Part 5. Life in the foothills of the Black Mountains.

Alongside running the market stall in Carmarthen, I sold candles to “head shops” in Tenby, Aberystwyth, Manchester and London. We’d picked these contacts up just by word of mouth from people who’d visited the market. It became a regular round trip from the first Christmas onwards. It allowed me to sell everything we made and pick up Indian jewellery and wholefoods in London , to take back and sell in Carmarthen.

I had good friends who would put us up in Ladbroke Grove as well as the odd visit to Croydon for Hill’s family events. A couple of other friends who lived in the ‘Potteries’ near Manchester were a regular stop up there too. We had a lovely support network of both old and new friends, many of whom are still in touch today.

On the mountain, our closest neighbours were a reclusive old man who had a similarly dilapidated old cottage and a Pony Trekking Centre run by a guy who published books on “Talking to Horses” and preached kindness to animals, though the state of his stables and the shear drudgery endured by the trekking ponies suggested there was some gap between ‘preachery’ and practice. The farmer who had sold the land was also nearby, Griff, I forget his surname, was a well-respected sheep farmer with a large traditional Welsh family. We were on nodding terms and when we had settled in he invited us for Sunday tea at the farm. That turned out to be a real privilege, a peep into culture and tradition. We sat in the large farmhouse kitchen, the whole family, 4 generations, were there, they gave us space at the table, spoke mostly in English (there may have been a few a few little jokes in Welsh, at our expense but they seemed jovial and certainly non-threatening) we had tea, home-made sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. We had traditional baking explained to us and tried lava bread and other delights.

At the end they offered us a little piece of a field at the back of the cottage to grow vegetables and permission to draw and pipe water from the spring in their field over the lane.

Val and Ian, young City leavers like ourselves, lived a 10 minute walk away in an old farmhouse , off grid, with goats, chickens, children and what seemed like a never ending stream of visitors who would come and stay, help with the garden and livestock, a place of warm hearths and stimulating conversation.

A short drive down into the valley was a village called Gwernogle, with a small stream and a tiny village shop, enough of a hamlet to sustain a community. Over the stream was a piece of land , maybe 5 acres, with a tiny stone cottage that had been bought by Hugh, a freak with a passion, who wanted to build an alternative community, a Geodesic dome and repair old farm machinery, for the sheer enjoyment of it . We spent many summer days and evenings with the various travellers who came and set up vans, campers, tents and the like. Dutch Bob who had run 'The Dog Shop' in Portobello road, Susy and John who moved in with kids and dogs in tow , Lizzy James and a stream of people connected to the fringes of Brighton, London and the Midlands, too many to mention here. Some stayed and made homes some, like Andrew, moved into rented farmhouses nearby, between Gwernogle and us. A few would earn a buck building stages for the emerging festival scene and big international outdoor concerts by the Stones and the like. A nearby friend, Nick, had designed the Pyramid stage for Glastonbury. We developed a broad circle of close friends. Further afield we ran into Thomas and Nutkin ( yes really !) and we went a few times over to their place for fireside parties, where I was blown away by acoustic performances of songs from the likes of Crosby, Stills and Nash . I had an epiphany there, listening to Thomas and 3 friends harmonising around an open fire at midnight under a cloudless sky, a realisation that music could be sublime or mundane and performed by unassuming ordinary folk, for the sheer joy it. Thomas wanted to build a recording studio and featured in my life for some time to come.

Hugh's Geodesic Dome

A few months later John and Ase , originally friends of Hillary’s from Paris and London, came and stayed while looking for a house to buy nearby. We spent time talking about their India trip and Meditating, they followed a teacher they had met there and we would take part in “sittings” communing with the infinite. We got on particularly well, like family. Ase was Danish, fine boned, slim, self-assured. She had played Harmonium briefly with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and in meditation, was like a goddess…. John was full of boundless energy and once they moved into a place nearby was busy, making leather goods which we would sell alongside our candles, building barns into places for people to stay, importing Wood Burners from Denmark, buying tons of second-hand timber from demolition sites in the midlands to enable the local alternative communities to build and heat their dwellings. Later Russ and Jan moved into an isolated cottage not far away and became good friends. This was a very full period of my life, surrounded by talented and passionate people and I must tell some of the stories in the next part of this series.