Meet Kay Culhane – Clwyd Branch Committee Profile

Meet Kay Culhane – Clwyd Branch Committee Profile

This is by way of being my swan-song – having been the treasurer of the branch in its various guises for over 30 years it’s time for a change, and luckily a fellow committee member has volunteered to take on the role.

I was born in Ringwood, Hampshire, but both my parents were from Yorkshire so I feel more ‘northern’ than ‘southern’. We soon moved to Wrexham and just before I started school, to the Cardiff area. I went to a small rural village school – the whole area is now unrecognisable being a suburb of Cardiff, only prevented from further sprawl by the M4 and the hills to the north. I went north to Yorkshire to Sheffield University to read Geography and then to University College London to study for a postgrad. degree in then Planning – so these early years set the scene for an interest in environmental matters. I first worked for Norfolk County Council enjoying the work which took me all over the county, but times back in Wales confirmed my wish to be somewhere wilder and more mountainous! This lead to moving to Mold to the ‘old’ Flintshire County Council in 1970.

While there I joined the local branch of CPRW and volunteered to be on the committee. I had been familiar with the work of the charity for a long time. My father had been a long-time member of the R.A. (Rambler’s Association) and my early recollections were of him checking footpaths all over Glamorgan for the definitive map of Rights of Way in the 1950s. He later joined CPRW and was Chairman of the Glamorgan Branch while my mother was the treasurer. I have fond memories of going to the annual conferences organised by Simon Meade who was the director of CPRW at the time.

Back in Mold, I’d met Tom through the RA and we’d married in 1972. We were both on the CPRW branch committee and also represented Flintshire at the all Wales meetings – then chaired by Mr Vaughan Thomas – or in his absence by Lady Irene White. There came a break with CPRW when we moved to Gloucester in the late 1970’s, though I represented the RA at the local CPRE meeting. I had hoped that I may have been able to work with the Countryside Commission which was based in Cheltenham but that was not to be. Instead, I did quite a lot for the local RA area, making a survey of the rights of way (footpaths and bridleways). This was very effectively used by Tony Drake (another very active RA member) to persuade the County Council to improve them.

Our next move was back to Wales in 1982 to have a small guesthouse and organise guided walking holidays. This was in Cynwyd near Corwen. I re-joined CPRW and served on the local Glyndŵr Branch committee as treasurer. By now there had been a local government reorganisation of the counties with the overall county of Clwyd and the District Councils, and even more change in the Corwen area, which had been in Meirionnydd Shire. We enjoyed our business and meeting people from all over the world to show them the beautiful places in our corner of North Wales, but unfortunately had to give it up when Tom had a stroke. We stayed in Cynwyd for several years before moving to Ruthin in 2002.

In the meantime, Arthur Roberts (another stalwart of both the RA and CPRW) who had been Treasurer of the Clwyd Branch wished to retire and proposed me to replace him – so I was then Treasurer of both the Glyndŵr and Clwyd Branches. Further local government reorganisation in 1996 lead to an adjustment in the CPRW branches to keep in step with the local authorities as much of our work related to checking on planning applications made to them. As a result the CPRW Branch became the Denbighshire branch, though in time this expanded to take in the old north east Wales counties, so was back to being the Clwyd Branch.

While all these changes were taking place I also represented our local branch at the National Council Meetings which were usually held in Newtown where it was very interesting to meet members from the rest of Wales.

Although I haven’t been very active in many ways, I am glad to have supported the various committees in being a member and for rather a long time, also Treasurer. Personal commitments are becoming our priority, so I am very happy to pass on the role of Treasurer to someone else.