west

I TRAVELLED to the west in search of a tiny country, a nation-state lying off the coast of Wales and I found it, though it bears no resemblance to the island so fabulously described by countless travellers. Like Venice of old it once had a king or doge. Like Venice it was a centre for holy crusaders, and like Venice it had an ambivalent liaison with ships. Forever reliant on them for essential goods, the islanders also feared what their holds might contain: sometimes rapid change, sometimes pirates too.

Many people have identified a timeless air of mystery on this island, which like the Venetian repubblica marinara was a repository for holy relics. And since the words quarantine and ghetto were coined in the Italian city state, I was struck immediately by a similarity between the two places: a lonely beauty, a seclusion from the rest of the world, and an apartness. They even share the same outline in the sea.

We entered the rocky harbour shortly after noon on a bright May morning. I was ready for magic and mystery, as promised in so many books and personal accounts, so when I heard eerie sounds as we landed I thought they were the cries of the water monster mamba mutu – a fish-tailed human which raids villages and dines on the blood and brains of everyone it catches. But the grunts and groans came from a colony of very fat seals, about two dozen of them, sunbathing on nearby rocks.

I can hear you say Ahhh, there’s lovely.

But they looked like a bunch of football hooligans on a World Cup bender – and they quickly dispelled any fairytale notions I had in my head. They sounded drunk and boorish; I wouldn’t have been surprised if all of them had been clutching a can of lager and generally swearing, belching, farting and scratching their huge beer bellies. Seals behaving badly. When I hear young male seals having a pop at each other while lounging around I tend to think of Millwall or Cardiff City supporters, rounded up after a match and waiting for the Black Maria. Sentenced to a bit of mild corrective therapy, they’re sent on an outward bound course at Aberdyfi, where one fateful day they’re handed wetsuits and taken down to the shore for a spot of snorkelling. Unaccountably, they take to the briny like ducks to water and head off to sea, finding homes along the Welsh shoreline. Under those wetsuits I know they have smelly beer-stained football shirts, and the weird grunts they make are football chants horribly slurred after twenty cans of Special Brew. They’re shifty and vulgar and they treat everyone like a referee. Or they’re overweight divas with throat infections, never letting anyone forget they’re ill by emitting a constant recitative of operatic moans and groans. At other times they remind me of blown-out lorry tyres abandoned on motorway verges. When they float in the creeks they always look inland, as if they were spies.

I saw a party of people arriving by boat and they passed those seals without seeing them. You could tell the seals were miffed. I could hear them hurling insults. The visitors were supposed to throw flowers at them and clap ecstatically as if they were at Glyndebourne, but they went straight to a little beach and loafed around themselves, as if they were method actors learning how to imitate seals for a Pingu voiceover.

Anyway, after that encounter with the seals I saw the island as an island and not as a grandiose chunk of mythology rearing out of the sea. Next stop was the lighthouse, a large complex posing as a whitewashed hacienda somewhere in Spain with a tower stuck in the corner. Here’s an interesting fact about the modern lighthouse: it can never be allowed to rest. So the generators throb away day and night, and that poor light inside the tower goes round and round 24/7. Why? Because if it stopped rotating it might come to rest on a house or a sleeping baby or even worse, a sleeping sheep – and scorch it to a frizzle. I quite like the notion. Much more interesting than roulette: you could bet on where the beam finally settled and land a small fortune if a cat went up in flames. Apparently the lighthousemen of old used to draw curtains around the reflectors by day to prevent such carnage. Of course, there aren’t any men up there now so the generators chunter away all day long, wasting vast amounts of fuel. A parable for the age, I hear you say. Indeed. Apparently scientists are trying to develop solar-powered lighthouses but things aren’t going smoothly. There’s an air of despondency and abandonment about this complex because the non-essential buildings have been allowed to decline, and one of the houses I entered looked as if it had just been ransacked by Vikings. A page three girl pouted and thrust her dusty bosom at me from an old copy of the Sun in the corner. The whole place is a photographer’s paradise. Built in 1821 – and still the tallest square lighthouse in Britain – its completion marked the first major exodus to the mainland.

