Storytelling Starters ~ Times change
Time was when I would have walked or cycled down to Whitesands from our house on the edge of St David’s and, when I got there, I’d probably have found no-one at all on the beach. So I’d have had that glorious expanse of sand to myself (glorious expanse when the tide was out). Nowadays it’s hardly ever like that. All year round, on Christmas Day too, visitors come from all over the place in their camper vans and appropriate togs and what’s lovely is that they all appear to be having a marvellous time. Their dogs too (except in high summer when they’re banned from Pembrokeshire beaches). Bounding across the abundant sand (abundant when the tide is out), the dogs make momentary new friends with other dogs and then bound on. What’s less lovely is that, retaining the memories of having the place to myself, I often wish that time had not moved on.
Why, I don’t know, but thinking about the current frequency of visitors to St David’s and Whitesands has brought to my mind something remarkable that happened when I was in school in St David’s. My mother, evidently, was looking out of our kitchen window and out there in the garden saw a hoopoe. At any time of the year, a hoopoe would be a most unusual visitor to St David’s. Dear mother, she did what was indubitably the right thing to do. She immediately phoned over to the school across the road where my father was headmaster and asked to speak to Mr Griffiths. Generally known as Griff Chem (because chemistry was his subject), he was very excited to hear her news and immediately came across to our house. Then together, they stood in our kitchen watching the hoopoe through their binoculars.
Nice, isn’t it, when people know and appreciate what they’re seeing? Goodness knows why, because I’m not a royalist and certainly not one of those people who save up stories of seeing or encountering members of the royal family and then bring them out from time to time like pieces of gold. But I do remember the occasion when St David’s was officially made a city (it had been known as a city, and called a city for centuries before), the Queen and Prince Philip paid a visit. My father had just published Twice to St David’s, his second book on the area, and a sparkling new copy of the book was presented to the Duke, thus occasioning the Duke to ask my father, ‘Do you think you’ve got another one in you, Sir?’
Well, my father did not publish another book on the area. But he did continue to write shortish articles on subjects to do with the area and not only to write them but to get them published in various Pembrokeshire publications. It’s one of the things I admired about him, that he didn’t ever stop writing and thinking. To some extent, I’ve followed his example in the sense that I, too, love writing up short anecdotal pieces about people and place. For instance, there’s that story of the various times – for I never learned to deal with the trigger reaction – during the period when I was having organ lessons on St David’s Cathedral organ. My brain knew that there were certain stops on the organ that, when in use, could make it sound like someone was plodding up the wooden steps to the organ loft. But did the knowing make any difference to the reaction on my part? Of course not!
PS: That’s me at the top enjoying the sunshine yesterday at Whitesands and the other is a stock shot I’ve found of a hoopoe.