Lewis Lanes

The well couldn’t be close to the house.  Everyone knows that a well would be at the bottom of the garden. It should have a circular brick wall, a small roof – best with red tiles- and a long rope on a winder to let down the bucket.

We left the farm house by the kitchen door.  Effectively this was the only door.  There was a front door but it was never used.  Never, I was told, except for funerals. That piece of information could well have been left out of my mind. It gave a very early experience of “that’s more than I need to know.”  Coming down stairs, I would see the sunlight shine through the fan light of that ever closed door. What would happen if someone flung it open and let in the air and light? Would the whole house be sucked towards the light?

I carried one of the buckets.  I wanted to carry two but even one was really more than I could manage. The way was through the farm yard with its distinctive smells of slurry, hay and animals.  Past the barn where the hens always seemed to be in a flurry about something or other.  The bottom of the yard led onto a lane. I wanted to ask why there was a lane in the middle of the farm. I now know from old maps that this was once a road. But on the farm there was little time for useless questions.

We crossed the lane and passed through the hedgerow — the hedgerow — it still conjures up images of a rural world gone by.  A world of “autumn mists and mellow fruitfulness”.  A place of fields and furry creatures. Divisions made long ago and hedged by rosehips and hawthorns, interspersed with briars and blackberries.  Field and cattle with evocative names. A time before field size was determined by the dimensions of farm machinery and economies of scale meant an end of dreamscapes and individualized livestock.

This field was different from all the others.  It seemed to be in a kind of hollow with more rushes than grass. He said we were there but I still couldn’t see the Well. “Look down, son!  You are standing on it.”  There it was. A hole in the ground supported by a platform with a moveable wooden cover. As if somebody had tried to put a lid on the earth

How does a child deal with the disappointment of the dream giving way to reality?  This could not be a well!   Still the sneaking interest in what was under the cover outweighed the self-pity at being duped. The cover was pulled away — not because it might excite my interest but because that was the next step in this chore.  So often I was told that the farm was not my playground. That could not take away the wonderland of light, sounds, shapes, colors. Color was the first thing to see.  The surface was covered with vibrant green algae. Slime might have been the word that came to mind.  That was too derogatory.  My tiny imagination saw it as moss that was swimming. I was told that it was a sign that the water was clear and pure. I believed. I wanted to.

How long had water been here? Did it come from the Ice Age? Who dug this well? Was it good Welsh water being saved from the plundering English? More questions not to ask. But I could imagine! Did the twelve brothers and sisters come down to get water? Was it the job for the youngest? Did James Llewelyn and Catherine have to do this chore before they sailed for the United States?  My grandfather, one of the brothers, had also grown up here.                            This was his home — Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhaddau (The Land of My Fathers). Maybe he even played here. Once he must have been a child.  He never spoke of this place nor even asked about it after we returned from a visit. I knew that he grew up here. I don't recall who told me.  Maybe I would have known anyway. 

When something caught his interest, his response usually wasn't any more than                      "dudew. . . dudew . . . dudew".  In my anglicized little mind, I heard that as, “dew . . . dew” — a kind of watery, misty,  “ well . . . well . . .”