N Wales
“Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales
All the air things wear that build this world of Wales” - Gerard Manley Hopkins
In the novel ‘Strangers’ by Taichi Yamada, Harada-san returns to his old childhood home in the downtown Tokyo district of Asakusa to find that his parents are exactly as they were when he was thirteen and seem totally at ease sharing their meals, their thoughts, their tranquil evenings with their now middle-aged son.
Am I the only one who would love to go back? Back to my parents’ last home in the village of Gellifor over twenty four years ago and more - under the benign protection of the gentle Clywd hills.
I took so many photographs of Gellifor, the Clywd hills and of Ruthin over a three decade period that the choice is bewildering. And yet somehow I know that I have not shared the best of them - yet. But here is a window in to that land where none of us can ever return – the past.
Title of Photograph:
1. Pauline and Philip – ramblers
2. Carmen and Liam collecting sloe berries from the hawthorn hedge
3. Philip with stick
4. Fierce sky over Moel Arfur (dawn)
5. Liam and Nicole (summer)
6. Liam and mushroom
7. The river Clyde – weir
8. Sheep, not goats
9. Feeding the ducks
10. The Clywd, colour
11. Late portrait of Pauline
12. Grandma’s wall
13. Bridal Path Summer evening
14. Philip at rest with pipe
15. Bridal path after Renoir – colour