St Clears and Present Danger - St Clears to Llansteffan

The rain that we had been promised the previous day arrived in the night. There is something very comforting about sitting in a tent, listening to the rain and we were in quite a luxurious tent. Rhian's tent allowed us to have the privacy of our own sleeping pods and also a living area big enough to stand up in, bedecked with fairy lights and the Rug of Contemplation. However calming the sound of rain pattering down is, rain is a pain when it comes to having the visit the wash block.

Let me explain this rug. When camping, usually with sister-in-law and our kids or with Helen and her two (though occasionally with Nick, who is really not a happy camper) I have found that the best way to keep warm and stop some of the whingeing is to make sure the ground under you, or the airbed, has a good layer of blanket or something to protect you from the cold rising up from the ground. So I always bring something that will do the job. Also useful is a picnic rug with a waterproof backing for outside the door of the tent or inside.

Now Helen, seasoned camper as she is, had brought camping chairs for us, but these would not really fit inside the tent with the electric sockets, the stinking boots, the electric cool box, the hairdryer, Helen's clothes, Helen's books, Helen's daysack (and mine) Helen's iPad and so on. You get the picture. So we couldn't sit on the chairs in there. I had brought my Mountain Warehouse £5,waterproof, foldaway picnic rug, and it was ideal! I laid it out carefully on the first evening, and was sitting cross-legged surveying our home for the week when Helen returned from the showers.

"Oh my god! Are you meditating?"

"No - just contemplating a trip to the washblock in the dark and the rain." And so it became the Rug of Contemplation.

Rhian, about to dash to the wash block in the rain, proving that we are hygienic while walking. At least before we start, a hot day and we will smell like horses by the end. Or in Rhian's case, sheep.

Cow.

The rain carried on all though the night. Every time I turned over on the somewhat deflated air bed I woke and every time I woke I could hear the rain. at least there were no helicopters in the night. it was still raining the next morning and I gave up on the thought of cooking breakfast, we dressed and popped into Morrisons en-route to St Clears, the start of the days walk. Leaving one car in Llansteffan we drove back up to St Clears and by this time it was raining in earnest.

It was wet, very wet. Even for Wales this was wet. The rain was torrential and the water was running down the street. We figured that it couldn't keep up this intensity so we waited a while in the car, the windows steaming up, the rain hammering down.

We left the car and headed off. Today was going to be a longer walk, 10 miles, but at least I was safe from chub rub under the Pink Frock and Rhian wasn't mistaken for my minder. We walked through St Clears, which once had a motte-and-bailey castle and a priory, but we didn't explore and headed out past the boating club and headed up the hill. The torrential rain had stopped but there was still a misty rain that managed to get under the hoods of our coats and fogged up Rhian's glasses.

Though they were fogged up I could see clearly enough a field that was virtually covered in cow pats, and up at the top right hand corner, where our gate was, stood a herd of disgruntled, damp cows. It took us a while to navigate the mounds of cow shit and as we got closer the cows started to raise their heads and edge towards us. My nerves were jangling. My usual tactic of putting Helen between myself and the bovine bastards didn't work because she was slightly behind me. Again. I think she has sussed my tactics. I kept my eyes on the gate. The cows began to move towards us. I skidded through mud and cow poo, reaching out to pull open the gate as one of the herd headed directly for me. Helen aqua-planed through the slurry (impressive sight) and I pushed the farm gate closed just in time to avoid a cow's breath on our necks. It was an exciting start to the day.

The clouds cleared and in a dip between two hills we could see out, across the estuary to the path we had walked the previous day and behind that we could see Tenby where we had started the holiday. This was a terrific boost to our ego. 'We have walked ALL THAT WAY!' is something that we say quite a lot.

