Month: April 2013

Going freelance: Advice for media students at Glyndwr University

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Sian Pari Huws (pictured above) has handled politicians, producers and people all across Wales as a reporter and presenter for BBC Radio Wales and Radio Cymru.

This week she faced second-year Broadcasting and Journalism students from Glyndwr University (pictured below) to offer thoughts and advice on going freelance in the fast-changing media climate.

Topics included stagnating rates of pay, the role of sheer luck and the advantages of a portfolio career.

“One of the biggest changes in my time relates to the skill set,” says Anglesey-based Sian. “I think I have survived so long in the industry as I have many strings to my bow. The more you can do, the more use you are to people.”

In recent years Sian has diversified from high-profile presenting roles to take on voiceover work and media training. Yet she retains the work ethic of a professional freelancer. She says:

“You can’t get away with having a bad day as a freelancer. You’re only ever as good as your last job.”

Sian also offered some practical tips for students. While writing and pitching is the day-to-day task, she explained, a key part of being freelance relates to running your own business, hence:

  • Get a good accountant
  • Always ask to be paid gross
  • Put 0.25% of all pay aside to meet bi-annual tax payments
  • Keep a reserve of roughly three months salary in the bank as a rainy-day fund

Following the press conference-style session, the students recorded individual video-journalism interviews to submit as part of a portfolio work about freelance life.

The first part of the assessment was based round a field trip to MediaCityUK in Salford.

“If I had my time again I’d do the same thing,” says Sian. “For me, freelancing just makes life so much more interesting.”

What are your top tips for aspiring freelancers? Do you agree with Sian’s advice?

Post your comments below.

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Story of the week: Sailing with the pirates of County Mayo

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This is the latest post in a weekly series, highlighting stories from my travel-writing archive with no active link. I’m running them here in full. Subscribe to posts at this website for more. Read another of my stories from Ireland, A Cultural Tour from Belfast to Derry.

It starts with a single rocky outcrop and ends with a scattering of 365 islands.

In between the sweeping County Mayo coastline provides a dramatic counterpoint to the mainly rural inland area where life is slow, Gaelic widely spoken in some areas and the traditions of a bygone era still very much alive. Visitors are the exception here, not the norm.

But that’s all about to change. Word of an ancient folk tale, lost for years and until recently undocumented, is stirring interest in a lesser-known region.

County Mayo, with Westport as its maritime hub, offers a gentle-paced spring escape with relaxed coastal drives, walking on deserted, open beaches and excellent local seafood – all without the hordes of nearby Galway.

It also offers a brush with a pirate queen.

Ship ahoy 

The tale revolves around Grace O’Malley, the 16th-century folk heroine, as uncovered by Dublin-based writer, Anne Chambers.

Known as Granuaile (Bald Grace) in Gaelic, a reference to the time she cut off her hair to stow away to sea, her eventful life spanned two husbands, two stints in prison for piracy and numerous seaborne battles at a time when the Machiavellian court of Queen Elizabeth I was seeking to overthrow the Gaelic law of the Irish aristocracy.

The O’Malley clan, with its strong seafaring tradition, dominated County Mayo through trade and force.

Grace, although barred from becoming a clan chief under Gaelic law, readily adopted the mantle of head of the fleet after the death of her father, Owen ‘Black Oak’ O’Malley.

Known as a tactician as well as a fearless warrior, she commanded a flotilla of three galleons and an army of 200 men at the height of her marauding powers.

“I was fascinated as a child by the folklore surrounding Grace and always wondered if she was more than just a legend,” explains Anne, who spent four years painstakingly poring over ancient manuscripts to piece together the true life story of Ireland’s long lost folk heroine.

“She was preserved by Elizabethan state papers and verbal folktales, but ignored by the history books as she was not only a woman, but an outrageous woman. Hence she was systematically written out of the history books for over 400 years.”

