Wyn came down last night to shear the Balwens. It’s like an aftercare contract, but one that you actually want - he sold me the first handful of ewes and lambs three years ago and every year he makes the journey down from the hills and gives them their annual haircut. There are 34 now rather than the 12 we started with, but other than that the ritual’s much the same - I ring Wyn and leave a message, eventually he gets back to me, he asks me if I can get the sheep in the pen ready, I say “no I need you and your dog to do that”, he says “you haven’t got a dog yet?”  I say “Wyn, I wouldn’t know what to do with a dog.” There’s a silence, he agrees, I wouldn’t, and we arrange a time.

Wyn is everything that I’m not and I love him for it.

Once the sheep are in the pen the deal is that I grab hold of the animal and drag it over to Wyn who is ready with the clippers. He makes a few nifty strokes, manipulating the torso of the sheep with gentle ease, meanwhile I set about grabbing the next ewe, clutching desperately on to a fleece wheeling the head towards my chest and pushing out the beast’s lower back at the same time so it’s in a seated position. This is what I‘ve been taught to do and I achieve it albeit clumsily and not without some soft tissue damage in the lumbar region. Each and every time I deliver an animal to Wyn he laughs and shakes his head gently, I’m better at it than I used to be but it’s still a limp and pathetic sight. I have no doubt Wyn could carry one under each arm and run up a mountain and probably does.

A friend of mine and a relative of Wyn’s told me he was once the outstanding prop forward in the area. This seems entirely plausible to me looking at the size and shape of him and it makes me wish I’d seen him play. He still likes to talk rugby though and as I know a few of the Scarlets players he’s keen for me to share a bit of the latest news with him. “Stephen Jones is getting married” I tell him, for example. “Is he by God?!” Any news like this however prosaic is always greeted as a bombshell.

I enjoy talking to Wyn about all this but I always feel a little uncomfortable too. It always seems to me a little upside down, I mean I played rugby but I was rubbish, Wyn could probably have gone all the way if he had really wanted too. I’m a Scarlet’s fan too and I’ve lived in the area over 20 years but Wyn was carved from the hills around here, the hills that his family have farmed for generations. It seems to me it should be him who’s rubbing up against all the current players and former heroes and with that in mind I tell him we’ll go down to a match together, arrange some hospitality. “You said that last year” Wyn points out, matter of fact, not complaining. “I know, but I won’t forget this time” I say.

I get my iPhone out to make a note, not to forget. Wyn looks over at it with slight astonishment, “wellllll” there is genuine surprise in his voice “you’ve got one of those!?”  Wyn seems to view this as some kind of crazy coincidence, like we’ve just bumped into each other in a backstreet in a Siberian mining town. Urgently reaching into his own pocket he pulls out his own iPhone and lets it rest on his palm for us to wonder at, looking oddly small in his massive, hoary hand and all the more incongruous for the pink and black tiger striped case that surrounds it. “It’s lost its buzz” Wyn says puzzled “it used to have it but it’s been gone a couple of weeks now.”  I can see why this might be a problem, on a tractor for instance, or whilst cutting a hedge, or shearing a sheep.

“Let me call you, see if it works” I look up Wyn in my contacts and touch to make the call. “Wyn Balwen” springs up across the top of the screen. Wyn is all but blown off his feet by the sight of this and is rendered speechless. In a second his own phone rings and I look down at it in his hand, the source of his astonishment suddenly obvious as my call flashes up on his screen “Simon Balwen.”  “The Balwen brothers” I say. “Aye the Balwen brothers” laughs Wyn. I feel strangely honoured.