I have taken a short part of a story of our life in North Wales, which commenced as a family record, but which, I suppose is really an autobiography. I wont bore you with a lot, just sufficient to let you see what life was like in the valley some sixty years ago. My mother, myself and brother and an Aunt livedon Dol-y-clochydd Farm in the early 1940's. We lived there with Mr & Mrs Williams who ran sheep, grew potatoes and wheat, had a small dairy herd, some pigs and chickens. My brother and I had a wonderful time roaming the nearby mountains and streams, and I caught my first trout in the fast water to the west of the farm house. My love of the outdoors and especially of fishing stems from that time and sixty two years later I am still fly fishing for trout and salmon here in Tasmania, Australia. Life was very basic, with drinking water having to be carried some three hundred yards across the field from a wonderfully clear spring. Washing water came from the rain water barrels and the river and as there was no electricity, lighting was by paraffin lamps. Mrs Williams used to bake bread in the domed brick oven built into the wall of the kitchen, she made butter to sell at the markets and for home consumption, and to this day I can still taste the wonderfully salty butter, the crusty bread and the home made plum jam. We would assist the farmer, John Williams, in the work around the farm, such as threshing, hay making, planting and picking potatoes cutting trees and splitting logs for fence posts and firewood. They had a wonderful cart horse named Lion who loved nothing better than a crust of bread and would wedge his huge shoulders in the kitchen back door until he was given a hunk of bread. I learned to use a cross cut saw including sharpening the teeth which was very necessary to make sawing the logs a lot easier. We also learned to work with the two sheep dogs, Megan the youngest was very clever and John Williams would sent her up the mountain to bring sheep down, threading their way through the holes in the amazing stone walls while he stood in the yard outside the farm house. The older dog, Blacken was also very smart and we were sure that he used to deliberately misunderstand the commands so that the younger dog would be sent on the mission. He used to raid the bran bin in the barn and if he was lucky we would see the tell tale bran dust on his nose and wipe it off before John Williams saw it. There is a lot more, triggered by writing about one event and the domino effect as other memories come flooding back. Keep up the good work and try and preserve Wales. Do not let the developers have their way as it is such a beautiful land. Regards, Mike Bowyer Email: Mike Bowyer (mikebowyer@bigpond.com)