The woman who's spent a quarter of a century walking in the footsteps of Mary Jones

September 27, 2024

The woman who's spent a quarter of a century walking in the footsteps of Mary Jones

Mary Thomas has spent the past 25 years walking in Mary Jones's footsteps - literally.

Like her namesake before her, Mary has hiked across the mountains from Llanfihangel-y-Pennant to Bala on her own in a single day; more frequently, she has led people from around the world along the 28-mile route, usually in stages over several days.

Most recently, Mary did the journey in January this year, "over four very cold days", at the age of 80. The reason for that trip was to note any changes to the path ahead of a new edition of The Mary Jones Walk, a guidebook Mary researched and wrote in 1999.

Last week, she was among members of the Bible Society who brought back to Bryncrug the very Bible Mary Jones walked to Bala to buy. For about an hour, the 224-year-old tome was on display to the public at the ganolfan (community centre), opposite the churchyard where Mary is buried. It also went to Llanfihangel-y-Pennant, where Mary was born and grew up, Craig y Deryn, Llanegryn and Penybryn, Tywyn primary schools and then on to Bala to mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Mary Jones Pilgrim Centre (previously called Mary Jones World), before being returned to the Bible Society's archives at Cambridge University Library (CUL), where it is permanently housed.

CUL's Dr Onesimus Ngundu displays the Bible

For Mary Thomas, the famous Bible's return to Wales was one of the highlights of the work she has done over the years to help keep the Mary Jones story alive and to introduce new generations to the remarkable tale of how a poor yet determined 15-year-old girl walked alone, probably barefoot, across wild and rugged terrain in 1800 to buy a copy of the scriptures in her mother tongue - a journey that inspired the founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society (now the Bible Society) four years later.

"I've been involved in bringing the original Bible back to Wales previously, but it was a thrill to see it again and to see other people marvelling at it," says Mary, who lived in Tywyn during her teenage years before moving to near Bala and whose sister Lowri Jones lives in Bryncrug.

"I've always been interested in the Mary Jones story. When I lived in Tywyn I would often cycle up the Dysynni Valley to Llanfihangel-y-Pennant, from where she set out to buy a Bible from the Rev Thomas Charles, a Methodist preacher based in Bala, after saving up for six years."

It was while Mary Thomas was working at Coleg y Bala (Bala College), the Presbyterian Youth Centre of Wales, in 1998 that she was asked to investigate - as a way of celebrating the forthcoming bicentenary of the legendary walk - the route the teenager would have taken to the lakeside town.

"There was very little information available, so I started off with not much more than my local knowledge of people and the countryside, and an OS map."

A valuable pointer came from the late Margaret Rees, a longstanding church warden at St Michael's in Llanfihangel-y-Pennant, who told Mary she'd heard the actual route was via Rhiwogof, Cae'r Tyddyn, on the A470, Brithdir and Llanuwchllyn.

"As I failed to get any certain proof, my aim in the end was to find a likely route from Llanfihangel-y-Pennant to Bala," Mary explains in the guidebook. "By reading widely, I gathered information and walked all the relevant footpaths in the area. I chose to follow public footpaths, bridleways and unclassified roads, using the main roads as little as possible and keeping to the rough distance mentioned. I also tried to use paths that are well-used and not likely to disappear in undergrowth, and to use paths that cross land that is farmed by landowners who welcome walkers."

By 1999, the rough guide was ready, with the route divided into five parts, each approximately five miles long. After being "road tested" by a group of youngsters, it was given a few tweaks before being published on information boards at Coleg y Bala and in leaflet form. A comprehensive book version was first published by the Bible Society in 2009, with new editions coming out in 2014 and 2016, and further edition planned for later this year. The guide is also available online.

The Mary Jones Walk in book form

A map showing the route of the walk

Mary has lost count of the number of times she's done the walk, although she knows she's completed it in a single day on six occasions - once, in August 2010, on her own. "It was a long slog - very different to when you have companions alongside you," she recalls. "My husband took me to the church in Llanfihangel and I set off just before 7am, arriving at Bala shortly after 5pm. I made a note that it was 'a damp and miserable summer's day, but the path was fine'."

More often, Mary has led groups of people on the beautiful but challenging route that includes steep slopes, high moorland, rivers and valleys, a mountain pass, woods and farmland.

"I've taken groups of varying sizes, from two to 30, including some who were dressed as if they were going for a walk in the park! I once took two district nurses who were raising money for Bibles for children in a village in Kenya, where they had both worked. I struck up a friendship with them over the two days it took us to do the walk - and we're still close friends today."

For a solitary, not-quite-16-year-old girl back in 1800, how difficult would the walk have been?

"The walking itself would have been no trouble to Mary Jones, as she was used to walking everywhere. The fact that she was a lone, young girl in such a remote area was another matter, but I don't think that would have bothered her at all - she was on a mission to get her Bible!"