By Richard Wolfendale, Head Boy 2020-21, and Sue Wolfendale
There is always a strange sensation that comes with finding a coincidence; they arise when you least expect them and seem to violate our perceptions of probability. The following story was born out of such a coincidence, one that I believe is remarkable and a very curious twist of fate.
My parents moved to Wales in 2002 and I spent my first years in a little old cottage called Tyddyn Bach in the village of Llanddoged, near Llanrwst. My bedroom looked out to the Carneddau summits of Llywelyn and Dafydd and the imposing peak of Moel Siabod.
We were told that the last but one occupant of our house had been an elderly lady called Miss Norris, reputed to be slightly eccentric, who drove an open-topped sports car and played the violin in the outhouse that we called ‘the cow-shed’. She had passed away more than ten years before, so we never met her; we had no personal connection with her, she was just a name.
Then, by chance, on a family expedition one day, we discovered her memorial in the graveyard of Llangelynnin church in the foothills of the Carneddau. On it, the phrase ‘Ad montes sursum corda’ hinted at a restless spirit.
But it was only when I started at Rydal Penrhos in Year 5 that our neighbour said, ‘Did you know that Miss Norris was the school secretary at Rydal?’ - this was when things began to take an interesting turn.
Our neighbour had known Miss Norris quite well. When she passed away in 1991 there was no immediate family to inherit her possessions, but, just in case, a large box of personal photographs and correspondence was retained, together with an ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder and some recordings.
By 2020 our neighbour was wondering what to do with this material, leading to this archive being passed to my mum Sue Wolfendale for evaluation. My parents enthusiastically set about an examination of photograph albums and paperwork; identifying the schools where Miss Norris had worked, who were her correspondents, and earmarking material of local historical interest.
This has taken us down some surprising rabbit holes, introducing us to people and places that would previously not have interested us in any way.
It would be fair to say that Miss Norris has turned out to be quite a character.
Early life
Hester Mary Norris was born in 1910 in Longton, Lancashire, daughter and grand-daughter of clergymen. Her father William Henry Norris was the vicar of St Andrew’s, Longton for many years.
He must have been a man of means, as he educated both of his children privately and was an early adopter of motorised transport. A photograph of 1913 shows him astride a motorcycle with a sidecar, proudly displaying the iconic AA badge, and Hester’s albums feature a number of motor cars, presumably her father’s, dated to the 1920s.
Her older brother, John Henry, was educated at Rossall School and went on to become a clergyman in his turn. He was curate at Holy Trinity,
Darwen and later vicar of St James, Darwen and St John’s, Lund. Hester attended St Elphin’s School, Darley Dale, Matlock, a school for daughters of the clergy, whose most famous alumna was Richmal Crompton of ‘Just William’ fame. The school closed in 2005.
In 1928 (so far, quite unaccountably) Hester attended the St George’s School in Clarens, near Montreux, Switzerland, for at least a year. Situated in a breathtakingly beautiful spot above Lake Geneva, the school had been founded only the previous year by Lorna Southwell and Osyth Potts as a traditional English girls’ school, albeit with an international outlook. Nowadays the St George’s International School is also open to juniors and boys, and commands positively eye-watering fees.
Hester’s Swiss photograph albums show her having a splendid time playing netball and tennis, and skating and skiing in jolly school parties at Caux, just above Montreux.
She seems to have stayed on at St George’s for a further year, until summer 1929, perhaps as a trainee teacher – she would have been 19 by this time. These two years in the Swiss Alps inspired the greatest and most enduring love of Hester’s life: mountains.
You might be surprised to learn that, if you put ‘Hester Norris’ in Google’s search engine, you actually get some results. The Midlands Association of Mountaineers (MAM) and The Alpine Journal of 2001 both feature articles about this quiet lady’s exploits in the high Alps. Hester was an early female alpiniste in the days when climbing mountains was still only a fringe activity in the men’s world, let alone the women’s. This would have been totally forgotten had she not kept meticulously detailed diaries of her climbs, diaries which are now kept in the archives of the MAM.
Hester evidently could not tear herself away from Switzerland when she finished at St George’s School. Instead, she managed to secure employment at The English Preparatory School, a similarly English-run boys’ school in Glion, Montreux, where she stayed for two years. Throughout the 1930s she had a succession of posts in boys’ preparatory schools in England – The Knoll School at Woburn Sands, Hillstone School at Malvern, and Lawrence House School at Lytham St Anne’s. It is not clear in what capacity she was employed, or whether her training qualified her as teacher or administrator.
