Porthgain - October Origins

Firstly, thanks so much for all the lovely comments about my blip for Jadey yesterday - very pleased and I'm sure she'll appreciate them too :-D

Posting another October Origins blip today as it's getting towards the end of the month and I'm really enjoying the challenge. So good for the autumn/winter months!

This picture is of a postcard of one of my favourite places in the world, Porthgain in North Pembrokeshire. As I think I blipped before, my grandfather is a Welshman and he came from Pembrokeshire; as a result, as a child, we spent every other summer there on holiday, in the same holiday home overlooking the beach at Amroth. It's a beautiful place and I have so many great memories of it.

It wasn't until I was in my teens, though, that I went to Porthgain. I think we went there initially because of a family connection - my grandfather's ancestors (the Irvings) came there when they first moved to Wales - but I completely fell in love with it. I don't think I have ever had such a intense reaction to a place - there was something so atmospheric and haunting and oppressive about it, but in a really vital, visceral way. It's hard to explain, but I somehow felt the weight of the village's history pressing down on me. It was an old fishing village cum mining town, with a quarry and stone works on top of the cliff. The works have now gone but the ruined buildings and overgrown train tracks remain, continuously battered by the wind and rain on the exposed cliffs. It's a bleak, barren place and yet somehow completely exciting.

I was so inspired by Porthgain (this is coming from a girl with a passion for moors after Wuthering Heights!) that I decided to set my novel here. I wrote it when I was 18 but I had been working on it from 13 onwards. I constantly badgered my parents to take me so I could "brainstorm" ideas there.

I don't write creatively any more but Porthgain is still very special to me and has informed my views on beauty and my love for nature and landscapes. I still think of Porthgain and always want to go back. It's just a remarkable place.