It was a handyman called Tom Jenkins who first told me about “Grappledee”. It took me some time to puzzle out that piece of elided Radnorshire dialect as “Craig Pwll Du”, a waterfall that lies on Afon Bach Howey, a gloomy half-mile trek upstream from its confluence with Afon Gwy (the River Wye). The approach to the waterfall is a wooded, atmospheric gorge, treacherous to navigate. I’ve been up it hundreds of times over the decades, often with groups of students. We did no harm or damage, nor did we disturb the notably absent wildlife. There were no deterrent notices then – but that’s not the case today, now the gorge and river have site of special scientific interest status. Conservationists should acknowledge that this land is our land too, so long as we do no harm. Take such notices too seriously and you’d be denied experiencing this place of remarkable beauty and resonance. Education and responsibility are key. If you come intending to disturb the plants that secretly grow here – perennial knawel, red catchfly, hellebores, tree lungworts, jelly lichens, the list goes on – then your malignity should have you put in gaol. There is also the affective power of place, which should temper any tendency to antisocial behaviour. It stills and quietens, has “ample power to chasten and subdue”, as Wordsworth had it, particularly where the walls rear up and steepen to encircle the promontory itself. This too is the end of the salmon’s migratory journey. They come here to spawn and die, the current carrying them downstream where otters and crows feed on their corpses. The great country diarist Bill Condry – in his many years of writing from Wales, before the slot was passed on to me – talked of the Wye’s tributaries “dropping down ravines and dingles in cool shade and the spray of waterfalls”. Bill would have had Craig Pwll Du in mind. It’s an elemental place, haunting the mind in ways that few other places in the hills do. I’ll leave it at that, with one of the great and little-known places in the Welsh hills. This is my last diary after nearly 20 years, and appropriate therefore that it’s resistant to ill-considered authority, since I’ve been so most of my life. It’s your fight now, you readers, you other diarists. Take it to them and preserve, safeguard, the places you hold dear. Goodbye! • Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
Author: Jim Perrin