She may have done a bit of both as most of these schools only comprised 30-40 pupils with a handful of staff. She still managed to get over to Switzerland each year for a winter holiday, and her photo album shows groups of St George’s girls skating and skiing at Caux and Lenk; Hester may even have been in charge of these parties as a ‘holiday job’. Mountain climbing.
In the summer of 1934, Hester embarked on a new adventure, one that she had been considering for some time: she engaged one of her ski instructors, Victor Biner, to coach and guide her for a fortnight’s climbing holiday out of Zermatt, Switzerland. This holiday is recorded in the first of her diaries, written in a neat, close hand, complete with an index, list of illustrations, summary, foreword and pointers to the three best days of the holiday.
She had travelled to Newhaven on her motorbike, ‘Archibald’, and then by train to Zermatt where she met Victor and bought some boots. Her first training was on the Gorner Glacier and the Riffelhorn – ‘…my first rock climbing of any sort … I liked it!’ After several days’ climbing of increasing difficulty, Victor must have been satisfied with Hester’s progress; he suggested that she bring some food with her the next day for an overnight stay in the Hörnli Hut, with a view to climbing the Matterhorn the following morning.
At the hut, ‘I was excited, alarmed and amazed…at the most wonderful mountain in the world’. They set off at 5am, overtook a few other parties, rested for half an hour at the Solvay Hut and got to the top at 9am.
‘Surely this was, and always will be, the happiest day of my life.’ Victor photographed Hester on the summit, ecstatic and triumphant, a photograph that takes pride of place in her album. Touchingly, a pressed edelweiss flower is tucked behind another of the pictures on this page, which is captioned: ‘1934: The first of many thrilling mountaineering holidays.’
Hester had been brought up to enjoy fell-walking and the countryside of Lancashire and the Lake District, but once she had tasted the excitement of climbing snowy peaks with rope and axe she was not particularly interested in ‘cow-plods’ through unchallenging meadows. For her, climbing was all about getting up mountains, big ones, preferably in her beloved Switzerland. Over the years, she was under no illusions about her proficiency; she was not a leader, she was quite content to be a second on the rope, and until 1949 always climbed with a local guide. She stuck with the same few guides over the years, usually hiring just one for the whole two weeks of her holiday, but sometimes complained about their charges! Victor Biner in Zermatt was pricey, but Hans Griessen in Lenk, perhaps her favourite, was ’not one of the moneygrubbers!’.
Although Hester’s parents had provided her with a very comfortable upbringing, it seems she was now on her own financially and had to make her way without their help. Money was always tight, and she had to save hard for her annual climbing treat.
Hester’s climbing career was interrupted, necessarily, by the 2nd World War, which broke out officially while she was climbing with a new guide, Marcel Bozon, out of Chamonix. As the political situation deteriorated at the beginning of September 1939, the two of them climbed the Grépon – ‘a red letter day in my climbing career’ – and by the time they came back to Marcel’s chalet both England and France were at war. Hester had to leave. She and Marcel made the mutual wish, ‘À l’année prochaine!’ and ‘…he cycled away. I watched him disappear in the torrential rain and wondered unhappily if he will be spared from the firing line of this hateful war.’
She herself struggled through France, taking three and a half days to get home and catching one of the last ferries to leave Dieppe. There was no ‘année prochaine’ of course, but Hester was relieved to learn afterwards that Marcel had been exempted from active service and had spent the war training mountain troops.
Hester returned home to Lawrence House School where, according to the 1939 Register, she was an ‘assistant teacher’. In 1940 a lone German bomber flew over Lytham and discharged its cargo of incendiary and high explosive bombs over the nearby houses. Hester’s album shows photographs of a large bomb crater in the school field, with damaged houses beyond the perimeter. In 1941 or 1942 she moved to Northaw School, a boys’ preparatory school originally from Pluckley, Kent, but which had been evacuated to Loton Park in Shropshire. From Loton Park, Hester managed to steal a couple of trips to climb Snowdon; once by motorcycle, secondly by bicycle, sleeping out on Crib Goch. Perhaps it was these happy days in Snowdonia that inspired her to seek employment at Rydal School in 1943.
