I Bought A Mountain

I first read this a VERY long time ago. I know it was a long time ago because it's on the first page of the 'F' section in my little book-of-books-read which started not long after I began work in libraries in 1971

Originally published in 1940 this is a new edition..... "rediscovered".  I noticed it on the new books page of the library website and thought it would be good to re-read.

Thomas Firbank was born in Canada, of English/Welsh parents, went to school in England and had had two years working in a factory in Canada when he returned to the UK, aged 21, needing to work outside.

He heard about a Welsh farmer wanting to retire from his 2,400 acre hill farm. Firbank first visits Dyffryn in the middle of a November gale.

"I jumped out of the car, and the wind frogmarched me at a run to the back door. The door opened unasked, and I stumbled inside"

 There are no maps in the book to show exactly where the farm was but it must have been somewhere just SW of Capel Curig with mountains on each side and Snowdon just down the road.

Photo of a road map showing the area, the farm was on the southern slopes of the Glyders.

So in 1932, for £5,000 he bought the 2,400 acres of steep grazing land, a farmhouse, two cottages and 3,000 sheep. Jumping into a change of life in a foreign country, with no experience and not speaking any Welsh.

He must have been an amiable young man as he seems to have plenty of help from his own farm workers and the neighbouring farmers even though he got off on the wrong foot by getting builders from Liverpool to alter the farmhouse. He also married a local girl which must also have helped him settle in.

The weather is a main feature of the book, the house is plain...... 

It possessed strength and utility, and seemed to say "Well! Here I am. Take me or leave me. I have no frills, but I know my job" And the house did know it's job. No one who has not experienced them can believe the strength of Dyffryn gales, nor the destructive force of heavy rain flung at sixty or seventy miles an hour against stone and mortar.

 

The book goes on with chapters about lambing, the year the snow came, shearing and dipping the sheep. But not content with just sheep he diversifies with forays into keeping pigs and chickens.

They also have a go at running a snack bar down by the road for the summer visitors to the area and then buying a gypsy caravan for people to holiday in.

One chapter covers the time they became record holders for climbing 'The Three Thousands". 14 peaks in the area that are above 3,000 feet. In 1938 with two climbing friends and much practice, preparation and planning they break the record and get featured in national newspapers.

Another chapter tells the tale of getting electricity to Dyffryn by means of their own Hydro Electric set up, and there is a drawing to show the way they dug a lake to catch the water before it rushed down the mountain. Too much rain was soon a problem and then dry summers meant no electric too.

Patrick Barkham, who writes the introduction to this new edition, says that by the time the book was published in 1940 Firbank had already left the farm due to the 2nd World War to join the Coldstream Guards. His marriage broke down during the war and he later gave Dyffryn to Esme where she carried on running it for many years with her new husband. The farm is now owned by the National Trust. Firbank was awarded The Military Cross and after the war he went on to write more books, lived and worked in England and Japan returning later to Wales where he died in Llanrwst in 2000 aged 90.

Re reading this now made me wonder if Elizabeth West (Hovel in the Hills etc) read this before her adventures in the area in the 1960s. There are similarities.

Back Tomorrow

Sue