A “sentimental journey” could be defined as one that engages with the emotions, especially sadness, rather than the more usual ones of education, loosely defined pleasure, or simply making one’s way to a destination. My journey on 13 June to Pennant Melangell had a definite purpose – to enter Mum’s name in a book of remembrance – but involved many feelings.
Despite her advanced years and poor health, it was a shock when Mum died in March 2018, and in the long gap before the funeral I began to plan how to commemorate her life. I set up this website, which went “live” on the day of the funeral, and ordered a commemorative bench, which was installed (and indeed sat on) early in June. A more private move was to inscribe her name in the book of commemoration at St Melangell’s Church in Pennant Melangell.
This church is classified by the Church in Wales as a Shrine Church rather than a Parish church; with a small retreat centre nearby, it is the subject of many pilgrimages. It would be inaccurate to describe our own visit as a pilgrimage, as, although she was married to an Anglican, Mum was a Roman Catholic, and neither my wife nor I has any affiliations to either church. Yet, since I first visited, there has seemed to be something particular about St Melangell’s. It dates partly to the twelfth century, and is surrounded by a round churchyard, which seems to have been a Bronze Age site with yews that may be 2,000 years old.
It was the round churchyard that intrigued when my wife and I first visited some years ago, reaching the location in the upper Tanat Valley along a narrow cul-de-sac lane that stretches for over two miles in hill country west of the village of Llangynog. I find many churches of architectural interest, and some provide a strong impression that these have been significant meeting places, whether or not for worship. What struck me at St Melangell was some wider sense, one that approached a sense of the spiritual. It may be the remoteness, the setting, or the ambience of the church, but there were definite and distinct associations. To record Mum’s name in their book – a generous gesture in itself, and an additional significant reason to visit – seemed more appropriate than the somewhat pious, if overly formal, books kept elsewhere.
St Melangell’s had associations with conservation, for which there was much support. Despite restoration in 1959, by 1987 its condition had deteriorated to the point that the Church proposed to remove the roof and leave it as a romantic ruin in the middle of a graveyard. A retired priest had been appointed to oversee a new restoration, and his wife had started the retreat centre as a place of healing. His gravestone stands alone near one exit to the churchyard; it was poignant to consider that, although two years younger than Mum, she had lived 24 years longer than him. His legacy is clear at the Church, with the enthusiasm and support that it has brought. Her emotional legacy may be a much more personal one.
I had visited Pennant Melangell before with Mum, but my recollection had been that she had stayed in the car, as she was too infirm and tired to go in. My recent journey was part of a day trip into North and Mid Wales, and took me past Mold, the Loggerheads and the Clwyd Gate to stop at Ruthin. I had not intended this as a retracing of steps associated with Mum, but it was while passing the Clwyd Gate, that she knew well, that it came to me that she would never see this again, and that my previous trip with her was one of the last times that she had seen it. There are often major variations in our feelings about places, and I wondered whether she was as attached to this route, and places along it, as I was. Between Ruthin and Corwen, we passed Rhug Chapel, conserved by Cadw, that we had visited when Mum could still walk slowly with a stick, and later, a pub on the road over the Berwyns to Llandynog at which we had stopped for coffee. I had enjoyed these days out with her, but what she thought about this – of anything – was now inaccessible.
In mild farce, the lane to Pennant Melangell was both more potholed than usual, and littered by young game birds that did not scatter at our approach, so that it was necessary to leave the car to shoo then out of the way. The church was deserted, beyond two walkers parking near the gate, and the door open as always. I explored the ground floor, from the leaflets and booklets in the Vestry at the west end to the small chapel at the east end (of ancient appearance, but rebuilt in 1990 on the original foundations). Three candles were lit – two, as before, for others, and now a third for Mum. The main purpose for the visit was soon fulfilled – a card with Mum’s details, along with that of her father John Joseph, and, for good measure, my father’s parents, and his cousin, all of whom died in the 1980s. Mum had been gone less than three months, but her father had died very nearly 65 years ago. I think that she would be pleased that his name would be recorded, although he too was a Catholic.
Words of consolation can often fail, especially when they spring from religious feelings that are not shared, but I was struck by the excerpt from a Jewish prayer on a card next to the remembrance book: “this day in sacred convocation we remember those who gave us life…We renew our bonds to those who have gone the way of all the earth.” Quite. This certainly had resonances at that moment.
I wandered outside and round the churchyard, and walked up the lane past the retreat centre. The landscape of the valley beyond the church seems to have changed little in the past century and, although such impressions can be illusory, I felt that Mum would have recognised most of it in childhood. The churchyard itself provided many markers of continuity, with graves that were centuries old alongside new graves; its function continues.
That completed a journey of sorts on that day, fulfilling its main purpose.
However, a further aspect of this journey later presented itself. On the day, I had regretted that Mum had stayed in the car and not visited. My earlier photographs showed me that this had been true for a visit that I had made with my sister in February 2013, on what proved to be Mum’s final holiday away (there were later day trips). Looking for photographs of this, I found views from an earlier visit, in March 2012, when Mum and I had taken a short holiday in Shropshire (again the last of its kind). I was surprised, but gratified, to see that my memory had failed me, and that Mum had indeed visited on that day; indeed, my drive past the Clwyd Gate and the Berwyns had followed much of the route from 2012. There were photographs of her standing by lit candles, and one with her holding a card with my father’s details, which have since been entered in the book. The final ones show her at the door of the church porch, and then walking down the path, supported by a stick, making a journey of her own towards an uncertain future.
Joan Boughey Recalled 