Hester was employed at Rydal School from 1943 as the secretary to the Headmaster, Dr A J Costain. She was certainly proficient in shorthand and typing and, as there is a ‘Ready Reckoner’ booklet in her box, was probably responsible for administering school fees and corresponding with pupils’ parents. In 1946 Donald Wynn Hughes became the Headmaster and Hester continued as his secretary until his tragic death in 1967. She lived in staff accommodation somewhere near Beecholme house until she bought the cottage at Llanddoged in 1965. But, returning to the mountains…
During the War the School was moved from Colwyn Bay to Oakwood Park in Conwy, an ideal jumping-off point for cycle runs to the Snowdonia peaks and crags. In Hester’s view, climbing in Britain was a useful exercise in keeping fit, but no substitute for the real thing in the Alps. The wartime ban on private travel to Switzerland was lifted on 1st April 1946, and on 6th April Hester was on her way! She resumed her adventures with the guides she knew and enjoyed climbing holidays every year in the Alps, Italy and in Norway.
The Norwegian trip in 1949 was a MAM meet during which she climbed with the renowned Cyril Machin, who had a reputation for being headstrong almost to the point of recklessness. On this occasion, he led Hester and another lady, Olwen James, on a very tricky climb of the Smorskredtind that terrified Hester at times. They later found that they had made the first British and female ascents of the peak. In 1954 she achieved the Dent Blanche, Zermatt, with Walter Biner, ‘such a wonderful day…the happiest day for years and years.’
In 1956 she went on a trip to Chamonix with fellow members of the MAM but felt unwell, suffering considerable breathing problems. Then in Grenoble, she suffered a minor stroke which affected her speech and right hand. The local doctor told her her heart was ‘fine' and that she must never do anything physical again. ‘…whenever I thought about what he’d said about my future my mind seemed to cloud over and go blank…my mountaineering days would come to an abrupt end with more than half my dreams unrealised.’
The stroke had been caused by a faulty heart valve, due to a bout of rheumatic fever she had suffered as a child, but Hester made a remarkable recovery. However, she could not now risk rock-climbing and had to confine herself to walking the hills. For several years she had been leading the Rydal Hillwalking Club, taking parties of pupils to all parts of the National Park and, of course, insisting upon meticulous diaries being kept of their walks. One entry, written by a pupil, recounts that the party set off from school ‘after morning service’, bicycled to Capel Curig, ‘…where Miss Norris treated us to coffee and cakes at the Snowdonia Café’, then they cycled on to Pen y Pass, walked the Snowdon Horseshoe, and then cycled all the way back to school. These were not frivolous expeditions!
Hester later contemplated turning her climbing diaries into a book. They provide a fascinating picture of the Alpine scene during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. There are many details of transport, climbing routes, equipment and hiring guides, as well as much social comment of a bygone era. Hester loved the Alpine way of life and seriously considered living in Switzerland, although this never materialised.
Unfortunately, she was unable to excite any interest from a publisher, despite her connections with many of the foremost amateur climbers of the day. In her latter days she gave the diaries to a good friend, Tony Hughes, who donated them to the MAM after her death in 1991. The aforementioned article in The Alpine Journal 2001, which is an extended summary of her diaries, can be downloaded as a PDF here.
It can be deduced from the story so far that Miss Norris was an independent-minded and slightly unconventional young woman who did not shrink from such eccentric behaviour as wearing trousers and going off into the wilds with a man, and even sharing a hut overnight! Her diaries and the new material in the archive box also shed light on some of her other interests and exploits, although surprisingly little about her life at Rydal School.
Transport
As mentioned above, in 1934 she was in possession of a motorcycle, ‘Archibald’, but had had another, a BSA named ‘Bundry’ even earlier when she was at The Knoll School in 1931. She later had another ‘Bundry’ but in 1949 she splashed out on her first car, a red 1937 MG TA convertible, ‘Belinda’, which had been a patrol-car with the Preston Mobile Police Force until 1945. Doubtless this love of exciting modes of transport was inspired by her father’s earlier succession of cars and her own inclination for a frisson of danger.
Belinda took Hester on at least three major expeditions abroad, although not without mishap. In 1953 Hester and a friend drove through Belgium, down the Rhone valley and into Switzerland, and returned via the Italian Lakes, Genoa, Monte Carlo and Lyon. Poor Belinda broke a spring and a half-shaft, amongst other problems.