Wherever there are humans you’ll find politics, scrap metal and myths. The island has all three. The boatmen who ferry visitors to and fro are at odds with each other: there’s an English camp and a Welsh camp. Historians tussle over the true facts; one says this, one says that. And the spats go on...

Ornithologists, who flock to the place in migratory swarms which quaintly reflect the movements of the birds themselves, generally look up to birds and down on other people. They’ve replaced the druidic cast of old, believing that a little esoteric knowledge gives them special powers. That’s my general impression of twitchers the world over. The bird people who visit this island are as pleasant as you’ll find anywhere, but I’m not sure about all that bird-netting gear lurking in corners everywhere. Are a few statistics worth the trauma felt by a little bird which has flown halfway round the world and desperately needs a nap?

Yes, the island is a tiny political state: an offshore Vatican and a microcosm of the world, as William Golding might have warned me. They knew my business; they knew why I was there. They have passwords, such as look out for the icterine warbler. And throughout my visit Mr Seal the Spy kept a baleful eye on my every movement.

Two mysterious islands are marked on old maps of Britain: insula avium and insula arietum. One was an island of birds which held a fayre tree, full of bowes, and on every bow sate a fayre birde, and they sate so thycke on the tree that unnethe only lefe of the tree myght be seen. The second island was the ilonde of shepe, where every shepe was as grete as an ox and where there was never colde either but ever sommer.

The island I went to is a marriage of these two places: I am talking, of course, about Bardsey off the Lly^n peninsula. Or to use its much sweeter Welsh name, Enlli.

I went on the back of a giant pondhopper – a twin-hulled boat which scuttled across the famously dangerous sound with alacrity. Bright yellow, it carries the colours of the Evans family, who spend half their year on the island and half on the mainland.

Ernest, a fisherman and boat builder, can trace his Enlli roots to 1770 and was the last child to be taught at the one-room school; his wife, Yorkshire-born teacher Christine is a noted poet, and their son Colin has followed in his father’s footsteps while also dabbling in a whole range of other activities; in the tradition of the Welsh farmer-fisherman he can turn his hand to just about anything.

Chatting with Christine in her wonderfully peaceful home on the island, and heading for seal-size fatness myself thanks to her delicious fruitcake, I revealed that I’d been compelled – most unusually for me – to compile a list after a few hours on the island. She laughed. It was quite common, she said. Many people felt the same urge. I suppose it’s because the island is smallish – about 440 acres – and almost everything can be quantified. So here’s my own little list...

Three dogs: I saw only one, and he was sleeping in the sun. Bardsey had three ‘kings’ between about 1800-1926, the most famous being Love Pritchard, and the crown is still kept at the Liverpool Maritime Museum. Here’s how one of them perished, as related in the Caernarvon Herald of April 17, 1841:

Having some business to transact at Pwllheli, John Williams, ‘Master of the Bardsey Light Tender’ and ‘King of Bardsey’, instructed his servant that morning between five and six o’clock to get a small boat ready, with a sprit sail, for the purpose of crossing to Aberdaron. But after the two men had gone some distance John Williams landed the servant on the island, saying that he could manage the boat very well alone. The servant went home but he glanced back and saw that the boat had capsized, John Williams struggling in the water. The servant dashed to get help and another boat was launched immediately and manned. The ebb-tide had already drawn John Williams a long way out to sea, his only support being two small oars, which he had managed to get under his arms. When taken into the rescue boat he was said to have been much exhausted. He spoke but a few words and expired. He was about forty-two years of age and his wife had given birth to a child the Sunday evening prior to this accident which made her a widow.

Apparently every dog belonging to successive kings was called Nol. Nice name for a dog, don’t you think?

Twenty thousand saints: Not a sign of them, but I saw a red tractor harrowing a field and sending a curtain of dust out to sea... I couldn’t help but wonder if that drifting soil contained the remains of at least some of the saints. Their ashes were being scattered at sea, in a way: not quite the ending they expected.

