Last year, I wrote an article on life on the Borderlands, referencing to the borders in the Balkans, between Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria and the historical precedents that led to so many shifting borders and cultural and political clashes. I also referenced the border of England and Wales and my particular love of that region.
I recently visited the area, spending two days walking on Offa’s Dyke, a path that roughly follows the border of England and Wales from Chepstow in the South to Snowdonia in the north. As with all borderlands, there is much history and fluctuations, and even now, between two countries that share so much and that are part of the United Kingdom, there are distinct differences that one can see quickly as one wanders between the countries. The actual area we walked on Offa’s Dyke was between a small hamlet called Cwmyoy, nestled on the Welsh side of the Black Mountain ridge near Abergavenny, and Hay on Wye, a town now famous for his annual literary festival, with the Welsh/English border going straight through town.
As a symbol of the history of Wales, there are over 600 castles in the country, which given its size is an extraordinary number. It starts in the south in Chepstow and many follow the rough borders of England and Wales, including Abergavenny. There are also huge castles in Harlech and Cardigan, amazing places, reflecting the history and tensions in the region, especially between the recurrent wars between Anglo-Saxon and Celtic peoples.
The path takes the high ridge that separates the Golden Valley in England, with Llanthony Valley of Wales. It is a wild, bleak and exposed ridge of mossy highland, with tons of sheep and wild horses and ponies, which adds to the atmosphere. It is 15 miles (25k), which even in the summer, may see wind, rain and cold. We were lucky with at least some sun and although windy, conditions were nearly perfect. The first part of the walk required us to walk up a valley through 5ft moss ferns and then scurry up a creak to the top of the ridge where we promptly got lost as the actual path on Offa’s Dyke veers to the right whereas all logic told us to go left – even after having been warned of this by the friend we stayed with the night before. We finally found the real path and set off on our march, enjoying spectacular views.
The last hour of the walk, we navigated Hay bluff, where the path meanders downhill to a wide ridge and then further down a narrow road and path as we enter into Hay on Wye. Fifteen miles was enough for one day, and we gratefully found our Air BnB, a small room in a flat in the town – Hay is actually an expensive place to stay. Since becoming a global literary festival site, the town has morphed into a rather kitsch place, with many bookstores, jewelry and clothing stores, sharing its new image with its traditional, farming rural border town culture.
We had left ourselves with the option of getting the bus the next day to our next destination, Kington, another border town, this time just on the English side, another 15 miles north. But our legs were fine and off we went in the morning, following the River Wye for a while before the path headed into the rolling hills and valleys of Herefordshire. Stunning scenery, occasional hamlets, including one where the local church offered tea and biscuits to wandering visitors, and then up onto Hergest Ridge, on the border of Wales again, before it falls into Kington. We missed the last bit of the ridge somehow, wandering off the path, and my attempts to re-find it by clambering up a steep sheep-infested slope to the ridge, found resistance from my beloved partner, who had had enough of random, impulsive meanderings, full of fake optimism and bravado.
Hergest Ridge was the name of Mike Oldfield’s 2nd album after the immortal Tubular Bells was released in 1973. He released the album the following year in 1974. If you have a nostalgia for music in the 1970s, as I do, it is well worth taking another listen and see if it stands the test of time. I recently tried this with Emerson, Lake and Palmer, whose album, Pictures at an Exhibition was based on the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. That didn’t work for me, falling into that category of redundant “prog rock” but I would recommend listening again to the album by the English band, Traffic, called Traffic On the Road, with Steve Winwoods’ legendary voice. The area around Hergest Ridge is one of the most bucolic places, a gentle ridge – not as extreme as the Black Mountain ridge we were on the day before – with rolling hedge filled hills on the English side, and more austere hills of the Brecon Beacons on the Welsh side. But like so many borderlands, the atmosphere is one of being in a kind of no mans land between places, a wonderful questioning place, where even though so much history and turmoil might have been there, is also a timeless place, a place which history forgot. Much of the borderlands of England and Wales have no major roads through them. The major transport tributary in England hammers up the M5, about 40 miles east, going north and south, forgetting that Wales lies off to the East and the most important road into Wales takes the form of the M4 in South Wales, about 40 miles to the south. That motorway has become one of the most congested roads in Britain at times, and yet, if one meanders up the border for 40 miles, the roads disappear into the hills, nestled under tunnels of trees, hidden from the world.
I took a book with me to read on the journey – Bruce Chatwin’s On the Black Hill, a story of people living on Welsh/English borderlands, just north of Kington in Radnorshire. An amazing book, detailing the story of a family of a Welsh working farmer and his middle class educated English wife and their children, which beautifully details life in this part of the world at the turn of the 20th century. Rural farming life there was intense and tough, a far cry from the types of lives most of us now live. Chatwin is one of the world’s great travel writers, and I highly recommend this book.