In 1954 she survived another trip to Zermatt intact but during her 1955 trip to Saas Fee she suffered another broken spring and a cracked chassis. Reluctantly Hester decided Belinda was too great a strain on her purse, and in 1957 she was replaced by ‘Candlelight’, a cream 1954 MG TF convertible. Candlelight gave sterling service for 26 years before being replaced by ‘Lovely Lady’ in 1973, a 1972 MGB convertible.
Hester also rode horses when she was at Lytham, a skill she revisited later in life when she was forced to give up climbing. She went on at least two organised pony-trekking holidays, one to Scotland and one to Norway, and also rode locally in the Colwyn Bay area. One photograph is captioned, ‘Gipsy, 1966. She used to bring me over to Tyddyn Bach for the weekend when I was still working’.
Photography
During her mountaineering years, Hester had always taken photographs and then became interested in learning how to compose and expose her shots more effectively and how to develop and print her own pictures.
Her instructor was Mr J H Ross, the father of a Rydal pupil John Ross. In both 1948 and 1949, she made trips in the Easter holidays, once by pedal cycle and once by motorcycle, to visit Mr Ross at Leominster, then continuing southwards to stay with friends at Ilminster. On both occasions, she produced albums of her work, the captions showing her warm appreciation of her tutor.
She later had two of her mountain photographs accepted for Blackwell’s Alpine Calendar. Several of her photos were used in the books of author and fellow MAM-member Showell ‘Pip’ Styles, who wrote over 160 books of children’s fiction, detective novels and climbing guidebooks.
Music-making
Hester had always been a musician, learning the piano while at school and being awarded at least one Music Prize at St Elphin’s in 1923. In 1955 she took up the violin – perhaps she had a premonition of her impending ill-health? – and spent many hours practising until she was good enough to play in a local orchestra. The archive box contains a diary entitled ‘Dumky and Ceruti – Public Appearances’, recording the progression of her orchestral experiences - the names are possibly those of her violins!
One page records: ‘Dumky’s ‘D’ Day: Thursday November 19th 1959: Grade VIII: Congratulations to Dumky and thanks to Charles for a successful result’. ‘Charles’ was either Charles Hambourg or Charles Haberreiter, both of whom conducted and played violin with local orchestras in which Hester played.
Hester often played in orchestras assembled to accompany the choral societies of Llandudno and Colwyn Bay in their performances of ‘Messiah’, ‘Elijah’, Brahms’ Requiem and other great choral works. She literally played ‘second fiddle’ to John Morava, of Pier Pavilion fame, for about ten years, until a change of policy mandated that only ‘fully professional’ players be engaged for these concerts. Hester’s response was to take up the viola instead – with not so many viola-players available for hire, she thought she might be able to sneak back into the pit!
I am sure that Hester was fully aware of the coincidence that Tchaikovsky wrote his famous Violin Concerto while staying at Clarens, Montreux, in 1878 (the location of St George’s School), although I suspect that Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’, also a Clarens product, was probably not so much to her taste!
Sound recordings
Hester made an extensive collection of tape recordings of her favourite classical music, naturally fully catalogued in a Rydal school exercise book.
As mentioned above, her reel-to-reel tape recorder has been retained: this ‘Ferrograph’ machine may be familiar to some former Rydal pupils as it is almost certainly the device used for many years by ‘Doc’ Britten, the physics master, to record various performances at the school.
A real gem in the collection is a recording of a full performance of a Rydal School production of ‘The Batsman’s Bride’, an operetta composed by the headmaster Donald Hughes and music master Percy M Heywood. Written in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, the piece is full of the wit and erudition of this cricket-loving headmaster.
For those Old Rydalians who would like to hear this recording, it is available to view here, together with the libretto HERE.
Another of Hester’s tapes is entitled ‘Donald’s Speech’, an after-dinner speech by headmaster Donald Hughes in which he introduces the main speakers at what was probably a sportsmen’s dinner or Round Table event.
The star guests on this occasion were Wilfred Wooller (ex-Rydal pupil, Wales rugby and cricket star) and Freddie Brown (England cricket captain). Hester had worked with Donald from 1946 until his tragic death as a result of a road accident in 1967 and doubtless cherished this memento of a long and happy partnership. The recording of ‘Donald’s Speech’ can be accessed here.
