Special tribute for Jan

A SPECIAL mountainside memorial service is to be held as a tribute to a campaigner who fought to protect an ancient wilderness north of Swansea.

Professor David Bellamy, the famous naturalist and former TV presenter, will speak in memory of Mynydd-y-Gwair's Jan Moseley.

Jan, who was an expert on land management, was a staunch campaigner to protect the mountainside from a windfarm development which she feared would ruin the area.

She had paid a glowing tribute to the outstanding beauty of the mountainside.

Jan, who had worked latterly at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, had said to the Countryside Council for Wales: "I can step out of my door onto the common and see an unchanged landscape through bronze-age eyes; a sacred mountain surrounded by the upper waters of rivers and burial sites.

"And all the time the sky changes, throwing cloud shadows and highlighting other parts in gold.

"At night, the total darkness provides a panorama of the stars, and the flitting of bats replaces the majesty of the flight of the red kite."

Npower Renewables has submitted plans for a 19-turbine wind farm at Mynydd-y-Gwair, north of Swansea.

Objectors have until Wednesday to make their views known on the plan, said Jan's daughter, Clare.

She said: "My mother credited this place for keeping her alive longer than she might otherwise have survived the illness that was to eventually cause her death.

"She recognised and valued the peace this common offers us all.

"It was her last wish that the memorial gathering should take place on the mountain."

Friends and supporters of the campaign group Save Our Common Mountain Environment will meet at the track leading to the Bryn Llefrith Woodland (at the foot of Tow Clawdd, overlooking Mynydd-y-Gwair at 2pm on Sunday, September 28.

A special Twmpath event will be held with the Bear Band at Pontardawe Football Club's function room, Church Street, Pontardawe, at 7.30pm on the same day.