FAMILY
HOLIDAYS
0068 Phyllis & Lillian 1953
One of the most emotional times I experienced in my younger years came when I was on holiday at our cottage in Wales. Normally, as the cottage was miles away from anywhere, we saw nobody but the local farmer. This holiday, though, the farmer beyond – another, unrelated Davies (there are lots of them in North Wales) - had his two young nieces staying with him. They, Phyllis and Lillian, came from Oswestry and were identical twins. They were the same age as myself. That started one of the best weeks of my life.
First thing in the morning, I used to go over the mountain to the Davies's farm, which was lower down the hill than we or the other farms were. There I spent all day, until dusk, playing with these new friends. They were not quite identical twins, Lilian had a slightly sharper face and their characters were somewhat different. I guess I favoured Phyllis, who was of a more gentle intellect. Whatever we had - it was a very intense relationship, albeit at our age, of 12 or 13, quite an innocent one. Indeed, it was a passionate sharing of minds rather than bodies, which is something I have experienced only a few times more in my life since that time. Even so, I would gladly exchange any number of sexual encounters for just a few hours of such mental communion.
I still remember the thrill of going over there every morning. I followed a path, which we had never followed before and never followed later This disused cart track rose up the side of the large hill beyond the cottage. The route had been abandoned for years, but the track was still there; grassy and smooth, mown by the sheep that inhabited the hill. Once I had I dropped down into the next valley, I could see that the farm itself was larger than the other hill farms, but it still had just the basic facilities all Welsh farms enjoyed.
We spent our days playing around the farm. I remember in particular the Dutch barns, full with hay from earlier in the summer. These made wonderful slides. We would climb to the top and then slide down to then ground, 20 feet below. Not all our games were so safe, since we developed one of jumping into the pen with the farm’s bull. I've no doubt it was fairly docile, but we thought it was very adventurous to do this. I showed off a lot. I remember when the petrol tanker came to deliver fuel I pretended to push it when it was starting off again -- and the girls thought this was a hoot. Most of the time, though, we just talked and talked, and shared each other’s company.
They came across for tea at the cottage one day, and we went for a walk in the woods which were being thinned at the time.
On our walk through the woods
That was when the only photographs I have of them were taken.
The twins, Phyllis & Lillian, at the cottage
But the week was all too soon over, and the sense of desolation when they left was terrible. I never really corresponded with them -- I've never been a good letter writer. We heard years later that they'd married, but only at second-hand; since the farmer Davies had died of a heart attack a few years after that shared holiday. But I still feel nostalgic for those days spent in the sun with them.
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