Steve B and I have been friends for fifty years. Our first meeting was in short trousers at QMGS in September 1967.
We are both tremendous Farchynys enthusiasts and recently enjoyed re-introducing our wives to wonders of a weekend of active service on the Mawddach.
We decided however that a resumption of the search for the Lost Roman road at Brithdir was an amuse bouche of nostalgia too far….
AD 1555 The Red Bandits are active in Dinas Mawddwy!
The Red Bandits of Mawddwy (Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy) were a band of red-haired robbers from the area of Mawddwy in the 16th century, who became famous in folk literature.
We are indebted to Miss Sarah Scarlett for sending this photograph of that unmissable Barmouth window – the Walter Lloyd Jones Salesroom:
AD 1158 Foundation of Cymmer Abbey
“When’s it going to be finished, Sir?”
Early inspiration for a Marian on the Mawddach and a prizebook signed by the great Sam Darby
In one eventful weekend in November 1963, the President of the United States was assassinated, The Beatles launched their second album, Dr Who exited his Police Box to confront the Daleks for the first time and a convoy of Walsall grammar school boys arrived on the Mawddach to spend their first weekend at Farchynys. This was Queen Mary’s newly acquired adventure centre, an old coach house on the Mawddach estuary lying in the shadow of Cadair Idris, just 4 miles from Barmouth and its iconic railway bridge.
Every week for the following fifty years, successive generations of QM folk have made the hundred mile journey to the coast and have promptly fallen in love with this special place, discovering that estuaries can be wonderfully productive eco-systems for personal growth. Marians on the Mawddach tells the stories of pupils and their teachers and also of the people they meet as they explore this highly contrasting landscape to their home in Walsall.
Penr’allt Gallery Bookshop, Machynlleth
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Marians on The Mawddach 