I don’t know exactly what it is that makes this hillside spot so peaceful. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m up above the town and have a bird’s-eye view of all the business and busyness of life trundling on below as I simply sit and watch on quietly. Maybe it’s the fact that the noise of all those lives and their attendant traffic is literally reduced to a uniform hush, the sound of many tyres whizzing by; or maybe it’s deeper than that, seated in some metaphorical symbolism of being physically distanced from life. My bet is that there’s a little of all three involved, but I’m simply happy to go with the flow and soak up the quietude of Mynydd Dinas, as it affords me plenty of time to think. Is think the right word? No; contemplate is probably a much better fit, though it does perhaps sound a touch grandiose. I’ll keep thinking.
As I jot these words down there is little less than a week left of the school summer holidays, the evenings have already begun to draw in, there’s a slight chill in the early morning air and the blackberries are at full ripeness (the e reason why I’m up here in the first place). Autumn isn’t very far away now.
Jane Austen referred to Autumn as “…that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling”, so if it’s good enough for Austen and the poets to whom she refers, I think I’ll indulge myself here and allow myself a little more time to scribble these few ramblings down and ruminate (now there’s the word I’ve been looking for ruminate – to contemplate or to chew!) in between munched handfuls of blackberries.
It’s only natural that we should become a little reflective and introspective at this time of year. Even if most of us no longer have anything to do with the gathering-in that traditionally took over so many towns and villages in decades gone by, most of us still seem to collect a harvest of our thoughts as the full bloom of summer tips over its zenith and begins to wane, thinking maybe of recent weeks and months, the year gone by or even years long since passed, all of them added to our accumulated bundles and bushels of bygone times often coloured with a tint of sentimentality and nostalgia.
When I look down from my hilltop vantage point I can’t feel anything other than nostalgic because, as I’ve today realised, I can virtually look down upon my whole life from these slopes, something to which fewer and fewer people are able to lay claim in our increasingly globalised world.
Let’s begin with the obvious. All of my academic education is there for all to see. Slightly off to the right and down on the seafront is Tywyn, the primary school from where I once returned home with hair painted red and stiffened into a spike with PVA glue, and where I discovered my love for reading and writing; there to the left, in the centre of town, the site of what was once Glan Afan comprehensive school, now replaced by flats and retail units, where I cultivated my teenage swagger. If I glance east I can look toward Afan College and my A-Level days (interspersed, of course, with frequent visits to the Twelve Knights pub, just down the road!) and to the west, just across Swansea bay, are the university campuses where I managed to collect a degree and a teaching qualification. If I look downward and to the right from here, there lies the school where I completed the practical section of my teacher training, a school in which I have subsequently worked for eighteen years and through which I’m currently watching my own daughter now pass.
These were the recognised places of education but there were other kinds of lessons to be learned along life’s paths, and these too I can pick out now. The fields where I learned to play rugby, the site of the swimming baths where I learned to swim; the lake and beach where I cut my teeth as an angler, a pursuit that has lingered more doggedly than a stain of blackberry juice, and which has altered the course of my life; all of these s small and seemingly insignificant from up here, looking as though they may be snatched away and pocketed or wiped away with one swipe of the hand at any moment. The house in which I grew up, the spots where I had mi first fight, kiss, alcoholic drink, the setting for my first job and so many other firsts that I’ve long since forgotten are all there still, just under the surface, still fresh after so much water has passed under the bridge.
Finally, if I move to the eastern side of the hill, I’m able to look down upon the house, and into the garden, I’ve shared for the last twenty years with my wife, and sixteen of those with my daughter, the house where she was conceived and to which I first brought her home, so small and delicate, nothing like the tall, elegant and articulate young lady she has now become. Here is where the most important schooling has been acquired – how to live like an adult, how to be a better partner and a better father. These are often the most difficult of all, but always the most rewarding and, although I haven’t always managed to get them right, they are the lessons at which I’ll be a lifelong and dedicated student.
The afternoon is getting on now, and the sun is dipping toward the western horizon. To some, chasing these horizons is all, whether it be through foreign jet-setting or through living a life of itinerant freedom, happy to be carried along by chance. Me? For now, I’m content to stand here, watch the sunset bathe the town below in the yellows and oranges of its sunset, firing up the crucible of the personal history and local landscape that shaped me, and to think about just how deep roots can go if given enough time.
For now, I can’t think of a better way to sum up my thoughts than to echo Dylan Thomas: “O may my heart’s truth/Still be sung/On this high hill in a year’s turning.” I think even Jane Austen would have liked that one.
