| What's a Bible Worth? |
 Six years’ savings and a 28-mile walk, writes Richard Franklin It’s a cold, crisp morning. Bright sunshine reflects on the lake below me, the water still frozen in places. As I pause by a tree on the steep climb from a cottage below, this place is so quiet that just for a moment I can imagine she might appear over the brow of the hill; a 15-year-old girl returning home, carrying what for her is the most precious thing in the world: a Bible she could read in her own language. It was back in 1800 that Mary Jones is said to have walked this way on a 28-mile trek from her home in Llanfihangel-Y-Pennant to Bala, in North Wales, to buy a Bible. A jet sweeps across the valley, piercing the silence. The roar of its engines brings my thoughts abruptly back to the 21st century and the reason I’m here. With me on the hillside is another Mary. Mary Thomas, 63, has produced a guidebook re-creating the journey that her 15-year-old namesake took more than 200 years ago. ‘Maybe it’s a strange thing to say,’ she tells me, ‘but on parts of the walk you can almost say I’m sure Mary came this way. ‘Some people say when they walk (the route) that they feel very close to her. It’s a spiritual experience for many and I have seen some people in tears at the end.’ It had taken Mary Jones six years to save up the 17 shillings she needed to buy a Bible from Methodist preacher, the Revd Thomas Charles, who lived in Bala. He was so inspired by her determination that four years later he helped to form Bible Society, a charity that works to get Bibles to people, like Mary Jones, who are desperate to own and read a copy of the book. Sitting in the Youth College at Bala, we warm up over a cup of coffee. Mary Thomas says, ‘She was very determined. She must have been. It wasn’t so much about the walk, because they did walk much more than us today. It was her determination to get that Bible’. Mary says that it was here, at the college, that she started work on the walk, using her local knowledge to piece together the route to celebrate its bicentenary in 2000. ‘I walked it in five-mile sections,’ she says, ‘noting every twist and turn and then returning home and recording it all. As I failed to get any certain proof of the actual route, my aim in the end was to find a likely one.’ And that’s the thing with this story, fact and fiction mingled together into a tale that has fascinated people over the years. Some experts say that Mary Jones walked the 28-mile route barefoot, others have her dancing along the path in a summer dress and there is even one story that says she had three Bibles. Unlikely, says Mary, given the book’s size. ‘I have seen the Bible, and I don’t know how she carried one home, let alone three and then dancing at the same time.’ A success The first rough guide of the walk was tested on local youngsters and proved a success. Now the Mary Jones Walk, as it has become known, has been published by Bible Society in a guidebook funded by the Countryside Council for Wales. In the tourist office in Bala they’re pleased to be getting copies. Walkers, they say, often ask about the route and it’s very popular with visitors. Bible Society’s Welsh Development officer Watcyn James says, ‘We think it will encourage many more people to follow in Mary Jones’ footsteps and learn more about her story. We hope walkers and tourists will have a go, as well as youth groups and church groups.’ The guidebook’s publication comes after Bible Society launched an appeal last year to raise £1.8 million to refurbish St Beuno’s Church at Llanycil on the shores of Lake Bala. It plans to turn the church into a faith heritage centre where visitors who have done the walk will be able to find out more about Mary Jones and the Bible-rich history of this part of Wales. I climb back out of Bala, the still waters of the lake below me once again. My thoughts turn back to Mary Jones, a girl whose determination to get a copy of the Bible inspired the start of more than 200 years of work to bring millions more Bibles to those who want one as much as she did. |
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