We resisted the temptation of a diversion to St Michael's church (you can have enough of 'atmospheric ruins') and headed onward. The day was getting better it seemed and we walked back in land. However, as the view of the estuary vanished the clouds came back. They were big, fat, juicy, black rain clouds. We crossed the well named Pont Ddu (black bridge) and the day was growing considerably darker. Just before we left the road and crossed into fields the heavens opened. and this was proper Welsh rain. Stair rods. As we would say in the Rhondda, tamping down.

'Oh for fuck's sake, we are going to get drenched.'

'Look, there is a car port attached to that house over the lane.'

I looked across. She was right.

'So shall we go over and stand under there?' Rhian asked.

'I dunno, what happens if people come out?'

'It's that, or drown' and Rhian started out across the road.

I watched as she crossed the road and saw the curtain twitch. The owner looked out and saw Rhian heading out of the driving rain towards the shelter of the carport. Thankfully Rhian saw the same thing and, thinking quickly, feigned picking some invisible item from the road, turned round and headed back to me. The curtain fell.

'Shelter under the hawthorn hedge instead?'

'Lovely.'

It was cosy, but not much good as protection from the rain. We eyed the carport longingly.

Waiting there for a while, eventually the rain stopped being torrential and went back to being a downpour. We squelched across an exposed, open field and headed up hill. 'Downies' followed 'uppies' and the path eventually dropped into a dip and vanished in a mass of nettles and brambles. This was the first time we had actually lost the path since it vanished into ferns in Ceredigion. Both side of the dip were edged with barbed wire and it was obvious that the path was there, somewhere. We had no option but to wade in, bushwhacking while we went with our walking poles until, hot and sweating, we climbed up the other side of the dip.

'Well, you know why that bit of the path was so bad?' Rhian asked.

'Nettles and brambles?'

'No, no people'.

She was right. We hadn't seen a soul all day. This part of the path was a lot quieter. And it continued to be so. We walked on, along a country lane that was totally empty. This had once been the King's Way and it was a major medieval route. Back in the day there used to be a ferry from Black Scar back across the Taf to Laugharne If we had been mediaeval peasants we would have walked 10 miles less! We whinged about this for a while and headed back up the hill, cutting along Lord's Park until we got St Anthony's Well whose waters supposedly healed sick pilgrims. I was tempted to soak my feet and see if it could fix my blisters but sadly it was dried up, in spite of the rain. St Anthony's Well.

We skirted the edges of a salt marsh, with a few cows grazing there and I fantasised about a delicious saltmarsh beef steak. The tide was out so eventually we walked down onto a beach and around the headland on the hard sand into Llansteffan itself. Llansteffan is a small town on the side of the River Towy with a stunning Norman castle. We really enjoyed the last mile along the beach and round the headland, it had stopped raining and the walk was exhilarating.

'Ah, the last bus to Llansteffan'. We laughed. This takes some explaining.

Rhian and I met in secondary school. We both went to the Upper Rhondda Comprehensive School, a massive school headed by a man who we all called Jonny Conch. To say he was terrifying would be a huge understatement. He ruled the school with, if not a rod of iron, a cane of bamboo. We were both too nerdy to have got into serious trouble with Conch but he still scared the crap out of us. Rumour had it that he once found a boy bunking (skiving) off in the woods behind the school and he chased him back into site, belting him across the head with a telephone directory every step they took; a fearsome man.

At the end of term I was in the school concert, singing in the choir and playing in the orchestra. It was being held in Noddfa Chapel (Noddfa), the biggest chapel in Treorchy and the place was full of parents and doting grandparents. They must have loved us very much because the school orchestra was pretty crap, unlike the brass band who were outstanding. They listened with loving ears and this meant they could listen to our dreadful noise without running for the exits. The place was enormous and packed, there were several hundred people sitting in there and it was hot. We were all sitting on wooden benches which were sticky in the heat, old varnish softening and slowly releasing the farts of congregants long dead, trying not to look bored because the Eye of Conch was on us.

