Noddfa Dawel (Tranquil Retreat) is the physical manifestation and practical application of the myriad of ideas, concepts and passions that have run throughout Sarah’s life.
Back in the 1970s
while working as a catering manageress in London,
Sarah was finding herself increasingly drawn to the back to the land
movement. It seemed to encompass a lot of the ideas she had held since
she was a child. She started to spend the weekends in some of the small
communes that were springing up around the country. Talking, working
and learning how to live from the land.
The growing
shadow of the bomb and the simmering social unrest of the
early 70s catalysed her into action and she and her partner Robert
started to look for a property in the country. After much searching,
they found themselves in a small village just outside Aberystwyth.
Standing ankle deep in mud and staring at a derelict half mud walled
cottage called Rhoserchan Fach (the closest translation possible from
the ancient welsh is, appropriately enough, "Little Wetlands"). Despite
the trees growing out from the walls and the foot and a half of cow
muck covering the slate tilled floor she had a strong feeling that this
was the place that she would spend the rest of her life.
After a year of
negotiation they were able to purchase the property and
the surrounding four acres of land. This enabled them in 1976 to move
into a caravan and start to rebuild the cottage.
It was during this time
that Sarah split with Robert and met Joe.
Over the next four years using mostly reclaimed materials they turned their little mud hut into a five bed roomed smallholding.
Off the grid, water was from a bore hole in the top field,
power from a
generator and transport from a Welsh Mountain Pony called Henry. They
were nearly completely self-sufficient with goats for milk, chickens
and geese for eggs and 52 deep beds for growing veg and wheat.
During the construction of the house they both stopped drinking
and joined
the fellowship.
Becoming increasingly involved over the following years they started
putting people up and finding them places in residential treatment
centres in England. Realising a need, they started to campaign to the
local statutory bodies for the provision of a residential service
locally. After years of being stone walled and around the time of the
birth of their first child Luke in 1984, they realized they would have
to do it themselves, so they started to fundraise, raising over one
hundred thousand pounds.
By the end of 1985 Sarah had completed her training to become a councillor in Clouds House, they had applied for planning permission and had been promptly refused.
It took a year to prepare to appeal this decision during which time their second child Jake was born.
Winning their appeal
in the spring of 1987 they were able to erect the
buildings that are now Noddfa Dawel and in the spring of 1988 opened
the Rhoserchan drugs and alcohol rehabilitation Project. The first
residential Minnesota model centre in Wales, an instant success it had
to increase in size from eight beds to twelve within the first couple
of years.
Unfortunately shortly after the opening Joe and Sarah’s relationship broke down. Joe continued to work for the charity, Sarah devastated by the break up of their fourteen year relationship took a year out, stopping working at the charity and decided to concentrate on the children, taking them out of school and home educating them.
In early 1989 Sarah was approached by further Ed in Aberystwyth to create a counselling course. Writing through the summer she was able to start teaching Counselling Skills for Professionals in September of that year. The course was well received (continuing to be taught for a number of years) and did a lot to rebuild her confidence, allowing her to start her own private counselling practice.
Following the success of
her own course, in 1992 Sarah moved to teaching a more advanced
certificated class ‘The Central School of Counselling and Therapy
Combined Course of Skills and Theory’ it was whilst doing this that a
friend told her about Murray White who was introducing a self-esteem
building program called ‘Circle Time’ to primary schools in
Cambridgeshire. Deeply impressed Sarah invited Murray to talk in the
local area; he held two workshops “Build Your Child’s Self-Esteem” for
parents and “Building Self-Esteem in Children” for professionals,
before giving Sarah permission to use the material herself. She
continued to run workshops for sometime with ‘Welsh Self-Esteem
Workshops’ before gaining permission to rewrite them for an adult
Access course in Further Ed.
Around this time was
when Sarah first heard of a group called Rainbow
Circle who ran holistic educational camps, at first just going with the
children as a holiday, she discovered a diverse group of people from
all around the country gathering throughout spring and summer, over a
number of themed camps, to explore self development, spiritual
awareness, sustainability, community and communal living.
Shortly after Sarah joined, Rainbow Circle split in two along ideological lines with half the original group renaming and continuing with the traditional hierarchical structure and the other half retaining the name Rainbow Circle developing a more openly democratic volunteer and circle based system. This enabled Sarah to become more involved. At first doing things like one to one counselling, running workshops and working with disturbed children and their families. And later going on to help with the planning through the winter, and setting up and coordinating camps.
With Luke and Jake grown up Sarah retired from Rainbow Circle in 2002.
Most recently, prier to setting up Noddfa Dawel with Luke, Sarah has been continuing with her private practise and has greatly enjoyed working with the Beacon of Hope (a local hospice at home charity) working on their training courses for volunteers , running their staff support program and counselling their clients for stress management, self-esteem building, time management, coping skills and bereavements.
Now concentrating on Noddfa Dawel, Sarah is hoping to start running courses from here in the summer.
