The summers, 1950-53
June 1950
June 1950 to September 1953
Mary certainly made the most of her university summer holidays. From 18 August to 3 September 1950, she joined a party of 65 Girl Guides on a European tour, spent mostly in Austria and Bavaria, then covered 654 more miles, from 9 to 18 September, exploring Somerset and north Devon with her friend Jeanne in Jeanne's little Ford VIII.
In 1951, Mary's parents travelled to Bangor to explore the area where their daughter was then living, before the whole family headed back to the family home in Ealing on 2 September. Ten days later, on 13 September Mary travelled, by car, coach and bus, to her friend Jeanne's flat in Terrick, near Stoke Mandeville, and the two young women then drove north to enjoy ten days exploring the delights of the Lake District.
During the summers of 1950, '51, '52 and '53, Mary also spent varying amounts of time on some of the islands off the Pembrokeshire coast (Skokholm, Skomer, Middleholm and Grassholm, in particular), conducting general surveys of the flora of these islands and of the intertidal regions around their shores.
After her PhD graduation celebration in Cardiff in July 1953, Mary ventured west to Skokholm. She kept a diary of this holiday-come-research trip and the following are extracts from that diary:
Saturday 18 July 1953
We were up betimes in the morning, breakfasting by 7.15am and aboard the Cubanga, motor boat for Skokholm, by 8am. It was a perfect morning for weather and the sea was only slightly undulating. As we rounded the contorted outline of St Ann’s Head and spied the familiar outline of Skokholm lying low on the horizon, I was filled with that satisfying feeling which comes from fraternization with things as they were meant to be before the advent of man – the dust of the English and Welsh capitals shaken temporarily from my feet.
Not until I saw a young puffin on the water did I realise how advanced I had allowed the year to become before making this annual pilgrimage. It was not too late however, even for the auks, although there were few of these left by the end of my fortnight’s stay. Shearwaters, gannets, razorbills and guillemots were all there to ‘greet’ the boat, together with the more familiar gulls and cormorants …
I found myself sharing the Long Room with 20-year-old ‘Dido’, quite a character. All the rest of the party were male, three Davids, a Colin, a Donald and a Geoffrey. I chatted to the Lighthouse skipper, Mr Day, was introduced to warden Peter’s charming 7-month-old son, yet another David, drank the traditional Saturday morning tea in the Wheelhouse and set off to visit old haunts.
The oystercatchers were already flocking on North Pond (where I lingered for some while watching two very tame Dunlins) and one of the razorbill colonies which I visited was already deserted. The fish brought in by the busy puffins were all quite large, this being a comparative index of the size of the chick for which they were intended, and the shearwater chick, which I hauled from a burrow for inspection, was quite a mountainous powder puff of grey down already, although not due to leave for the sea for several weeks yet.
Most of the afternoon and evening I spent on the Neck doing routine investigations on my long-term experiments of grazed and ungrazed vegetation which I had formulated during my winter absences. A chat to Paula Schwegler, last year’s Bavarian cook, and Ron Niedermann, this year’s vice warden, and the day terminated with cocoa and records in the Common Room in the time-honoured fashion.
Sunday 19 July 1953
Today was an unusually exciting one for the warden and myself, who spent the greater part of it at sea in the ‘Swallow’, a tiny twelve-foot sailing dinghy. This boat was a fairly new acquisition and had been sailed very little from the island apparently, as the weather had been persistently rough for some time. Peter had never visited Skomer with her nor landed anywhere but in the Skokholm South Haven so he was desirous of trying a Skomer landing while I was desirous both of learning to sail and of botanising on Skomer.
Fairly early on, therefore, on this lovely sunny morning, we went down to South Haven and hauled the ‘Swallow’ in from her mooring … Peter rigged the tackle while I hung on and then we rowed well out from the cliffs before erecting the jib and mainsail. We sailed serenely along the coast of the Neck, the wind and tide on our favour, rounded the Stack and set off across the two-mile-wide Broad Sound. Here were encountered the main swell rolling in from the Atlantic in the south west but this was not severe and we made Skomer’s South Haven without mishap.
… [Peter] was already worried about the weather, the whole of the western horizon having filled up with ominous-looking clouds since we left our home island … [but] I leapt ashore with sandwiches, thermos and notebook and scrambled up through the puffin burrows and bracken.