Kington is a charming, small rural town, utterly unspoilt and a contrast to the evolving tweeness of Hay on Wye. Developing its reputation as a Walkers Town, with Offa’s Dyke just outside town, it may seem to be a forgotten place but there is a quiet but alternative culture there, similar to the larger town of Hereford, 18 miles to the south.
In the election in the UK just being announced, the North Hereford constituency has just voted a Green MP into office. As we walked through town, all we saw were banners for the Green Party, so this is an interesting development for the region. When living in Hereford, I often joked how the hippies moved into Tipi Valley and other places in Wales in the 60’s and 70’s but after some years of interminable rain and cold, many crawled out and ended up on the borderlands of Herefordshire.
The borderlands also are reflected in the latest UK election results. The Welsh have totally evicted the Conservative party, the traditional right-wing party of the UK, mostly representing business and middle and upper classes whereas the Labour Party traditionally represented working class issues – at least that was the case in the past. Now the modern Labour Party is essentially no different than the Conservatives, especially in foreign policy and in their fealty to global finance. However, the Welsh have purged the Tories, now being dominated by Labour and also the Welsh party, Plaid Cymru. We should not forget that Welsh history is intimately connected to the coal mines of the Welsh valleys, whose close nit communities and working class culture are an essential Welsh reality and one reason also why a majority of Welsh people voted to leave the European Union, not trusting the outsider even if they were benefitting from EU largess. Also, in Margaret Thatcher’s time, the war on the working class was most clearly seen in the one year long Miner’s strike when Thatcher’s government declared war on the miners and destroyed livelihoods and communities, with police brought from all over country to lay siege to mining towns in Wales and Northern England. Many have not forgotten or forgiven the Conservatives for this.
Similarly, above another border, that of Scotland and England, the Scots have also kicked the remains of the Conservatives, only one seat remaining in Scotland for the Tories. Even the Scottish National Party, (SNP), the party supporting Scottish independence, have collapsed in their vote as the Scots have largely returned to their Labour roots.
So, the Labour Party of Sir Keir Starmer has now been voted into power, with a huge majority. But given the vicissitudes and idiosyncrasies of UK politics, the overall percentage of Labour’s vote, 35% is actually less than they got in 2019, under Jeremy Corbyn. One of the biggest factors in the election was the number of people who voted for the new Reform Party, under its leader, Nigel Farage, the nemesis of those who wanted the UK to stay in the European Union. It was this party that took away the Tories vote, as much as it was people who voted for Labour. Apart from Scotland, where Labour did greatly increase their vote, at the SNP’s expense, the percentage of Labour vote in England didn’t really change and in Wales, it actually went down slightly. In the UK we have a “first past the post” system in each constituency so in a majority of places, the winner actually gets less than 50% of the vote, meaning more people voted against the winner than vote for the winner.
Many people have wanted some of proportional representation (PR) in UK politics so that our politics reflects more accurately people’s voting habits. Most of Europe has some form of this representational politics based on PR but many in the UK, especially in the two big parties, look upon this system with disdain. They see it as too weak and compromising and like the authority and apparent power that our current system offers. But however, one looks at it, no party, including the massive majority that a new Labour Party will now enjoy, has had the support of the majority of its citizens. Not one!
They only really get away with it because the British people generally don’t like to make a fuss and are rather tolerant. That has its merits and the Brits are quite a democratic lot and get on with things in the informational fudgy mess of accommodation and acceptance, even if the political parties don’t want to do the same, which would mean having to negotiate with one another. That definitely suits those behind the scenes in British/American life who keep their fingers on the global financial pies and geo politics of the world. They don’t really mind who is in power. Why, only the other day, Larry Fink, head of the largest investment company in the world, BlackRock, said he think Keir Starmer would be a good Prime Minister. No need to go and get the ascent of the King of England, Mr Starmer. BlackRock have given you the nod. Say no more.
However, one has to love something about the British way of life. For as long as I can remember, some people will be asking people to vote for them, representing the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, often dressed in the most bizarre get up. All rather comic but which adds a nice little bit of humour to the turbid world of politics.
We ended our walk in the Skirrid Inn, in Llanvhiangel Crucorney, Wales’ oldest pub, built around the 11th century and where apparently executions would be held in the front room. There is a beam behind the bar where hundreds of prisoners were hanged. It is now known as the most haunted pub in Wales and visitors have heard voices, slammed doors and footsteps at night. Skirrid is taken from the Welsh word “Ysgyryd” which means to shake or tremble, reflecting the massive landslide seen on the hill’s northern tip not far from the pub.