Happy Valentine's Day! To mark this celebration of love, here is an extract from a piece by Ewart Lewis in 1953, entitled "John Williams: Some Glimpses of Life in Cowbridge 1700-1850", about a schoolboy who almost risked everything for a girl...

"A young man whose name appears in the title of this article was the son of the Reverend Thomas Williams of Abercamlais near Brecon.

"He attended Cowbridge Grammar School, then during his stay there, in 1730 to be precise, his ill report came to his headmaster, Doctor Daniel Durell.

"Rumour, then as now swift moving in Cowbridge, had it that John wanted to marry a Miss Carne, just passed her 20th year, who was by all accounts well equipped to shake the callow youth of 17 or 18 in his devotion to that most or stare of mistresses, scholarship.

"There was an interview with Durell, and John's defence was:

"That he had talked with her through the surgery window (the school sickroom remains "the surgery" in 1953) and had walked down to the Mill and back with her but only talked of trifling matters and nothing about love."

"The doctor thundered in his best style. John would probably be disinherited. He would be worse off than his uncle in Jamaica.

"And under these predictions of woe, so we gather, the romance collapsed.

"But if John had to join those who have "sighed as a lover and obeyed as a son," his story remains, charming in its explanation of his behaviour, and full of strength to bring back the past.

"The Cowbridge of 200 years ago seems to rise up sharp before us. Let me attempt some general description of it.

"When John Williams and his fair one walked down to the Mill, their way was probably under a fine avenue of Elms, which still stood in living memory.

"As they returned, they could see on their rights another noble row of trees at the Limes, and before them the ancient walls of the borough, dilapidated then, and surviving now only in the Southgate and the southern boundary fence of Old Hall."

So, it seems the romance between John Williams and Miss Carne was not meant to be and societal pressures forced them apart. But as the author says, the story is "full of strength to bring back the past".

Their path along the Limes, and then towards the ancient walls and to Old Hall is a familiar one, perhaps shared with loved ones today when out for a welcome break from life inside.