After taking the decision to hang up his boots, Garth Lawson reflects on some of his 146 walks featured in the Hereford Times over the past 12 years

Well, we’ve certainly had some fun and found some beautiful countryside in the 675 miles we have walked together in the last twelve years. That early highlight saw us being beckoned by the call of the curlew and red kite to the bosomy-soft hills between Clyro and Painscastle.

By courtesy of the flashing kingfisher at Hoarwithy, the stonechat and green woodpecker on Vagar and Coppet Hills, dipper and grey wagtail in the Grwyne Fawr valley, and the hirsute hobby on Bringsty Common, we’ve had our fill of birdsong.

After murders at Moreton Lodge and Ullingswick, slaughters at Mortimers Cross, Pilleth and Patrishow, plane crashes at Burghill, Rosemaund and Llangrove, we managed to get impaled upside-down on barbed wire in Bacton and head-butted by a heifer in Urishay; but whether we are walking on our own like Francis Kilvert, or apparently walking backwards like Sir John Betjeman at Tenbury Wells, we all have different expectations of a walk – but where, I hear you ask, are my favourite walks?

For our 100th walk, out of 146 altogether, it was the Cat’s Back, otherwise known as Black Hill. We like the Black Mountains and their foothills; they have beckoned lots of story-tellers to explore their wild, bleak ridges and isolated valleys. As Phil Rickman has observed – and he’s a local:

“In the extreme west of Herefordshire is The Golden Valley, green pillows under the headboard of the Black Mountains. A half-forgotten England of hybrid place names, of wooded hills and hidden villages of rusty stone and crouching churches. A dark poacher’s pocket of England”.

The views from the Cat’s Back ridge are exhilarating across Herefordshire towards the Malverns, with the Monnow below which for much of its life forms the border between England and Wales.

The stone castles built on its banks at Longtown, Skenfrith and Monmouth illustrate its border credentials. Of the foothills, Rhos Fach Common above Talgarth is very special.

Further accolades must go to the Lower Wye Valley where we found routes from Goodrich,Yat Rock and the Courtfield Estate in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Wordsworth waxed lyrical about it and who are we to argue with him? We are rather proud of Herefordshire’s tribute to The Eleven who lost their lives on the bank of the Wye at Welsh Bicknor. A fine landmark is the mighty oak which stands sentinel over the newly-heralded crash site.

So, having left that little legacy, we also give pride of place to the Martyr of the Storm walk which takes you from the Roast Ox at Painscastle up on to the moorland of Llanbedr Hill. It was a postcard from Porthmadoc sent by Martin (Hurcomb) that suggested I pay an urgent visit to the place where Rosa Blanche Williams lost her life in 1925.

It transpired that her fate left an indelible mark on the life of somebody outside the family - a young man from Llanfihangel-nant-Melan. Lewis Williams had joined the First Radnorshire Police force as a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old. He always had his heart set on serving the public; having enrolled at a nearby college to continue his studies in Police Law, he was also planning to get married in the following June - and wear his PC 18 uniform for the occasion.

The events of that Tuesday, December 22, however, were to have disastrous consequences for the policeman’s career. It was a bitterly cold day, snow was expected and the alarm was raised that Rosa had gone missing somewhere between Hay Market and The Pant Farm at Rhulen. Lewis Williams was ailing; he’d been to see Doctor Hinckes in Hay the night before suffering from symptoms of ‘flu and was promptly told to go to bed and stay there.

“But when that woman, Rosa, got lost in the snow,” he told Inspector Wilf Maddox at a family gathering in 1988.

“I just couldn’t let Sergeant Bailey down. I had to go with him. We left at eight o’clock in the morning and we wouldn’t get back till seven at night. I was used to those rough rides over the top of Llanbedr Hill on the old motor bike, but on this occasion we had to borrow two ponies for the search.

“We learned that Rosa had been asked to stay with friends at Clyro, but although the weather was closing in, she told them not to worry because the old pony would see her home. She had six kids, you see, and she was determined to get their Christmas presents home.”

Lewis found poor Rosa who had died from exposure but he was to endure hardship of his own. The ‘flu he had braved for the rescue attempt was followed by a severe kidney infection and a heart strain.

When he did go back to work, he was put on light duties, but by 1st June he had been pronounced unfit for service. It must have been all over by then because he didn’t fulfil his dream of getting married in police uniform. Others were to claim that they had found Rosa, but Lewis Williams was really the hero.

Meanwhile, that other, more unrequited quest continues. Six hundred years after vanishing from history, just where has Owain Glyndwr got to?

I will let you know if I find him. Happy walking,

Garth Lawson