Shangrila - An interesting story about YNYS GIFFTAN
Here is a report from a Llais Ardudwy edition, year is unknown. Unfortunately there is also no information who the author was. If you have information, please contact us.
This is a reference to Anti Meri, Ynys Gifftan - Mrs Mary Williams, wife of Hugh Williams who used to live on Ynys Gifftan until about the 1950s.
SHANGRILA
Ynys Gifftan from the direction of Llechollwyn
Yes that was Ynys Giftan to me and my peers, in the early thirties, and it was more when the war came and it was harder to go for holidays and also more risky. I had a class of girls I was teaching at the school where I was for the four and a half years while my husband was in the "Army". 'A branch of the Aelwyd yr Urdd had been formed in Talsarnau and I was asked to take care of "the girls".
I decided to go to Ynys Giftan where Anti Meri lived, with two tents, one big and one small for the children, my two sons and the evacuee I had. I borrowed a large 'bell tent' from the Rev Gordon Crewe Chambers, a schoolmaster and clergyman, who had come to live to Môr Edrin from Wigan. He would come regularly with a group of poor kids from Wigan and many a little boy who had never had a holiday but for his kindness and co-operation.
Some of the girls took two wheelbarrows to get the big tent and took it to Ynys Giftan and we were there for over a week camping and having fun. We would set westis to catch the 'rock salmon or bass'. Digging the lugworms, the long-tailed earthworms we dug up from the sand and placing them on stanchions and going to get the fish after the tide has subsided. Such fun and laughter and some of the girls afraid to touch the stanchions as some of the fish were half alive and flapping on the line!
Happy times though the shadow of war hung over life. 'Ynys Giftan was a place to relax and enjoy the summer holidays and week-ends. We could go to the house whenever we wanted to and if there was a latch on the door there was never a lock, as Eifion Wyn, the bard, said in his poem about the 'Gesail' family in Eifionydd. Anti Meri as queen had lived on this little 'dot' and brought up three boys and another and Sera the girl was a seamstress and organist at Bethel Chapel on Sundays.
You were sure to have a delicious meal there and the chicken eggs were excellent to eat. It's surprising how many little lambs had to be killed during the rationing of the war as they jumped the ditches and broke their legs and therefore we had to put them in the oven for Sunday when fresh meat was scarce! No chance of the enforcement officer coming over as the tide is unpredictable! Butter is also eaten without rationing, those are some of the benefits of living in the country!!
If the sheep over there could talk there would be many amusing stories about the enforcement officer being caught in the tide and Anti Meri laughing up her sleeve for daring to come there without consulting the tide. A romantic island and a lot of history to it. I asked Anti Meri what the word Ynys Giftan meant. 'Well' she said, Elin Francis who had lived here for half a century before said it was the Isle of the Gift of Queen Anne, a gift from Queen Ann to some of Lord Harlech's ancestors was the meaning and easy to believe as it was to the Glyn Estate the annual rent for Ynys Giftan was paid. 'There was a rule of keeping so many sheep . . . . . . .'
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…..........of lambs and sheep coming to the safety of the island when it was time for the tide to surround the Island. Sometimes the tide came earlier if the wind was from a certain direction and then Uncle Huw would come with the dogs to hurry on the sheep. Another phenomenon that Anti Meri told me was that Ynys Giftan was an eruption from the mountain above Llandecwyn where Lake Tecwyn Ucha is located. The old lady was notable for her knowledge and Astronomy was a very important subject. There were books on Astronomy and many other subjects but I don't know where they went when they came to live on the Mainland at Minffordd, near Penrhyndeudraeth. They would plant three gardens and the new potatoes were so clean coming from the sandy ground and the carrots were so delicious they hardly needed washing.
Anti Meri said the island was erupted or swept from where Llyn Tecwyn Ucha is - the Penrhyn and Porthmadoq waterworks above Llandecwyn now. I said this at Barmouth school to Willias Geograff or J. E. Williams of Borthygest who was our Geography teacher at Barmouth School. We had to make a Contour Map of the Lake and Island and according to his word the circumference of the island fitted into the lake except where the waterworks were erected to make the "filter beds". I was ridiculed by the other pupils because I talked about it and it meant them having to put their heads down to prove the validity of it. Anti Meri argued that what was at the bottom of the mouth of the river Dwyryd was up at the lake before and the lake were thrown upside down to the mouth of the river during the Ice Age when our environment was formed. She would say that what was on the surface before was now down in the depths of the Dwyryd and therefore sandy land had formed the small fields and fertile ground as long as plenty of rain was falling. When it was a dry summer the problem of water was problematic but there was a spring at the house.