Three Muscovy ducks: Which showed their arses to me whenever we met.

Countless rabbit holes: But no rabbits, which were wiped out by disease. Some of the holes are now used as second homes by the island’s A-list celebrity bird, the peculiar Manx Shearwater, which does a decent David Blaine impression and goes underground for a period during parenthood. Like the seal it emits a spine-tingling sound, a ghastly strangulated cry – Enlli’s a good place for that sort of thing.

Fourteen caves: Including one for visiting robbers (Ogof y Lladron). My favourite was Ogof Gwr, named after an unhappily married man who spent a lot of time in hiding. Did some of these caves serve as boltholes for the religious community in times of trouble? Where else would they hide?

Lots of houses: A throng of them, at least eleven, but only one of them an original Welsh croft – the rest were transformed into grandiose town houses by Lord Newborough’s men. Absolutely hideous and completely out of place. Their completion marked another major exodus from the island: some say that the locals never got used to their swanky new palaces, others say that the promise of big money and bright lights lured many away to the mainland.

Three hundred and fifty types of lichen: The clean air fosters a plethora of wildlife. I saw a splendid colony of yellow flag iris, and ragged robin, and blue carpets of spring squill everywhere.

More litter than you’d expect: Quite a lot of it on the shore. But no shipwrecked vessels, though many have been sundered on the rocks. Tomos Jones, who lived on the island for many decades, recounted some of his memories in a book written by Jennie Jones. Tomos recalled one stormy night when a barrel of brandy was thrown up on the shore after a ship foundered. After rushing up to it and tapping it, the men realised they had no receptacle to drink its contents; they wore wooden footwear in those days, so one of them removed a clog and they drank from that. Nowadays, Bardsey’s human waste is recycled in earth privies. I came across only one conventional toilet, in the lighthouse complex – and you’re not supposed to put any loo paper down the pan. There’s a bucket for it. A small amount of household waste is burned and the rest is taken back to the mainland for recycling at Cwrt Farm. Am I being too prosaic for you? Should I be twittering on about Arthur’s last resting place or Merlin’s magical kingdom? Sorry...

A few generators: Don’t expect eternal peace and quiet on the island. When night falls there’s a good chance you’ll hear a generator churning the silence to shreds. The lights flicker when power is supplied in this way, giving the impression that the house you’re sitting in is a ship at sea.

Not many lobsters in the pots: May is a bad month for lobster fishermen. There’s a tradition that lobsters go into hiding when the young bracken is emerging from the ground in green swans’ necks.

Many empty rooms in unlocked buildings: A thing to gladden the heart. Being able to sit in the old school, alone, was extremely pleasant, listening to the silence and watching the sun move across ancient floral curtains; browsing through the musty books, watching shadows move along the floor. The chapel was also open and inviting. I say chapel – in fact it’s a hybrid, the best compromise I’ve ever seen between church and chapel. The whole island is a place of trust: I left money lying around knowing full well that no-one would touch it.

A few children: Who seemed bemused by the island, less chatty than mainland children, watchful and reserved. One young person wore rubber gloves whenever I saw him: an allergy, apparently. Another was scouting the fields with a pair of binoculars at six in the morning. I would have liked to question these kids about their lives on the island but middle-aged men can’t do that sort of thing any more.

No moles, no skulls, no bones: I didn’t see a single molehill. Presumably the little gentlemen in velvet waistcoats never made it this far. Neither did I see any of the saints’ bones reported by some travellers; in one account femurs were plentiful enough to be used as fencing posts throughout Enlli. Tomos Jones, mentioned earlier, testified that many skulls and bones were ploughed up in the fields. He also revealed something of the lifestyle of previous residents, and the measures they took to stay dry: their outer clothes were covered in a coating of coal tar to waterproof them. This may have given them stiff, slightly robotic movements when they walked about in the rain...