Armed with a copy of Anne’s book, Granuaile, Ireland’s Pirate Queen 1530-1603, a sense of adventure to explore the rugged coastal landscape and a taste for a drop of the black stuff, I set out to follow in the footsteps of the woman behind the legend.

Go West 

My base was Westport, a genteel little town with two sweeping boulevards of restaurants, traditional high-street traders and cosy pubs. The town makes for a good base to explore the region and feels untroubled by modernity.

To the western fringe of town, close to where Westport Lake opens up into the harbour, I make Westport House the first stop on my quest.

A stately home built in 1730, and still owned today, by the Browne family, direct descendents of Grace O’Malley, the approach is marked by a bronze statue of Grace, who stands guard over the ample grounds.

John Browne III married Maud Bourke, Grace’s granddaughter, to link the two family dynasties, but it was their grandson, John IV, who set about transforming the erstwhile O’Malley castle into modern-day Westport House.

“Grace was a mythical figure, a women out of her time, but as a child, we didn’t talk about her much at home. Before Anne’s book, we had only folk tales, not facts,” explains Sheelyn Browne, Grace’s thirteenth great-granddaughter, over coffee in the library.

“I’m proud to be her descendent. For me, she reflects the natural environment of the West: rugged, wild and uncompromising.”

A short stroll along the promenade from Westport House, the harbour looks south across Clew Bay, offering my first views of the majestic, mist-shrouded Croagh Patrick, the holiest peak in Ireland where St Patrick – allegedly a Welshman, since you ask – banished venomous serpents from Ireland forever.

Island life

I board a small passenger rib that ferries visitors around the sweeping expanse of Clew Bay and chug out towards the island of Carraigahowley.

One of only a handful of inhabited communities amongst the 365 islands in the bay, it’s home to the well-preserved ruins of one of the myriad of castles built by the O’Malley along the west coast.

On a bright morning with sea-spay in my face, the harbour is alive with wildlife: herons, a colony of seals and a last few local colonies of nesting choughs.

Upon arrival, Carraighowley Castle, where Grace sometimes lived, feels a suitably atmospheric liar for a pirate queen with its stone tower, winding, spiral staircase and lofty top floor with slit windows to keep watch over the nearby harbour.

Achill Island, located 30 miles north of Westport, is home to another O’Malley castle, Grainne Uaile, in the village of Kildownet.

A dramatic stone tower looming menacingly over the tiny village, it’s best approached by following the glorious Atlantic Drive. This vista-packed route hugs the coastline and leads, via the surfing beach at Keel and a Blue Flag beach at Keem Bay, to Achill Head, where Atlantic foam crashes against stark rocks.

It feels like the end of the world – and almost is. The next stop is the east coast of America, some 300 miles across the North Atlantic.

But the most evocative location to feel the presence of Grace is Clare Island, just one of three inhabited islands in Clew Bay. Grace grew up here, learnt her seafaring skills in the small harbour and later returned to build her castle on the headland.

Today, Clare Island, a sweep of sandy beach and a workaday harbour with fisherman hauling lobster pots, is deliciously tranquil. I hike along the harbour wall, cutting inland along a flower-strewn country lane in search of the final stop on Grace’s trail, the island’s 12th-century Cistercian Abbey.

Overlooking Achill to the north and the island of Inishturk to the southwest, Grace is allegedly buried here amongst the stone graves having died peacefully in 1603.

Girl power

Grace had travelled to London in 1593 and brokered a deal – woman to woman – with Elizabeth I, allowing her to live out her days in peace, securing the release from prison of her second son and stopping the royal-appointed governor, Sir Richard Bingham, from infringing on her territory.

Some historians suggest that it was her actions, kneeling before the queen and ceding control in the name of peace, which led to her being written out of Irish history.

“She inspired local music, drama and she’s now even on the school curriculum in Ireland. But, most of all, she has finally been written back into history,” says Anne Chambers.

“Maybe she’s the epitome of early feminism – she was as much a matriarch as a warrior.”

