Compact Wales: Bardsey - Now and Then

Jean Napier, a well-published photographer, has visited Bardsey (Ynys Enlli) many times over the past 20 years. Her images portrays the island and her people.

Review :
Bardsey, Ynys Enlli, takes us to other worlds, other times. It was a medieval pilgrims' destination; it was a haven for Welsh pirates; it supported a population of two hundred fisher-farming families at the turn of the 20th century. Over the past twelve years, Jean Napier has visited and stayed on the island regularly. Her evocative photography reflects her time there. Historical texts by past islanders adds a century and a half of memories to this book. It gives a fascinating insight to the folk life which has helped to sculpture the beauty caught on camera today. Jean Napier is an accomplished photographer who has developed and refined an intimate relationship with the Welsh landscape. Her pictures have an arresting, no-nonsense quality characterised by immediacy and warmth of character. These qualities are amply exhibited to powerful effect in this small-format book, which is packed with her own pictures to illustrate the ‘Now’ and supplemented by well-reproduced historical photographs covering the ‘Then’. Napier's obvious love for this magical island and its people shines through the pages. Despite the difficulties of getting to a small island, which lies mid-current a couple of miles off the end of the Llŷn peninsula, she has made many visits under a variety of different conditions, conjuring a representative pot-pourri of images to speak for themselves and beautifully elucidate the way the island is now. She has succeeded exceptionally well in capturing the visceral physical nature of this surprisingly wild smudge of land, whose inhabitants wrestle with the fickle currents and massive tides that flow between Pembrokeshire and Anglesey. At the same time she has connected in a very personal way with the disparate people who manage, farm and engage with the place on a regular basis. In the first half of the volume she gives a run-down of the island itself and the people for whom it is a very special place, including several interviews and first-hand quotes. These people epitomise the variety of interests that attract them to Bardsey – the study of birds, the wild remoteness, and the artistic and sometimes spiritual inspiration of land and sea. They are all devoted to maintaining the integrity of the site in terms of its history and archaeology and its importance in Welsh culture as a place of pilgrimage. In the second half she has obtained fresh material and some translations from Welsh that give the more recent history of the island a very human perspective. These accounts are enriched by the memories of people whose families have lived on the island for several generations. There are only a few permanent residents now, and no children living on the island, but when Tomos Jones was born in 1878, there were some 150 adults and children making a living there. His account, written down by Jennie Jones in Welsh in 1964, gives a richly personal view of a near-forgotten way of life. There are articulate memories too from Gwenda Watson, whose mother taught the Bardsey children in the 1930s. I have enjoyed visits to Bardsey myself, and read several books about it. This one is by far the most enlightening and enjoyable, especially since the photographs, ancient and modern, give such an authentic and warm representation of an island that has changed so fundamentally over the years, but whose future looks assured because of the small but dedicated crew who face that future squarely with reality, humanity and enthusiasm.