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A profile of Esme Kirby, the conservationist who formed the Snowdonia National Park Society. Her career began as an actress, and at 23 she married Thomas Firbank, whose bestselling book, I Bought a Mountain (1940) tells of their married life at Dyffryn, a 3,000-acre farm near Capel Curig. 35 photographs. Reprint. First published in 2014.

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9781847719553

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Many readers will be familiar with Thomas Firbanks 1939 classic I Bought a Mountain, the iconic chronicle of the ups and downs of newcomers to the rigour of mountain farming in Snowdonia. Fewer will know that Thomas and Esms marriage broke down just five years after they moved to Dyffryn Mymbyr, the isolated farm at the foot of the Glyderau, and that Esm stayed on to spend the rest of her life there. When she died in 1999 at the age of eighty-nine, Esm had lived at Dyffryn for sixty-five years. She and her second husband, Peter, bequeathed the farm to the National Trust, which continues to run it in an environmentally sensitive way. The house and the cottage have recently been refurbished and modernised, offering holidaymakers a taste if somewhat sanitised of the harsh beauty that once captured the hearts and imaginations of an idealistic young couple, and continues to seduce both readers of Firbanks book (which has been constantly in print since 1939) and ensuing generations of escapees to the country. In Esm, Guardian of Snowdonia, Teleri Bevan tells Esms story. Although this account focuses largely on Esms work as the founder, in 1967, of the independent watchdog, the Snowdonia National Park Society, and its chair right through until 1991, it provides a vivid picture of the woman through her dedicated action to preserve the national park, as well as some fascinating insights into her background. One of six children of cavalier businessman Tancred and his artist wife Dora (all of the children were educated at private boarding schools), Esm was the rebellious one. She was stubborn and mischievous (to the point of being suspended from school), excelled at a variety of sports, and spent a period treading the boards after being spotted by an agent of the celebrated actor and manager Sir Frank Benson. Bevans account of Esms early years is brief, but it gives us a glimpse of the combination of nature and nurture that made her who she was. Already at a young age, she was brave, physically and emotionally strong, eccentric and determined so perhaps little wonder that she threw herself into a whirlwind romance and, eschewing the trappings of wealth and luxury to which she was accustomed, took on the challenge of farming 2,400 acres of wilderness in Wales. And then stayed on alone when the romance died. How unusual a woman farmer would have been in that environment! And an outsider, too, without any farming background. Yet the local farming community saw her strength and determination, and helped her to succeed. My ambition was to make Dyffryn the best hill farm in Wales but I soon realised that neither I nor Dyffryn had the necessary qualifications. Throughout her life though perhaps not quite to the end it was this balance of ambition and pragmatism, her awareness and acceptance of her own limitations, that enabled Esm to face so many challenges and come out the other side. Her first marriage might have failed, but her second seems to have been one of mutual respect and devotion. When she was finally ousted from the society she had founded, she simply set up a new one with similar and complementary aims. And she made a success of Dyffryn against all the odds, leaving a lasting legacy. The final exchange of letters between Esm and Thomas Firbank about the future of the farm is sad and revealing. We might all know of the farm through Firbanks book, but it is still there and thriving, for us all to enjoy, because of the sheer hard work and dedication of an extraordinary woman the young wife he took to a dilapidated hill farm in Snowdonia eighty years ago. Suzy Ceulan Hughes It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. -- Welsh Books Council

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