Plentiful evidence of human toil: One of the features of the island is the oglawdd: an earth-and-stone partition between fields. In some parts of Wales the outer skin of these earth walls is strengthened and decorated with layers of stones set on edge in a zigzag or chevron design; I’m no expert, but the older walls seem to have a tighter weave with smaller stones, providing a lovely herringbone pattern. There are miles of these earthworks on the island, testifying to centuries of toil. Is there something about the Celt and earthworks? Is the act of moulding soil the most Celtic thing you can do – is it an act of ultimate atonement as well as a primal act of defence and artistry? Am I beginning to ramble? The gardens on Enlli have high walls around them, built by Lord Newborough’s men to protect them. They have uniform arches – a very practical touch.

One view of the outside world: It’s necessary to climb the hill which thinks it’s a mountain on Enlli to see the rest of the world. This hump-backed hill almost obscures any view of the mainland. I sat on its summit and smelt the drying gorse, a variant called western gorse, dense and spiny. I listened to the stonechats and the warblers. I looked over the sea, towards the body of Wales. It looked most beautiful; smoky blue shapes, jutting headlands, bays in deep shadow, and rolling fields in a patchwork of colours, with brown ploughland contrasting elegantly with many greens; a country of verdancy and plenitude. I felt rather like Ellis Wynne, who took his telescope to the top of a mountain some three hundred years ago and dreamt into being a mythical and wonderful land. I realised then that I was a creature of the mainland, needing the wide open spaces of rural Wales in which to wander without limit or fetter. To me, the mystery of Wales lies not in the constriction of islands but in the never-ending surprises of the open country, and the unfinished journey. I’d walked completely around Enlli in a morning, and again by tea, and across it countless times by the following noon. It began to choke me in a python’s coil; it began to feel claustrophobic. The magic of Enlli failed to work on me. I felt like someone at a party who’d been taking huge drags on a joint being passed around but who remained untouched while everyone else was giggling and gobbling chocolate.

So the next day, clutching my rucksack and the remains of my bread and cheese, I headed back to freedom. Because islands are mainly inside the head. More than anything else they are a state of mind. I went to Bardsey as an observer, and found a small island in the sea. Had I gone with a spiritual mindset, or a romantic mindset, I might have been touched by its fabulous history. But I wasn’t. Mystery for me is serendipitous, a happening in unexpected places at unexpected times. Within my poor little brain it can never be pre-ordered or prefigured. My own numina – spirits of place – cannot be conjured up with a prayer in a building on Sundays; they come to me by accident in fields, or on mountains, or on dusty roads to nowhere; sometimes on paths less travelled, sometimes in crowded piazzas.

So be it. The end of this book marks the end of a journey. Well, almost.

Seven years ago I nearly died of alcoholism, but I was fortunate and I survived. A blessing on those who helped me, and a blessing on those who didn’t. Life goes on.

In giving up alcohol – my sweetest lover, my darkest enemy – I decided to go on a curious journey, a journey of my own: I would attempt to write three books, walk completely around Wales, walk across Wales seven times, and circumnavigate Wales by water. All those things I have completed bar one. I have indeed written three books, rather odd little things which have taught me much about myself; that I am a strange specimen of humanity, rather ordinary in most ways, but extra-ordinary enough to be me. I have walked completely around Wales and across my homeland seven times. I have had a wonderful time doing so. Indeed, I have had a most fortunate life. But I haven’t completed the last requirement: I haven’t finished the journey on water – partly because of circumstances, partly because I fear that an ending might be just that... an ending to me and my little life. And the beginning of another bottle.

So I have devised another journey – and hopefully my life will go on for a while. Because I don’t want to leave this beautiful land. This beautiful life.

Just a few people have been with me from the start of my quest until now, the end. To you I say: Hail and farewell. I hope to meet you again on the highways and byways of Wales; on clifftops and hilltops. By riverbanks and in water meadows full of buttercups and hope. I think perhaps I’m some sort of numen myself by now: a spirit of place. Finally, at the age of fifty-seven – my father’s age when he died – I have become myself. Lloyd Jones. Father, journalist, former farm worker and nurse. Extremely minor author. Hobbit-shaped wanderer. Lover of words, nature, secularity and freedom.

At last I see a figure coming towards me through the trees. It is me.