\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ron Berry and Chris Torrance lived no more than ten miles from each other, as the hawk flies. By road, it\u2019s further \u2013 15 miles or so. Environmentally, it\u2019s further still, with Berry at the head of the strip development of the industrial Rhondda, and Torrance in the upper Neath valley, within the Brecon Beacons National Park.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The journey between those two places is a remarkable one. Torrance described his cottage as being \u2018two fields from tarmac\u2019, which was pleasant enough in the summer, but more of a challenge on a cold wet winter\u2019s day. Beyond the field gate, to the left, a narrow lane drops down to the bridge over the Neath, Pont Melin-Fach. To the right, it twists upward past the farm, past piles of timber on one side, past a beautiful spreading oak in a rough field on the other, and out onto a small plateau of common land. There are views north to the peaks of the Beacons, south to Craig y Llyn above Rhigos (our route to the Rhondda), and south west, on a clear day, to Swansea Bay.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From here, the road from Ystradfellte drifts down to Pontneddfechan. It\u2019s best taken slowly, to avoid the sheep. Pontneddfechan village is now more of a daytripper destination than ever, since the National Park authorities closed their Visitor Centre and leased it to a cafe. In the summer, cars line the road on both sides for some distance.. Chris Torrance, who walked this way to get his shopping in Glynneath, or to travel to Cardiff for his creative writing class, seemed resigned about the crowds. Ron Berry, I\u2019m sure, would have been less taciturn. Some humour can be rescued from the situation: a large sign proclaiming WATERFALL COUNTRY is screwed to the side of the public toilet…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Phil Maillard first met Chris Torrance in 1967. He published several of Torrance\u2019s books, including \u2018The Slim Book\/Wet Pulp\u2019 (1986), and \u2018Wobbly Chair\u2019 (2003), and also wrote the Introduction to\u00a0 Torrance\u2019s\u00a0magnum opus,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>\u2018The Magic Door\u2019 (2017). In 2015, Aquifer published \u2018Slipping the Leash\u2019, featuring Torrance, Maillard, and Graham Hartill, which was \u2018a gesture of gratitude\u2019 to the landscapes and people of Wales by three incomers. Maillard\u2019s own recent publications include \u2018Even Clouds Are Geniuses\u2019, the life and work of poet, Buddhist monk and naturalist Bill Wyatt (2020), and \u2018Hafren Blue\u2019, short fiction set along the Welsh coast of the Severn (2022). Phil Maillard is Chris Torrance\u2019s literary executor.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ron Berry and Chris Torrance lived no more than ten miles from each other, as the hawk flies. By road, it\u2019s further \u2013 15 miles or so. Environmentally, it\u2019s further still, with Berry at the head of the strip development of the industrial Rhondda, and Torrance in the upper Neath valley, within the Brecon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[67,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/images.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42xiC-23S","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7928"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7928"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8292,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7928\/revisions\/8292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glasfrynproject.org.uk\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Click here to go back to:\u00a0Contributors and Links to Pages 1 – 4<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"