Alun Pandy

Published on 16/04/2021

Alun Wigley Pandy 1937-2021 We were all born at The Belan in Pennant. Father was a tenant, Belan was a steep dry farm plagued with rabbits. Alun was 17 in 1954 when they bought the Gwernau, 378 acres of which of the land was unimproved hill but unlike the Belan it had a hard road to the house, they arrived at Gwernau in the spring of 1955, with 18 Hereford x Welsh Black cattle, 150 Welsh ewes, 2 shire horses and a pony, no tractor or car. I'm sure mother was glad to get back to Llawryglyn where she was born. Alun and Tom transformed Gwernau, ploughing, re-seeding, draining and laying thousands of clay pipes dug by hand in the early years. Carrying hundreds of tons of lime and slag in 1cwt bags. They probably picked thousand of tons of stones. By the 1990's the Gwernau was capable of carrying 1000 ewes and around 120 cattle. In 1967 a new house was built, plus new buildings, sheep handling facilities and several miles of farm tracks. I'm amazed Alun's joints weren't worn out. Alun had some wise old sayings. He spoke of a farmer near Welshpool who several times took his neighbour to court over bad fencing. He said better to buy netting than pay solicitors. Another bit of good advice was, its easier to pay Income Tax on the good times than paying interest to the bank when things are tough. He surprised us around 2006 saying he was going to live in Ferryside. What a wise decision with 10 years of good care, he had a reasonable quality of life despite all his ailments. I conclude with this thought :- 'How lucky we were to have him as a brother and also how much the community benefited from all the charitable work that he did' Emyr Wigley, The Old Stackyard.

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