Many years before Christ was born and even before the Great Flood, when Britain was still attached to Europe, a young man lived and hunted the barren moors and deep valleys in the wilds of Paviland, a place that would one day be known as the Gower Coast in South Wales.

     He fished in the river that would one day become the Bristol Channel and lived in a cave, surviving on roots, berries and reindeer.  And although he died in his early twenties, this seemingly ordinary young man would hold the interest of the world in his hands for evermore.  You see, someone found him, buried in a shallow grave, some 33,000 years later.

       Not far from our home for waifs and strays, is this famous cave, known as Paviland,  which is easily recognized from the sea but extremely difficult to get to by foot. However, in 1823, long before my kind and unassuming husband and I were born, the Reverend William Buckland, a paleontologist, found the remains of the young man in the cave, behind the skull of a large mammoth, during an archaeological dig.

       As daylight poured down the chimney, some 20metres above the chamber where the young man lay, the Reverend made a discovery that would become one of the World’s most important archaeological finds.  

       The Reverend also noted the red staining of the bones, made by the natural earth pigment, (red ochre) which was sprinkled on the young man at his burial. He also saw the small pile of perforated seashell necklaces and immediately assumed the skeleton to be a woman. Probably a witch, he thought, or a Roman prostitute. So the misidentification led to the young man being called, ‘The Red Lady of Paviland’ which remains today.

     There has been much debate regarding the young man’s final resting place, as at present, he is resting at a university in Oxford. I for one, think he should return to his spiritual home in Wales. Perhaps not the magical shamanic site where he was found but certainly let him rest in the area where he was well respected and respect should still remain.

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At our home for waifs and strays, there is an old gate with a history and a tale to tell.  

      Just as I rescue many things, I rescued this gate when my childhood home was sold. It is part of many pictures I have, so how could I leave it behind?

      Generations of my family have come and gone through this simple wrought iron portal. They have marched through it on their way to war and back again. 

      I have photos of my great grandparents standing besides it, before the Second World War. My great grandmother wore a long black dress and a stern look on her face. She had scraped her grey hair back to form a bun at the nape of her neck and her arms were folded against her chest. A small black dog is resting by her feet and I instantly warmed to her.

      Then there is my mother, another proud and independent woman on her wedding day and then another holding me in her arms a few years later. And as I look through the photo’s I find another, when she was taken through the gate for the very last time. Bring her back! I remember wanting to scream the words but no sound could I make. Too soon I remember thinking, far too soon!

       There’s the photo of the farmer who lived next door, he was standing against the gate with a rifle in one hand and a dead rabbit in the other. I never did like that photo! I didn’t care much for the farmer either. Once a year he would hold a pigeon shoot and my brother and I would gather as many wounded pigeons as we could. I turned an outhouse into a temporary hospital but it was more like a morgue at the end of the day.

      And there is one of my Aunty Carrie. She wasn’t my real aunty but in those days, we called everyone uncle so and so or aunty so and so. Perhaps it is a welsh thing, I’m not sure. Well she is standing there with an apron wrapped around her enormous body and wore her stockings around her ankles. But she had the kindest smile I can ever remember. She cried and laughed with me many times. I think we laughed more than we cried. And she introduced me to sweet tea! ‘It’ll warm the cockles of your heart,’ I remember her saying. I’m not sure what that meant, but I have enjoyed sweet tea ever since.

      And there is one of my father and I standing outside the garden gate. We had been banned from the house for bringing home a stray dog. It’s snowing in the picture and if they only knew then that the very dog we had rescued would one day rescue my dear brother.

       So I come to that rescue, the one that brought the media from around the world. We watched in amazement as cameramen hung over the gate shouting for my father to go out and talk about the dog, the one we rescued and called Tripper. It was the second time he had saved my brother’s life on a beach near our home.                                                                                                             

        I also walked through that gate at the tender age of fifteen and stayed away for many moons and many summers. But I returned to find the gate still there, still the same. It was I who had changed. But nothing could change the memories that link us. And now that gate is part of our home for waifs and strays. It is a new chapter in our lives.

Decaying and dead trees still offer life to fungi, mosses, insects and lichens. At our home for waifs and strays, many newts, toads, frogs and slow worms take cover beneath bits of rotten wood we’ve gathered in a pile besides the pond.

      It is such a shame that trees in our public parks and even in our gardens, are pruned to such a degree that it effects the natural habitat for our wildlife. Even in our woodlands, the end of life trees are often removed. One idea is for the tree stump to remain and left to rot on its own, thus providing a home for many small creatures.

      If you would like to encourage wildlife into your garden, it is quite easy to form a small pile of logs, sticks and leaves. Even those of you who have just a small balcony or small space can help by using a bucket filled with sticks and leaves. Just remember to puncture holes in it so the insects etc can come and go as they please and the rain water can escape.

My kind and unassuming husband and I tried out a part of the 186 miles of cliff top walking, which stretches from Amroth in the south to St Dogmeals in the north of Pembrokeshire, West Wales.Despite all the twists and turns, the ups and downs, we were rewarded with some of the most stunning scenery in Britain.

     The steep limestone cliffs stretch all the way down to sandy bays where the grey seals often bask. From volcanic headlands to flooded glacial valleys, this walk has it all. One can even find traces of Neolithic times in this ancient and historic part of the world.