Correspondents and Curiosities
Hester appears to have been a conscientious correspondent over the years, keeping in touch with old friends and writing to several prominent figures in her spheres of interest. Of course, we only have the replies she received with which to deduce the nature of the correspondence, and it is these letters that have sent my parents down some lesser-known pathways in an effort to fill out Hester’s story.
There is a letter from guide Marcel Bozon, written shortly after they parted in 1939, hoping she arrived home safely and assuring her that he had not been called up to military duty; a black-edged letter from Grete Griessen, informing Hester of guide Hans’ death in 1960; chatty letters from fellow-climber Tony Hughes in the Lake District, and the annual Old Georgentians’ newsletter from Switzerland, the final copy of which is dated June 1991.
Over the years she met and later corresponded with several of the foremost climbers of the early mountaineering scene. From the beginning of her career she was inspired by the books of Geoffrey Winthrop Young, and prefaced the first of her diaries with a quotation from ‘On High Hills’. Young was a pioneer mountaineer in the early twentieth century who, despite losing a leg in the First World War, continued to climb with an artificial limb, achieving the Matterhorn in 1927. Hester was so enthused by her own ascent that she sent Young a detailed account of her 1934 holiday, and continued to send him annual accounts of her Alpine and Snowdonia adventures which he regularly acknowledged with a ‘thank you’ letter.
They met on several occasions and Hester would have been well aware of Young’s work on the foundation of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. His belief in the value of ‘outdoor education’ would no doubt have inspired her involvement in the Rydal Hillwalkers’ Club.
After her initial inspirational climb in 1934 she wrote to George D. Abraham, who, with his brother Ashley (‘the Keswick Brothers’), had photographed and documented the development of rock-climbing in the Lake District in the early years of the twentieth century – he sent her two letters of advice and encouragement, which she evidently treasured.
In 1936 Hester met George Ingle Finch and members of his family, beginning an occasional but warm correspondence that lasted for more than 30 years. Finch was born in Australia but was educated in Switzerland, later becoming Professor of Applied Physical Chemistry at Imperial College, London in 1936 and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His phenomenal talent as a mountaineer gained him a place on the British 1922 Everest expedition, during which he reached a record altitude of 27,300 before having to retreat to save the life of his companion. His subsequent pioneering work on oxygen supply enabled later expeditions to conquer the mountain.
His personal life was somewhat turbulent: having returned from service in the First World War to find that his wife had had a child (which may or may not have been his), he kidnapped the child and brought him up in France. Young Peter Finch went on to become an Oscar-winning actor. After a second abortive marriage George settled down with Agnes, known as ‘Bubbles’, who also wrote to Hester in the 1960s.
There are two letters in the box from mountaineer R L Graham Irving, undated but probably from around 1950. Irving had been a schoolmaster at Winchester College where he established the Winchester Ice Club in 1904 to take parties of boys to climb the highest peaks in the Alps. After he delivered an address to the Alpine Club in 1909 detailing the Ice Club’s exploits, a group of disapproving members including Geoffrey Winthrop Young issued a Condemnation and a Disclaimer, making clear that the Alpine Club did not sanction taking schoolboys on such dangerous climbs.
However, one of Irving’s early recruits to the Ice Club was George H L Mallory, who went on to participate in three British Everest expeditions, losing his life on the mountain in 1924 – his body was not found until 1999, and it has still not been established whether he or his companion succeeded in reaching the summit before disaster struck. Irving’s letters to Hester are in response to her sending him some of her photographs for evaluation for Blackwell’s Alpine Calendar: it seems that one of those accepted was a picture of the Couvercle Hut on l’Aiguille du Moine near Chamonix.
During Hester’s 1939 holiday out of Chamonix she had met the pioneering alpiniste, Dorothy Pilley Richards. They conducted a short correspondence over the next couple of months when Dorothy had moved over to America to assist with settling refugees who had fled the situation in Europe. Dorothy had climbed extensively during the 1920s, overcoming girly problems such as having to set off in the morning wearing a skirt, which was removed in favour of practical knickerbockers when safely out of male sight! She was a founder of the all-female Pinnacle Club in 1921, and in the letters offered to propose Hester as a member (Hester never joined). Dorothy’s climbing career was ended by injuries sustained in a car accident in 1958.