We got to the interval and one of the governors stood up to give a short speech about the school. Normally these things are done and dusted in less than five minutes but something went wrong this time. I don't know if she was tipsy, or the heat had gone to her head or she was seized with a burning desire to 'Make an Impact on Young Lives' but something had fused in her brain and she was stuck on transmit. She went on and on and on. Ten minutes became fifteen and then twenty. The audience was getting restive and so were we. Conch was splitting into three parts, part of him wanted to look like the avuncular Headmaster, beloved by staff and students alike, part of him was glaring at us, daring us to step out of line and that last part was frantically trying to catch the governor's eye and shut her up. No dice, this woman was on a roll. We were rocking from buttock to buttock, trying to alleviate the pain of having sat down on hard pews for so long. Having warmed us up with her stories of stealing chocolate eclairs from governor's meetings in school she was building to her Grand Climax. She turned to the choir standing behind her.

'Do you know' she said, 'That I used to teach your Headmaster?'

We looked shocked. It was impossible to imagine Conch as a child. We were convinced that he had hatched, fully formed, cane in hand, from some eldritch egg, trailing his black academic gown behind him. His face was contorting. He knew this was going to be bad but wasn't sure just how bad. Incapable of stopping her, he concentrated on us, making sure that we behaved.

'And one day, little Jonny was drawing a bus'.

Face reddening, he looked as if he was about to have a coronary and fall down dead in front of us all.

'And I said to him, "Oh, what a lovely bus that is Jonny". Conch was scanning the rows, we could see his pulse throbbing in his forehead, his caning arm twitching as if in reflex. We could hardly breathe.

'And he turned to me and said, "That's not just any bus, Mrs Jones, that's the LAST BUS TO LLANSTEFFAN.'

Apoplectic now, Conch shot into the pulpit and grabbed her by the arm, firmly escorting her back to her seat.

The parents were shocked. We were semi hysterical but far too scared to laugh. Conch gestured to the Head of Music to move on and he struck up the introduction to Fiddler on the Roof and the choir was given the signal to stand. We had been sitting down for so long, and it was so hot, the varnish on the seats had started to melt and there was a ripping sound as the skirt of the girl sitting in front of me tore apart. It is a testament to the power of the Eye of Conch that not one of us laughed.

But Rhian and I made up for it as we walked down the beach and into Llansteffan, we laughed and laughed and laughed.

Reflecting on this story of our Headteacher, John Davies, Conch, my view of him has evolved since my time at the Upper Rhondda Comprehensive School (URCS!). He ruled that place with a rod of iron. He was terrifying, swooping down on errant pupils with his black teacher's cape and cane often in hand. He dealt me several scorching tellings-off, notably when he called me in to collect my O Level results and told me just how disappointed he was in me, what did I think I was doing? However, I also remember his warm congratulations on my much better A level results and him reaching up to pat me on the head (he was not a tall man) and feeling that I had vindicated myself somewhat for a certain lazy, 16 year-old arrogance.

The truth is, looking back, that he expected the best from us and certainly played a part in the huge success of our Sixth Form cohort which, for a rag-tag bunch from a Valleys comprehensive in what was a very deprived area, went on to the best universities and careers. Thirty-four years as a teacher myself have also shown me that, while his methods were draconian and not to everybody's approval, he certainly took no prisoners and believed that what he was doing was effective, and I in my opinion it certainly was. Respect, Mr Davies. Echo all she says.

As always, we supported the local economy by purchasing a pot of tea and some cake at the tiny little café near the castle, which was busy, in spite of the changeable weather. It was Helen's turn to buy so she went to the counter and got chatting to the café-owner, regaling her with our story of walking and raising money, and the lady very kindly donated some cash to our causes - people's interest and generosity always humbles me. Helen's aptitude for shameless self-publicity pays dividends in sponsor money and also boosts our sense of gratitude at the kindness of strangers. What she means is that I'm a dreadful gobshite and far too egotistical for my own good, but she is far too kind to say it. All I can say in my favour is that I recognise these traits. I'm afraid she's stuck with them now....as I say, she really is a very patient woman.

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