It was mid-July, and a heat-wave had come along. It had been coming slowly for days, coming out of the sea beyond Hilbre Island. I had watched it nightly from the beacon at Thurstaston [Wirral], for it was in the sunsets that had made sea and sky one long track of glory: it had come in with the lazy ships harbour-bound; it had bade adieu to the hesitating stems of outgoing vessels: it was in the milky warmth of the sea at Leasowe, where it had been my wont to bathe those same nights. It was in the sweating toil of the foundry, where each boiling day I had worked with sand and molten steel.
On one unbearable Wednesday the foreman had come along, and (with tongue in cheek) had spun the ancient yarn of slack trade. We would have to stop till Monday. I was sorry, I said (with tongue in cheek). My face may have appeared downcast, but my heart was glad! There were those mountains across the Dee, there were rivers, valleys, and there was the sea. Oh, I was glad! And so I returned home to Bolton to pick up my camping gear – minus tent, for I would sleep out………. the Vagabond Way.
Next morning I cast around for cooling waters. On the dusty roads to Ringway I visualised a dream-river of sparkling liquid, cool and deep, and at Castle Mill I found it. True it was not what I had pictured, for it was narrow, shallow and swift and over it hung an odour faintly reminiscent of sewerage works. But the weather was so hot! Like a giant refreshed I wended my way to Knutsford for a mid-afternoon meal.
After that my progress was haphazard. Lanes, lanes all the while, hot, dry lanes wandering hither and thither, but always drawing me a little nearer to those mountains ‘cross the Dee. At Little Budworth is a mere near the village store. The storekeeper, a chatty individual, enlightened me as to the bathing amenities of the mere. Sometimes the village youths went in, he said, and told me the story of one young fellow who was drowned there two years before. I gathered that I was almost the counterpart of that unfortunate enthusiast. Nevertheless, I went in. It looks pretty enough, but it is a snare and a delusion; I stirred up a deep accumulation of mud the moment I tried to touch the bottom; it tugged at me from beneath, and I fled in terror.
I passed below the Peckforton Hills in that wonderful hour after sunset. Deep-sunk lanes, when the birds have lapsed into silence, when one hears just the droning wings of flies or homing bees; where cottages nestle behind gardens of riotous assemblage, and when local ancients doze at the garden gate. Near tiny Bickerton is a well that has served me in dryer times than this, and there my canvas bucket was filled. I wheeled the bike and carried the precious liquid for miles, along pine-shaded lanes and sandy tracks until I reached a tiny depression right on top of the hills. With trees all around, and grass like velvet, no-one could desire a better place for vagabonding. While my Primus boiled my supper porridge, I watched the twilight robe the mountains across the wide plain of the Dee, and thought I’d reached Utopia.
My cape made a ground-sheet on the spring-mattress of turf; my sleeping-bag was ample bedding; above my head the ceiling of the stars, and even as I lay in soliloquy of these things, oblivion drew the curtain o’er them.
The sky was wide and blue, and the fresh, scented air of early morning was on my face; a lark soared high into the ring of blue above me, singing, wheeling, diving. I followed its flight, and my fancy took flight and soared up with the lark until a touch of sunlight trembled on the tree-tops. I arose, and (half dressed) ran along the hill top till I was breathless. Twas good to be so fully alive! Twas good, this vagabond life, with breakfast of eggs and bacon, thick chunks of bread, marmalade, steaming coffee – a fine, kingly, open-air breakfast.
Then there was a pine-shaded path, and open heath-land constantly in view of the mountains I hoped soon to roam. There was the breath of new-mown hay in the lanes all the way through Malpas and the border village of Worthenbury, and at Bangor Is-y-Coed there was the river Dee, deep and clean…….I yielded.
Changing my direction, I followed the river closely to Overton, and a fine bit of valley scenery near Erbistock followed by a parched bit of semi-industrialism led me across the black, broad, shiny Holyhead road south of Chirk, into a prosaic, Sunday-school type of village. But from that point I was back in the mountains, on a dusty lane that crawled along the southern side of the vale of Ceiriog. There is a hamlet called Bron-y-Garth, and just below is a pool on the River Ceiriog, where the local schoolboys bathe. I could manage no more than a lie down in the depleted pool, and even during a super heatwave, lying down in a mountain stream is a chilly business!
A bevy of boys just released from school came dashing down, making friends with me, and gabbling away in alternating Welsh and English. They were full of news, and bursting to confide it. One of them, a sturdy ‘old man’ of twelve or so who was evidently chief of the gang, was held in great respect. He was a man of the world, an experienced chap, for he had knocked about a bit, seen the world, so to speak. He had been to Oswestry! Moreover, there was a radio at home; he had seen an aeroplane, and his brother had been to London. He, then, was one who commanded due respect from his fellows. This was their bathing pool, but none of them would go near it this week, because next Monday they were all migrating with the Sunday school picnic to New Brighton, and if they caught a cold they would not be able to go. I am yet puzzling how any of that set of hardy mountain lads can catch a cold. They were highly excited about the coming trip, and discovering that I was resident so near, they plied me with questions concerning Merseyside until the school bell tore them away.
The heat was taking my appetite. It was 3pm when I reached Glyn Ceiriog for the first ‘eats’ since early morning. Subsequently, in the narrow valley, and on the fierce climb beyond Llanarmon DC, the heat became so intense that my progress deteriorated to a mere crawl. The light breeze on the summit was like a breath from the molten steel in the Seacombe foundry, and the views were limited by a heat-haze. At Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, I turned towards Pistyll Rhaiadr, but the hilly road was too heavy for my mood, and I found solace in the river instead. There was a waterfall into a deep pool surrounded by smooth, high rocks, and there I got a fine swim in the bubbling water, and spent a luxurious period sat beneath the fall itself.