As my eyes adjust to the gloom inside the abbey, ancient paintings and murals depict scenes of life: hunting with spears, dragons, greyhounds. On a wall by the altar I find the faded limestone, carved with the O’Malley coat of arms, which marks the end of my quest.

The clan motto, terra marique potens, carved in faded letters, reads, appropriately enough for a pirate queen, “powerful by land and sea”.

This story was first published in Coast magazine in 2008. 

Have you got an angle on a story from Westport, or County Mayo?

Post your comments below.

Story of the week: Riding the Post Bus in Switzerland

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This is the latest post in a weekly series, highlighting stories from my travel-writing archive with no active link. I’m running them here in full. Subscribe to posts at this website for more. Read more of my stories from Switzerland, Riding the Glacier Express and Riding the Jungfrau Express.

William Tell has got a lot to answer for.

The folk tale of the Swiss farmer turned renegade fighter for independence from Austria’s ruling Hapsburg empire, not only inspired the German writer Friedrich Schiller to popularise the legend, but also the Italian composer Rossini to pen an overture by way of tribute.

Today the familiar three-note refrain from the William Tell Overture (a C sharp, E and A major, since you ask) heralds the approach of the PostBus on blind corners and mountain roads throughout Switzerland.

While Switzerland’s super-efficient train network covers the main urban hubs, it’s left to the bright-yellow PostBus to tackle the Alpine passes, link the rural villages and provide a lifeline to the remote communities that pepper the immaculately-coiffured Swiss countryside.

The buses still deliver the mail but, more importantly, also serve a vital purpose as a transport lifeline to rural Switzerland.

This year marks the centenary of PostBus with the first ever bus service inaugurated in 1906 from Bern to Detlingen. Later that year the Bern to Papiermühle route started.

The original breakdown-prone vehicles, converted from army lorries and seating just 14 travellers plus a driver and conductor, reached maximum speeds of 30km per hour. Winter operations started in the 1930’s when skiing became fashionable in Switzerland.

Today the 758-route network spans 10,450km and carries 105m passengers per year. Services are coordinated with the train timetable and computer monitored to ensure that the entire country’s public transport system runs to split-second punctuality.

The company also recently took over the franchise to run public transport in four French cities and already runs public transport around the tiny principality of Liechtenstein.

One of the most famous PostBus routes is the longest line, running from St. Moritz via Chiavenna to Lugano in Switzerland’s far south.

The 132-km journey on the world-famous Palm Express lasts four hours and leads through Italian territory, skirting Lake Como and passing through Italian-speaking Swiss villages en route to Lugano, transport hub of the Swiss canton of Ticino.

Another legendary PostBus route takes in Juf in the canton of Graubünden, Europe’s highest permanently inhabited settlement, situated at an elevation of 2,126m above sea level. The journey winds through the Rofla Gorge into the Val Ferrera and onto the high-altitude valley around Avers.

My own PostBus odyssey, however, cut a more leisurely but none-the-less dramatic swathe through the heart of Switzerland.

I boarded the Julier Route Express in the Graubünden region, Switzerland’s rural heartland, and headed for the Bernese Oberland, a journey across Alpine passes, along lush, green valleys and with a backdrop of snow-sprinkled mountains and ice-pop glaciers from my window seat.

Starting out on a crisp autumnal morning from the resort town of St. Moritz, home of the Cresta Run and winter sports playground of the rich and famous, we headed southwest along the Julier Pass at an altitude of 2,284m.

The pass divides the northern part of the Graubünden canton from the region known as Engadine and marks the line between areas where Swiss German and Romanisch, an ancient patois based on Latin, are the primary local dialect.

Dropping down through the ski resort of Savognin at an altitude of 1,207m, we then climbed again to Lenzerheide with great views across the Albula Valley en route.

After about two hours on the road, sitting back in what feels like an upmarket National Express with air conditioning and reclining seats, we approached the outskirts of Chur, the oldest town in Switzerland and the base for the gleaming new, glass-built PostBus interchange, which coordinates the dispatch of yellow buses in all directions across Switzerland.