With one eye on the wind and sea I hastened westwards, nose to the ground as is the way of botanists, writing furiously as occasion demanded … Skomer’s 720 acres, uninhabited by man now for three years, had been left very much to themselves and there was interesting evidence of Nature’s reclamation of the old ploughlands and previously burned heather heath …
Soon after 2pm I decided time was up and, as I hove in sight of the ‘Swallow’, I saw that Peter had decided likewise and erected the jib. He rowed in as he sighted me and the increased swell was noticeable even in the haven as I grabbed the bows and jumped aboard … with the wind and tide in their present state … too dangerous to sail …
Just clear of the haven, the motor popped ominously and petered out … The possibility of letting ourselves drift back to Skomer had its attractions, but the food situation in a derelict house on an uninhabited island and the knowledge that the quite sizable depression which had overtaken us was likely to last for nearly a week, made us decide against such a course …
The only alternative was to try and sail … From then on life began to get exciting … we were being blown well off course … drenched by this time … and so frozen …
As we approached the Skokholm Stack it was plain that we were going to be swept right clear and might land up anywhere on the mainland cliffs … decided that we should make for North Haven … ran onto the boulders at the head of the haven [and] I hopped overboard and guided her in …
Safe and sound after all, and only just in time … [Once back at the hostel] It was bliss to be warm and dry and fed again although not for the world would I have missed our little adventure. My first sailing lesson will certainly be one to remember.
Tuesday 21 July 1953
My mental notes of today’s doings [were] ‘Pomegranite on Sugar’. This statement looks a trifle less odd when one realises that the new kid’s name is Pomegranite and the aged pony’s Sugarback, or Sugar for short. This latter had been known to worry past generations of kids so persistently as to be a menace but evidently his relations with the tiddly Pom were different. Be this as it may, Pom was seen to be comfortably ensconced on Sugar’s back this morning as he reclined in the Wheelhouse yard. The charmingly domestic scene was interrupted, however, when the kid started chewing the pony’s ears – even Sugar could not tolerate such an indignity as that.
… to return to the everyday doings on the island. After general chores and milking today I spent the rest of the morning on my hands and knees in the Home Meadow, analysing the effects of differential grazing on the composition of the swards inside and outside the bird traps. In the afternoon, I peregrinated to the opposite end of the island and busied myself in re-mapping the vegetation changes in rabbit-proofed enclosures and in taking soil samples from the peaty soil near the lighthouse.
Wednesday 22 July to Friday 31 July1953
The next ten days were passed much as many other happy days on my ‘dream island’ in the past …
Each morning began with the goats, Persephone being coaxed into position with slices of bread and Pat [Conder] coming to collect the frothy milk for her babe, often in the middle of operations. No heir presumptive of an island kingdom could expect it fresher than that …
… the only other canine here being the little elderly terrier, Nell, of the lighthouse. She recognised me at once as an old friend and attached herself to me until she went ashore again, spending each night curled up under the head of my bed and trailing me around during the daytime …
I accomplished quite a lot of ecological field work during my forays, sometimes armed with nothing more than pencil and notebook, at other times with trowel and shovel to investigate burrows or root systems, or with hammer, staples and wire cutters to repair the winter’s damage to my rabbit-proofed enclosures. Not infrequently, however, I found myself reclining in one of my favourite rock niches writing and, much to my own surprise, I completely planned and drafted a paper for publication during my stay.
Sometimes I just pottered, collecting specimens to fill gaps in the island herbarium, running down difficult species in the floras, or weeding my experimental plot in the garden. I found myself much in demand for the delivery of lecturettes on the ecological set-up to interested parties in the field, and eventually found myself getting quite proficient at putting many years’ observations in a nutshell for consumption by the layman. [Shades of Mary’s future professional career at the University of Cardiff?] …
As a change from plants I indulged in a little bird watching, being particularly fascinated by the young puffins making their maiden voyage to sea from the nesting burrows … The activities of Geoffrey (Dr G. V. T. Matthews of Cambridge to give him his full title) [shown above with goat on back!] in connection with his homing flight experiments made the observing of shearwater chicks a simple matter …
When one tired of being an ornithologist there were expeditions to the Stack at low tide, this being reached with the aid of a ladder since the 16ft plank, with which we used to bridge the last gap, got washed out to sea …
Saturday 1 August 1953
Today, when it might so conveniently have been rough, the sea was calm and I prepared to leave Skokholm until my now single annual visit next year. The tide was against us and it was a long crossing – nearly two hours – so we had plenty of time to get used to the diminishing numbers of sea birds and the increasing lushness of the coastal vegetation as we rounded St Ann’s and chugged in through Milford Haven. Having got myself re-orientated to civilization so many times before, I find the change less startling than after my first visit in 1947 …
