It is remarkable to me how these matters have become so thoroughly inverted in the past twenty years. There used to be a kind of unspoken nobility about living in Britain. Just by existing, by going to work and paying your taxes, catching the occasional bus and being a generally decent if unexceptional soul, you felt as if you were contributing in some small way to the maintenance of a noble enterprise a generally compassionate and wellmeaning society with health care for all, decent public transport, intelligent television, universal social welfare and all the rest of it. I don't know about you, but I always felt rather proud to be part of that, particularly as you didn't actually have to do anything you didn't have to give blood or buy the Big Issue or otherwise go out of your way to feel as if you were a small contributory part. But now, no matter what you do, you end up stung with guilt. Go for a ramble in the country and you are reminded that you are inexorably adding to congestion in the national parks and footpath erosion on fragile hills. Try to take a sleeper to Fort William or a train on the SettletoCarlisle line or a bus from Llandudno to Blaenau on a Sunday and you begin to feel shifty and aberrant because you know that these services require vast and costly subsidization. Go for a drive in your car, look for work, seek a place to live, and all you are doing is taking up valuable space and time. And as for needing health care well, how thoughtless and selfish can you possibly be? ('We can treat your ingrown toenails, Mr Smith, but it will of course mean taking a child off a lifesupport machine.')
I dread to think how much it cost Gwynedd Transport to convey me to Blaenau Ffestiniog on this wet Sunday morning since I was the only customer, apart from a young lady who joined us at BetwsyCoed and left us soon after at the interestingly named PontyPant. I had been looking forward to the journey for the chance to see a little of Snowdonia, but the rain was soon falling so hard, and the bus windows so beaded with dirty droplets, that I could see almost nothing just blurry expanses of dead, rustcoloured ferns dotted here and there with motionless, seriously discontentedlooking sheep. Rain pattered against the windows like thrown pebbles and the bus swayed alarmingly under gusts of wind. It was like being on a ship in rough seas. The bus lumbered with grinding reluctance up twisting mountain roads, itswindscreen wipers flapping wildly, to a plateau in the clouds and then embarked on a precipitate, seemingly outofcontrol descent into Blaenau Ffestiniog through steep defiles covered with numberless slagheaps of broken, rainshiny slate. This was once the heart of the Welsh slatemining industry, and the scattered rejects and remnants, which covered virtually every inch of ground, gave the landscape an unearthly and eerie aspect like nothing else I had seen before in Britain. At the epicentre of this unearthliness squatted the village of Blaenau, itself a kind of slate slagheap, or so it seemed in the teeming rain.
The bus dropped me in the centre of town near the terminus of the famous Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway, now a private line run by enthusiasts and which I hoped to take through the cloudy mountains to Porthmadog. The station platform was open, but all the doors to waitingrooms, toilets and ticket halls were padlocked, and there was noone around. I had a look at the winter timetable hanging on the wall and discovered to my dismay that I had just missed literally just missed a train. Puzzled, I dragged my crumpled bus timetable from my. pocket and discovered with further dismay that the bus was actually scheduled to arrive just in time to miss the one midday train out of Blaenau. Running a finger down the rail timetable, I learned that the next train would not be for another four hours. The next bus would follow that by minutes. How could that be possible and, more to the point, what on earth was I supposed to do with myself in this Godforsaken, rainsodden place for four hours? There was no possibility of staying on the platform. It was cold and the rain was falling at such a treacherous slant that there was no place to escape it even in the furthest corners.
Muttering uncharitable thoughts about Gwynedd Transport, the Blaenau Ffestiniog Railway Company, the British climate and my own mad folly, I set off through the little town. This being Wales and this being Sunday, there was nothing open and no life on the narrow streets. Nor, as far as I could see, were there any hotels or guesthouses. It occurred to me that perhaps the train wasn't running at all in this weather, in which case I would be truly stuck. I was soaked through, cold and deeply, deeply gloomy. At the far end of town, there was a little restaurant called Myfannwy's and by a miracle it was open. I hastened into its beckoning warmth, where I peeled off my sodden jacket and sweater and went with a headful of suddenly enlivened hair to a table by a radiator. I was the only customer. I ordered a coffee and a little something to eat and savoured the warmth and dryness. Somewhere in the background Nat King Cole sang a perky tune. I watched the rain beat down on the road outside and told myself that one day this would be twenty years ago.
If I learned just one thing in Blaenau that day it was that no Blatter how hard you try you cannot make a cup of coffee and a cheese omelette last four hours. 1 ate as slowly as I could and Ordered a second cup of coffee, but after nearly an hour of delicate eating and sipping, it became obvious that I was either going to have to leave or pay rent, so I reluctantly gathered up my things. At the till, I explained my plight to the kindly couple who ran the place and they both made those sympathetic ohdear noises that kindly people make when confronted with someone else's crisis.
'He might go to the slate mine,' suggested the woman to the man.
'Yes, he might go to the slate mine,' agreed the man and turned to me. 'You might go to the slate mine,' he said as if thinking I might somehow have missed the foregoing exchange.
'Oh, and what's that exactly?' I said, trying not to sound too doubtful.
'The old mine. They do guided tours.'
'It's very interesting,' said his wife.
'Yes, it's very interesting,' said the man. 'Mind, it's a fair hike,' he added.
'And it may not be open on a Sunday,' said his wife. 'Out of season,' she explained.
'Of course, you could always take a cab up there if you don't fancy the walk in this weather,' said the man.
I looked at him. A cab? Did he say 'a cab'! This seemed too miraculous to be taken in. 'You have a cab service in Blaenau?'
'Oh, yes,' said the man as if this were one of Blaenau's more celebrated features. 'Would you like me to order one to take you to the mine?'
'Well,' I sought for words; I didn't want to sound ungrateful when these people had been so kind, but on the other hand I found the prospect of an afternoon touring a slate mine in damp clothes about as appealing as a visit to the proctologist. 'Do you think the cab would take me to Porthmadog?' I wasn't sure how far it was, and I dared not hope.
'Of course,' said the man. So he called a cab for me and the next thing I knew I was departing to a volley of good wishes from theproprietors and stepping into a cab, feeling like a shipwreck victim being winched to unexpected safety. I cannot tell you with what joy I beheld the sight of Blaenau disappearing into the distance behind me.
The cab driver was a friendly young man and on the twentyminute ride to Porthmadog he filled me in on much important economic and sociological data with regard to the Dwyfor peninsula. The most striking news was that the peninsula was dry on Sundays. You couldn't get an alcoholic drink to save your life between Porthmadog and Aberdaron. I didn't know such pockets of rectitude still existed in Britain, but I was so glad to be getting out of Blaenau that I didn't care.