In Chur, we learned, all the buses in Grabünden are named after small villages in the region with the name and emblem of the village embossed on the door during a christening ceremony when it first enters service.

The interchange is a bus-spotters paradise with icons of priests, farm equipment and the Alpine Ibex, the mountain goat-like animal indigenous to the region, amongst the symbols adorning the doors.

Back on the road after a break for coffee, we were soon fringing the edge of Walensee lake northwest of Sargans, climbing through flower-strewn valleys south of Luzern and powering through the outskirts of Interlaken before reaching our terminus at the village of Brienz mid afternoon.

During the journey the driver would stop at a shaded roadside pull-in to collect a hefty, yellow sack of post while an assortment of Swiss, German and Italian hikers would clamber aboard, dragging their Nordic walking poles in their wake and chatting excitedly in a variety of dialects about the scenery they would be enjoying on the way to the next trailhead.

I Just sat back and enjoyed the theatre of the whole journey, letting someone else negotiate the hairpin bends of another jaw-dropping Alpine pass and alighting for blasts of fresh, mountain air at regular stops along the route. The journey was timed down to the split second, so hikers can plan their journey according to the set-in-stone timetable.

That night, over a dinner of traditional Swiss fare, I grabbed a few words with PostBus CEO Daniel Landolf. As a Brit used to leaves on the line, it was to my chance to pose the burning question: how do the buses manage to run on time to a precise timetable?

“We try very hard to respect the schedule as we may not be the cheapest transport system but we do aim for high levels of satisfaction,” explains Landolf, who looks like Bill Clinton’s younger brother and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Switzerland’s bus timetables.

“The secret,” he adds with a wink, “is that we run a mystery shopper system to check up on the schedule.”

This story was first published in the Daily Mail in 2006. Do you have a favourite Swiss journey?

Post your comments below.

A treasure hunt in southern Snowdonia

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We’re going on a treasure hunt. We’re going to find a big one. What a beautiful day. We’re not scared.

A walk in the woods at Coed y Brenin Forest Park near Dolgellau could inspire a Michael Rosen story.

It was a couple of days away, some quality-time bonding for Maya and I after the recent storms. But, in the great storytelling tradition, it also was far more than that.

On the geocache trail, hand in hand in the spring sunshine, we feel into an easy rhythm.

Mossy treestumps stood to attention as we passed. Spring birdlife called to us overhead.

When we stopped at the viewpoint to consult the map, Maya delivered an impromptu weather forecast (see it here SANY0005) – grey clouds clearing at last.

As we tramped, searching for the first geocache, the tiny plastic box with its logbook and secret treasures, the conversation drifted with the breeze.

  • What is a good age to get married?
  • Of potential career paths between a doctor, a teacher and a writer, then doctor earns the most money, but who has the most fun?
  • If I was a character in hit TV show Miranda, which character would I be (decision: I’d be Garry’s helper in the restaurant, not Mike the Knight.)

Later that day we would drive onto Graig Wen, spending the night in the new eco-cabin (pictured above).

It was dusk and she set off to explore, taking my camera to capture images of the site, the B&B, camping and yurts set just off the Mawddach Way long-distance trail around the Mawddach estuary.

That night the stars were amazing. As we walked up the path to our cabin after dinner, we looked up to the night sky, illuminated with a thousand tiny tealights, for comfort and reassurance.

“That’s nana,” said Maya, pointing to the brightest star I the sky. “I know she’s looking after us.”

We never did find the treasure in the geocahe at Coed y Brenin. But it didn’t matter. We had space and time to just be together.

And that was something to truly treasure.

* The accompanying commission to this will be published on greentraveller.co.uk – check back for updates.

GAZETTEER

Coed y Brenin Forest Park

Graig Wen’s Caban in the Glade

The Mawddach Way

Discover Dolgellau

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