There are two more unusual sets of letters, from Cecil Lewis and Rev W. Kennedy-Bell of the BBC. Hester listened to a lot of radio and was evidently much exercised by Lewis’s spiritual and philosophical broadcasts. Despite coming from a family of clergymen, Hester never showed any great religiosity, only once remarking in her climbing diaries, ‘I love being on an Alpine peak on Sunday mornings…because I always think of the hundreds of people in church, and how much nearer I feel to the Almighty on an Alpine summit than I ever do in church.’
Cecil Lewis was a First World War air ace who went on to co-found the British Broadcasting Corporation with Lord Reith, and his talks expressed a less religious and more humanist view. Hester wrote to the Head of Religious Broadcasting, the Rev. W. Kennedy-Bell, to request transcripts of the broadcasts, and then entered into dialogues with him and Lewis on the merits of various philosophies.
Under the ‘Photography’ section above, mention was made of Hester’s two trips to Ilminster in 1948 and 1949. There she visited her friends John and Peggy Booker, whom she first met at Northaw School and who then ran a private school in a country house called Jordans. The school was closed for the Easter holidays when she visited, but the Bookers’ son Christopher was home from Shrewsbury School with his friend Crispin Tickell from Westminster School. Hester used the Bookers, their children and guest as photographic subjects, several photographs appearing in her albums of the trips.
It is likely that she followed the boys’ later careers with interest: there are a couple of references to them in her archive box though no evidence that they remained in communication. Christopher Booker became a prominent journalist and author, working at the satirical magazine Private Eye, The Spectator, and the Sunday Telegraph, amongst others.
His views were often controversial, championing the underdog and criticising over-reaching authority, especially that of the European Union. Crispin Tickell (ex-Northaw School) went into the diplomatic service in 1954, serving in many roles including as British ambassador to the United Nations. Sir Crispin was President of the Royal Geographical Society from 1990-1993 and is credited with convincing Margaret Thatcher to kick-start the global debate on slowing climate change, a stance that would have conflicted with the views of his boyhood friend Christopher.
Retirement
Miss Norris retired from Rydal School in 1970, at the age of 60. By this time she had been the owner of Tyddyn Bach for five years and had carried out quite a bit of work to make the little cottage habitable. She settled down there to enjoy a quiet life of music, learning Welsh and gardening within sight of the high hills that, unfortunately, she could no longer visit.
She held musical soirées with her string-playing friends in the outhouse that she had converted for the purpose, with many of her mountain photographs adorning the walls. ‘Lovely Lady’ was furnished with a new concrete garage and Hester drove her along the narrow lanes around Llanddoged with the roof down and wearing her usual red motoring cap – the local boys cheekily called her ‘Noddy Norris’!
Hester had undergone surgery on her damaged heart valve in 1965 but had further debilitating symptoms in 1978 and suffered from cataracts. She gave up playing the violin and sent her instruments to auction at Christie’s in London. The sale realised almost £2000 which she donated to the Music department at Rydal School. She later also donated her piano to the School, and there are still piles of piano music with her name on in the Music department.
She spent the last years of her life in happy solitude with her radio, her large collection of mountaineering books and tending her garden, thankful for the years that she had been able to remain active. Her idyll was slightly marred by the construction of more houses around the hitherto solitary Tyddyn Bach but fortunately, they did not hinder her view of the Carneddau peaks that she loved.
Hester Norris passed away peacefully on 29th July 1991 at the age of 81.
Epilogue
Amongst those old black-and-white photographs in Hester’s Swiss albums are two entitled ‘Champ de narcissi’ and ‘Picking wild narcissi’. It seems she tried to recreate the daffodil meadows of Montreux at Tyddyn Bach, filling the semi-wild garden with daffodils that still dominated the lower level when our family lived there.
She even wrote to ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’ on Radio 4 to ask about daffodil care and managed to record the broadcast of her letter being discussed. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that Hester Norris’s memorial is as near as possible to the last remaining site of the native wild Welsh daffodils, above Llanbedr-y-Cennin:
‘For Mammon there subdues our wills, But God is great among the hills. When life’s frail flame is burning low Be it my lot once more to go
To Conwy’s peaceful vale, and there Drink my last draught of pure sweet air. Then rest, secure from mental ills, Beneath St Peter’s daffodils.’
From ‘Llanbedr-y-Cennin’ attributed to Edward Rimbault Dibdin 1902
Transcribed by Hester Norris
