The story of the Snowdonia National Park and the Society, dedicated to conserving and enhancing its unique landscape, is one which will fascinate and inform those who live and work within it as well as being of interest to visitors, be they picnickers or sightseers or committed hill walkers, climbers, canoeists and mountain bikers. This book commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the Snowdonia Society and is a record of its sometimes turbulent history and the ever-changing but still inspiring landscape of the National Park.
Rob Collister
Rob Collister is an international mountain guide who lives in the Conwy Valley. He has been a member of the Snowdonia Society for thirty years and was a Nominated Member of the Snowdonia National Park Committee from 1990 –1993. He is the author of Lightweight Expeditions (1989) and Over the Hills and Far Away (1996).
At first glance you might dismiss this as the Achetypal coffee-table filler, with its sumptuous photos, matt finish and text chronicling the work of the Snowdonia Society since its founding in 1966. Actually, it's anything but. Personalised, subjective, cobbled together from anecdotal evidence and old annual reports by long-standing member Rob Collister, the book is the literary equivalent of a fireside chat as the author pours 40 years-worth of frustrations and victories onto its pages. You can feel it all: anger at the government for building a nuclear power station; suspense as the society fought - and narrowly escaped - an application to prospect for gold and copper; triumph too, as society member Tom Kinsey blocked a fleet of ten 'unauthorised' lorries from dumping slte waste. Ultimately this is an intimate portrait of a small society battling away at the establishment to preserve a worthy cause: Snowdonia National Park.
Reviewed by Ruth Somerville
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