vitality.
The children appear and start to sharpen sticks to make spears. Oak fashions a bow and arrow. Red is poorly but she embroiders her brother’s name on a piece of felt and presents it to him.
The remote castle15 was built in 1221. Its broken-down remains are strung along a commanding rocky outcrop in the Dysynni Valley at the foot of Cader Idris, one of the highest mountains in Snowdonia. The ingenious Welsh architects came up with a sophisticated entrance featuring two gatehouses with drawbridges and portcullises.
Crossing these fortifications carrying Tara’s homemade Welsh cakes and a flask of tea we find an old alcove to sit in and take nourishment. The children do battle.
A ranger from the Eryri National Park Warden Team arrives and sits on top of a turret. His body is slumped. He looks tired. We leave, granting him the privacy and solace I suspect he has come for.
Having observed his beard, longish hair, outdoor clothes, and identical flask. The children, laughing, say this man is me in an alternative reality.
Later when everyone has gone, Tara disappears back up to the castle on her own. She is troubled: an unresolved aspect of her childhood is coming back to haunt her.
This undoing is happening to both of us. The more time we spend on the road, living on the edges, out of conventional routine, where the meaningless activity of the system, with all its pointless distractions, is more distant, and instead we lean into the unknown each day, in the wild places, which strip and hollow out, the more the deeper truth comes to the surface, to breathe the air again, cold and clear.
Monday 10th March
Castell y Bere, Llanfihangel-y-pennant, Gwynedd, Wales.
The dark dawn and waxing moon reveal outlines of broken battlements. Today we will leave the raw sanctuary of this wilderness and return to town, on errands. Down in the valley, an owl calls repeatedly and insistently. Then all is still.
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A lychgate is a roofed gate to a churchyard, formerly used during funerals as a temporary shelter for the bier, on which the corpse or coffin could rest before burial.
The best-known of the May weather sayings is ‘ne’er cast a clout till May be out’. A ‘clout’ was a piece of clothing, so it is obviously a suggestion that you shouldn’t remove it, due to the weather being cold, but there is some disagreement about what the rest of the saying means. It could mean until the end of May but it could also refer to ‘the may’: hawthorn or may blossom.
The Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to 2024 by Lia leendertz (2023).
It should be written St David’s but it is now widespread practice to omit the possessive apostrophe. This is not unusual, as these letters to The Times (2012) illustrate:
Sir, Lynne Truss’s article (July 19) on missing apostrophes amused me, as I am off to St Davids next month with my choir. On the “Visit Pembrokeshire” website I see that it is “St Davids, not St David’s” as it is named after the patron Saint of Wales (no other explanation given).
My confidence was somewhat shaken, however, when I saw the section headed “Whats on in Pembrokeshire”.
Liz Rapple
Rowstock, Oxon
Sir, I can’t see any reason to single out the Fylde coast when it comes to missing apostrophes. St Albans, St Andrews and St Helens all deserve similar treatment, not to mention Earls Court, Harrods, Queens Park Rangers, Reuters and Crufts.
None of them makes me “grrr” but when I saw a supermarket advertising the local paper with a sign “new’s and view’s” I exploded (although not “literally”).
Deb Atkinson
Southport, Merseyside
Boules games are divided into two categories based on typical throwing technique:
Games where the balls are rolled (for example, bocce)
Games where the balls are thrown (for example, pétanque, bocce volo)
They may be further subdivided into two other categories based on typical throwing technique:
Games where there is a run-up to the throw (for example, boule lyonnaise, bocce volo)
Games where there is no run-up (for example, pétanque)
Halifax Bomber Technique is an additional made-up category, which we invented shortly after our first few rounds. The last player is permitted to use a vigorous overarm throw in an attempt to strike the ball closest to the jack and send as many careening away as possible, thus clearing the field and leaving the winner to chance. It is called the Halifax Bomber Technique after the Handley Page Halifax, a British RAF four-engined heavy bomber, which flew out of the nearby St David’s Airfield during the Second World War.
Small stones from the Preseli Hills somehow ended up at Stonehenge, one-hundred-and-eighty miles away.
Fifteen Men On A Deadman's Chest by the Salt Sea Pirates.
This [photo of the poster’s bruised face] was taken 4 years ago. We were in the midst of the worst crisis we'd ever been in with our son.
I don't recall what he was raging about that day. Dale was at work. I was home waiting on a large delivery. Just as the driver showed up, he started his daily violent meltdown. Normally I'd lock myself out in the garpartment for safety, but this always drove him outside into the yard and that day the delivery driver was a woman.
I ran outside to warn her and to get her to come back later. He chased me outside, grabbed me by the hair and yanked me to the ground. He got one hand in my mouth and tried to rip my cheek open. He went for my eyes to gouge them out. As I fought him off, I felt a great peace. I thought "I'm gonna lose my eye but it's ok." I was able to sweep his legs out from under him and he went down. As I sat in the safety of the delivery truck with the gracious, understanding driver, I watched my son rip the front door off our house.
I don't dwell on this or any of the other times like this. They are not who my son is. He's a wonderful, loving, funny person. I adore him with all my heart. He has severe autism. He is verbal but he can't have a normal conversation. He can't tie his shoes, make his own dinner, or hold a job. He will never live independently. When Dale and I are gone, he will likely live in some type of institutionalized care facility. It breaks my heart just thinking about it.
When he is on any type of anti-inflammatory type drug, he gets better. This is because one of his diagnoses is encephalopathy. He has extensive brain damage from the shots he was given when he was 3 years old, including his first MMR and Varicella. He began showing signs of brain swelling and seizures two days later.
I don't like anyone to know the extreme struggles we've had with him over the years. I've talked here and there about it but don't share the worst of it. I'm a pretty private person, so talking about this is very hard for me. And I don't want people to get the wrong impression of my precious son.
The reason I'm sharing this now is because I hope that when you see people talking bad about RFKjr (who has long been a hero in our house), you will know that he was referring to cases like my son's. This type of autism absolutely devastates families with the financial, emotional, physical, and psychological toll it takes on you. It isolates you. The stress undoes you and shortens your life expectancy. When Dale had a heart attack two years ago, it drove home how difficult this would be without him.
I love each of you and take a lot of comfort in knowing that you care about our family and Micah. Thank you for that!
There is nothing “wrong” with anyone, and… by Charles Eisenstein.
Mental illnesses are literally made up by people in rooms and then added to two hefty books of madness: the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) created out of thin air by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its American counterpart the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
The Myth of Mental Illness from 33 Myths of the System by Darren Allen (2021).
As above.
…if it were ever accepted that we, and not phantom illnesses, are responsible for our problems, doctors would be out of a nice job, patients out of a good excuse, drug companies would lose the billions they make from tranquillising us and the state would have no reason to coerce and confine problematic citizens.
The Myth of Mental Illness from 33 Myths of the System by Darren Allen (2021).
Lone Gunman Required, Matt Elliott (2006).
Toward the end of the Second World War these sand dunes were used for testing rocket projectiles, Britain’s response to the devastating V-1 and V-2 German flying bombs.
Castell y Bere means The Point Castle or The Well Castle.