would be covered by snow now. There were ravens about, which claimed my attention momentarily, for the presence of carrion birds can be significant on a search, but the behaviour of these was normal.

On the summit I called on the two men manning the radar station. Fortunately they knew something of me and were not unduly surprised at my appearance on the scene. They gave me tea and said nothing would ever get them up into the mist, however did I find my way? I suppose, working with radar, they didn't put much faith in compasses.

I went on, up Foel Fras, stopping again to search the upper reaches of Cwm Dulyn and Cwm Melynllyn with the glasses. I couldn't see much of Melynllyn because the cloud was low on Carnedd Llewelyn. Snow-covered slopes, speckled with rocks, disappeared into grey mist. There was no colour and I thought there was no sound until I realised that the drone of the searching Ansons was constant but I had become used to it.

I plodded on, up the ridge of Foel Fras, and rocks moved ahead, loomed, receded. I heard voices. It was the St. Athan team. By now I had lost any sense of incongruousness at being involved in the search, even on my own initiative. I spoke to the team leader only for long enough to learn that nothing had been found, and went on.

I continued to the saddle between Foel Fras and Foel Grach, then dropped down towards Cwm Dulyn where the wreckage of the American C47 hangs on a gully wall.

I turned in a hairpin bend and started back parellel with my original course and several hundred feet lower. So I was able to look right into Cwm Dulyn - and it was now, contouring the long slope, that I saw wreckage ahead, in a hollow in the ground. I ran fast along the slope, praying it was the Canberra, because then we might know where to look for the crew. If they weren't in the wreckage they might be alive. I didn't think of the possibility that they might be in the wreckage, not then as I ran towards the torn and twisted frame in the hollow.

I stopped and stared down at it, overwhelmed with despair. It was rusty and grass had grown through the rents next the ground.

I went on slowly, still looking, still sweeping the hillsides with the glasses. I was possessed by a fierce curiosity to know where it could be, that it could have evaded so many men for so long. But then it could be on Tal y Faen, or Pen Llithrig y Wrach, or Creigiau Gleision: any of the outlying peaks of the Carneddau. How could they search a massif in two days with the cloud down? It might be in the sea.

The helicopters came down to look at me. I didn't wave, afraid they might think I signalled.

Near my house I met some roadmen. They too had seen the Canberra in the air, they said. I gave the foreman half a crown and asked him to telephone Lees.

I met our daughter on the hill. She was full of excitement. All the children were talking about the search. She thought it glamorous that her father and mother should be up there looking for an aeroplane. Children's hearts are broken when a pet dies, but death at a distance, death to a human being is something in another world.

The Harpur Hill team was called in this day and arrived at Aber at 9.25 pm. Next day cloud was down to 1,000 feet, dense and white, muffling all sound. The search aircraft were grounded.

All right, I thought viciously, I'll walk round Tal y Faen without a compass. I wanted to put myself in a tricky position too. I didn't want to stay by the fire warm and safe, to do the bedrooms or the ironing. While the search was on, I had to go out.

So I walked round Tal y Faen in the cloud, missing some of the Valley team who were doing the same thing. That evening I heard on the radio that the Canberra had been found at mid-day, fifty feet below the summit of
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