     For me, as always, I searched for birds and fox holes, rabbit holes, and flowers, anything that moved or didn’t move, but belonged there. I also kept referring to the map for small seaside villages that offered a cup of sweet tea.

     And when we rested on the cushioned grass away from the edge but close enough to hear the murmur of the sea, I thought, how lucky are we? No sounds of war, no running for our lives, no starvation or dehydration and no earthquakes. Please, I said silently, so even the birds could not hear, please let there be peace in this world and let it begin with each and every one of us.

Time and tide indeed, waits for no man, that is true! And if did, then many a ship would have been saved, not floundered off the rocky coast of Wales. Many of these ships came to grief off Mumbles head, on the South Gower Coast, not far from our home for waifs and strays.

      Beneath the waves that swirl around the two islands off Mumbles head in Gower, South Wales, lies the mixon shoal sandbank and the underwater reef, known as the cherrystone rock. Between them, they have claimed the lives of many a man and his ship. You see, it is true what they say, that time and tide waits for no man!

      ‘You must always have respect for the sea,’ my father used to tell me, ‘and never underestimate its strenth or dramatize your own!’ And he made sure that I could swim from a very young age.

       And so it was, a lighthouse was built on the outerhead island in 1794 and a lighthouse keeper was paid 18 shillings a week for stocking up the two open coal fires and making his home on the island. But in 1798 the fires were replaced by oil powered lamps and in 1936, the lighthouse keeper himself, was replaced by electricity.

         I once lived in the village of Mumbles and heard many seamans tales. One that sticks in my memory is about two sisters, daughters of the lighthouse keeper, Jennie and Margaret, who saved the lives of two lifeboatmen. The men were on a rescue mission when they were thrown from the lifeboat into the sea so the girls tied their shawls together and risked their lives by wading into the trecherous water to rescue them. I’ve included a poem, by Clement Scott, called The Women of Mumbles Head

Bring novelists your notebook. Bring Dramatists your Pen:
And I'll tell you a simple story of what women do for men.
It's only the tale of a lifeboat, of the dying and the dead,
Of a terrible storm and shipwreck that happened off Mumbles Head.
Maybe you have travelled in Wales, sir, and know it north and south:
Maybe you have friends with the 'natives' that dwell at Oystermouth.
It happens, no doubt, that from Bristol you've crossed in a casual way.
And have sailed your yacht in summer, in the blue of Swansea Bay.

Well, it isn't like that in winter when the lighthouse stands alone,
In the teeth of Atlantic breakers that foam on its face of stone:
It wasn't like that when the hurricane blew and the story-bell tolled, or when
There was news of a wreck, and lifeboat launch'd, and a desperate cry for men.
When in the world did the coxswain shirk? A brave old Salt was he!
Proud to the bone of as four strong lads, as ever had tasted the sea.
Welshmen all to the lungs and loins, who, about the coast twas said,
Had saved some hundred lives apiece - at a shilling or so a head!

So the father launched the lifeboat in the teeth of the tempest's roar,
And he stood like a man at the rudder, with any eye on his boys at the oar.
Out to the wreck went the father! Out to the wreck went the sons!
Leaving the weeping of women, and booming of signal guns;
Leaving the mother who loved them, and the girls that the sailors loved,
Going to death for duty, and trusting to God above!
Do you murmur a prayer, my brother, when cosy and safe in bed,
For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?

It didn't go well with the lifeboat.  'Twas a terrible storm that blew!
And it snapped a rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew;
And then the anchor parted - 'twas a tussle to keep afloat!
But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.
Then at last on the poor doom'd lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!
'God help us now! ' said the father. 'It's over my lads, good-bye!'
Half of the crew swam shoreward, half to the sheltered caves,
But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.

Up at the lighthouse window two women beheld the storm,
And saw in the boiling breakers a figure - a fighting form,
It might be a grey-haired father, then the women held their breath,
It might be a fair-haired brother who was having a round with death;
It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips
Of the women whose love is life of the men going down to the sea in ships.
They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had heard the worst and more,
Then, kissing each other these women went down from the lighthouse, straight to the shore.

There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand,
Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land.
'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave,
But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?
What are a couple of women?  Well, more than three craven men
Who stood by the shore with chattering teeth, refusing to stir - and then
Off went the women's shawls, sir: in a second they're torn and rent,
Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!

'Come back!' cried the lighthouse keeper, 'For God's sake, girls, come back!'
As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.
'Come back!' moaned the grey-haired mother as she stood by the angry sea,
'If the waves take you, my darlings, there's nobody left to me.'
'Come back!' said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and pale,
'You will drown if you face the breakers!  You will fall if you brave the gale!'
'Come back' said the girls, 'we will not!  Go tell it to all the town,
We'll lose our lives, God willing, before that man shall drown!'

'Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess!  Give one strong clutch of your hand!
Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and we'll drag him safe to land!
Wait for the next wave, darling!  Only a minute more,
And I'll have him safe in my arms, dear, and we'll drag him safe to shore.'
Up to their arms in the water, fighting it breast to breast,
They caught and saved a brother alive! God bless us! you know the rest—
Well, many a heart beat stronger, and many a tear was shed,
And many a glass was toss'd right off to the' Women of Mumbles Head!'