Nightwalking four journeys into Britain after dark by John Lewis STEMPEL
Nature writing
Source – personal copy
Life is made of routines at times or things we do at a certain time or place. For me one of these routines is whenever I go to Macclesfield to put flowers where we spread my mum’s ash a number of years ago. We pop to the town centre and I always now buy a piece of nature writing at the Waterstones there it is a ritual a connection to my mum but also my grandfather is there as well a man who paid for my young ornithologist membership when I was young g in fact that was the first connection to nature writing the magazine there but also the many young people that wrote in around there own local nature. So with the Alfred Wainwright’s longest, I may try and read a number of the books from the list like last year. So the choice of a book from a writer that has won said prize twice before is a good choice before the list comes out and it also reminds me of my late-night walks back when I lived in Alnwick many years ago.
I began night walking out of necessity. The congenial village pub that served Wadsworth’s 6X the underage was not, alas, situated in my village, so required a three-mile perambulation home at closing time. The path to my den was along the downstream bank of the River Wye. One midnight I witnessed barn owls, ghostly raptorial spheres, hunting over the December-frosted water meadow. In the heat of a summer night, aroused with the aroma of elderflowers, Daubenton’s bats vortexed around my head so closely that I knew the cooling breath of their leather wings on my face. Often there was the sheer romance of moonlight on water. And thus a teenage prerequisite became a lifetime pleasure.
I remember many a walk back from the pub in my youth as well.
We see much of the season changes in the day in Nature writing it is easy to see and observe but the night is another question either too cold or too short in the summer. But we follow John on some walks over the seasons winter I remember winter walks dark of the night like HJ=John I have seen owls and bats on those cold dark nights I used walkthrough the edge of the Duke land a strip of land at the back of the estate once a victorian tip it still had many a broken bottle and pots from the era visible. I loved this walk in a dark night a time before phones had absorbed what we have to think about the breath in the air as a flutter of wings passes you or as in the book we hear and see Badgers those shy creatures of the night. We see John as he observes nature both wild and those farms as he passes them sometimes on the way home from the pub as he has had a couple of Wadworth 6x a pint I may have two or three of them over the years. Hedgehogs seen going about their business like in the Potter books they do look like little busybodies as they go through the night. Then there is the spectre of TB over the land he farms those creatures of the night are often the villain of its spread. He captures nature throughout the year when the night is there.
20 June: I stopped by the copse, where the track enters the trees, on the second lightest evening of the year. It was past ten, but I could see the shape of the hills, the thirsty cattle drinking from the trough down in the meadow, the breeze in the barley, and the watermark tracks where the deer had wandered through the wheat. Across the twilit valley, the hay had just been cut, the bales stacked in dark towers, but the mowed ground glowed with the heat of the days. Getting out of the car, the pale mauve sky was gentle and warm, and it seemed to me then that winter had never been, and never would be again.
The noise of farm animals at night always sounds so much louder than in the day.
What makes great nature writing to me is a writer that draws you in and makes the world around them seem to come to life those little observations and mannerisms of creatures he picks up so well on I have a couple of other books by him and will be reading them over time as he is called the finest living nature writer that is a hard burden but he brings to life that world he is observing .and reminds us how much of nature is there after dark from the birds and bats of nights to those creatures we rarely see other than when they sadly get hit overnight on the way around their world I miss my late night walks but who knows there is many a year left to take a walk at night and see those creatures of the night in the habit. Have you a favourite nature writer ?
Winstons score – a . A book that evokes a year of night walks.
I like the sound of this, Stu – don’t think I’ve come across any nature books about being out at night!
I think that what drew me to it I’ve not seen any either
I don’t read much nature writing, but I reckon there’s an opportunity for writing about night walking here because so many of our animals are nocturnal. Joe (Rough Ghosts) and I were talking about less welcome wildlife this week (i.e. in Australia, introduced species like feral cats, rats, foxes and rabbits) and I was reminded of a lovely restaurant here where all the diners were in a semi-circle with a view through full-length windows onto dimly lit bushland (which was actually a sanctuary fenced off to keep out the unwelcome pests) and while having dinner you could see all these cute little critters that normally you’d only see in a wildlife doco.
When I think of night walks I think less of nature than of walks from my junior doctors accommodation to the blank faced wards of a hospital alive with ghosts of the workhouse. It was at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, a time when women took to the streets to own the dark, own the threat. Back then I loved the safety of street lamps. I remember too, being out in the dark in the country, on the edge of a village, where the pavement gave out to nothing but the black void. I stepped back to the silent amber light, moths gathering like confetti, pressing my cheek on the cool railing of the village school.
These days I walk all over the place, all over these isles. My favourite nature writer is Kathleen Jamie but the best compilation of is Ground works edited by Tim Dee which provides endless joy .
Two of my favorite writers about nature are poet Mary Oliver and May Sarton, both close observers of their ‘home places’. Night walking can be a special experience, seeing animals not normally seen, scents seem more intense, and changes in familiar landscapes, but as a female there is always the awareness of the increased danger from two-legged predators.
I gave this to my husband for christmas but I don’t think he’s gotten around to it yet so I have a copy to read and might get there first!