Gwawr from Wales by Elizabeth Evans
November 2010
Hello, Sut yr ydych chivi? How are you? My name is Gwawr, I’m 15 years old and I live in a little pocket of the Radnorshire Hills called Nanerth-gwy. My Mam tells all of us four children that it is the most beautiful place in the world. I wouldn’t really know about that because I’ve only been as far as Hereford once, on a special Christmas market day. I went in the pony and trap with Dad; Mam, my eleven year old brother Owen, and our ‘babi bach’, baby sister Nest whose only three and the darling of the family.
My older brother Dewi is 18 years old and he works as a herdsman for the big rick farm in the hills just below us.
I work too you know. I work on Saturdays at the Thomas Shop in Penybont. I go with Dad and I’m allowed to serve in the shop because I’ve got enough of the English to attend to all the well to do people who come to the Emporium; not just from around our parts, mind you, they come from across the border in England too!
I take after my mother, so they say; dark, dark hair, almost black with red flecks when the light catches it. Some of the young farmer’s sons, who fancy themselves as gentlemen, come into the Thomas Shop and tell me that I have skin like buttermilk and soft round arms. One day one of them went  over the ‘llestri’, ‘too far’ I think that is, in English. My Dad caught him trying to tell me that I had lips and cheeks like the wild red roses of the Radnorshire Hills. I don’t know about roses but my dad went so wild we’ve never seen the boy in the shop since.
Although we have a nice little ‘tyddyn’ ourselves, where we keep sheep on the hills, five cows, poultry and an old sow called Blod, Dad is a dab hand at shoemaking and repairs. He comes to Pen y bont on Saturdays to repair shoes and make new clogs. Sometimes he needs the farrier or the blacksmith and the wheelwright. I did mention that we were quite well off enough to have a pony and trap, didn’t I?
Once, when I was standing outside the shop talking to Evans the mole trapper; the Price, Pilleth Court, carriage pulled up and the lady’s ward swept passed me as if she was the lady of both Pilleth and Monaughty manors put together. We’ve had one of the daughters of the Phillips’ of Llandewi  Hall step into the shop, now she was a real lady. She told me I had eyes like saphires. I didn’t like to tell her that I didn’t know what they were but Mam told me when I got back home to Tyddyn Du. Oh sorry! That means dark little farmstead!
Dad has a romantic story that he tells about our home. He says that his great grandfather built it years ago; all in one night, with his friends to help him. It is called a ‘ty un nos’, there are lots of them dotted about Wales; if they had smoke coming out of the chimney in the morning no landowner could take the land away from the family because it was built on the edge of the common. Lots of landowners had a good go mind you and houses were burnt to the ground. The families won the day in the end because some kind solicitors stood up for their rights with the magistrates. Funny when you come to think of it, most of the magistrates were landowners!
When I’m not helping Mam with the baby, or working at the Thomas Shop, I work on the big farm.
Mam bakes all our bread and she makes our cheese and butter. She makes enough mutton ‘cawl’ to last for a week. It’s delicious with all the vegetables from the garden swimming in big twinkling stars of fat on the top.
The mistress is teaching me how to run a big dairy, feed the hens and calves well and keep house fit  for the gentry. I hope I will marry a rich farmer’s son and become mistress of a beautiful stone long house with oak frames and beams just like the farm. The family at the big farm own the loveliest long house in Radnor County, so they say. It’s no wonder really, they are the biggest cattle rustlers in the County, according to Dewi. He says that Radnorshire has got so many borders, being in the middle of Wales and next door to England. Once the cattle are over any of them you are home and dry and the cattle are yours. He should know, he has gone missing on many a dark night with the big farm’s sons. The very next week we’re all of to Presteigne market with meat for sale but there are still five cows in our cowshed however much meat we sell.
I love going to market once a week because life can be hard and lonely up on the hills but oh!, I don’t like going to Presteigne. I’d much rather Llanbister. In Presteigne, next to the Bull pub, they’ve still got the old post where they used to bait the poor bull with the dogs. Then there’s cock fighting and they used to call that sport! These days Owen and the boys like to play quoites and ball games so that’s all right I suppose.
I’d better stop now, I’ve talked enough, Dewi would say I’ve talked too much. I hope I’ve made you think about visiting my lovely county one day. It’s a little treasure nestling in the middle of the mystical Welsh hills.
Affectionately
Gwawr