Wales

My favourite country, naturally. Its where I was born, where I was brought up - both in the extreme north and the extreme south at a time when the world was freer.

In Anglesey we lived in a large rectory and in the grounds was an old cannon from the wreck of The Royal Charter. On Guy Fawkes night we used to fill the barrel with vesuvius fountains and other such fireworks and we gazed as smoke of differing colours poured out. What a wonderful treat for a growing imagination! We had our own beach, Traeth Bychan - at least we regarded it as our own, the visitors were just transient.

Later we moved to Saundersfoot where my father was the vicar for 25 years. At the time there were still slag heaps remaining from the Bonville's Court colliery, we made dirt tracks and dared ourselves to ride them at high speed. Coppet Hall was our beach then - our own of course, but by this time our feeling of posession was diminishing. Like so many of my school friends I left for England, and work.

But now - I'm back!

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Scotland

Somebody once said to me that if I thought that north Wales was stunning then I should go to Scotland. The scenery is similar but so much bigger, how right he was! Eventually I went - and fell in love. There is so much in Scotland that I want to see but it is so vast and I realise that I should have started much earlier in life, never mind - better late than never. An interest in photography develops an awareness of the dramatic changes one sees in the landscape not only at different seasons but at different times of the day. Scotland provides all this and more, the majesty of the mountains, the small lochans, stunted hawthorns struggling for existence, rocks patiently and perfectly sculpted by time in clear, rushing rivers and the vast skies. Just an amazing, ever changing tapestry.

So far I have managed to spend quite a bit of time on the east coast, on Skye and in the Ullapool area. I realise that I am just scratching the surface but I also think that is all you can ever hope to do with such a vast and beautiful country.

Hooray for that!

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England

And here I have to confess that I have relatively few images of England, not that I have deliberately set out to ignore Wales' larger neighbour - far too big to be ignored anyway! It's just that I know Wales well and I feel the need to explore it and discover even more whilst, at the same time, Scotland has totally bowled me over and is also famous for malt whisky - did you know that?

The balance will slowly be redressed, just as long as I resist being re-acquainted with Ireland. My lack of time to do all I want to do in these countries in which we all live serves to illustrate perfectly how fortunate we are to live in the British Isles with Ireland as a close neighbour.

Why long to be elsewhere?

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