Back to Nature

          Seagulls have lately been congregating, noisily, on top of a building in the city centre – which is fifty miles inland. Could it be that they were driven here by some calamitous change to their coastal environment? It is, of course, possible that they might just have lost their way, but I am now so convinced that eco-disaster is upon us that I cannot help but take the more pessimistic view.

          The Bank Holiday weekend approached and, with it, the city’s annual LGBT Pride festival. My partner had committed to spreading the message of Extinction Rebellion among the Pride revellers, while I, still hovering on the XR sidelines, was determined to follow our customary routine of escape from the impending three-day party on our doorstep. We agreed to differ, and I fled solo in the campervan to the west coast, which I imagined to be populated by seagulls moping around looking for something to eat other than plastic litter. I am pleased to report, however, that of the many seagulls I did observe, none looked bereft and very few squawked, leading me to conclude that they were relatively content. Mind you, it could be that they were all feasting on chips and ice cream, since the rare conjunction of a Bank Holiday with a heatwave had brought millions of us humans to their habitat. If I had thought to find solitude from the city streets thronged with revellers, I had landed in the middle of another kind of party – one which binged on sun, sea, sand and watersports. I drove to Abersoch, intending to sip a beer at the picturesque harbour, but there was nowhere to park. I drove on to Aberdaron, where the story was the same.

          In the end, I found a different kind of picturesque haven for peaceful contemplation (though I had to forego the beer). I had come across Plas yn Rhiw, a modest but charming old dwelling set in generous grounds high above the sparkling sea. It is now in the care of the National Trust but, in 1938, it was saved from ruin by three spinsters from Nottingham, the Keating sisters (aided by the architect, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis). The sisters lived quietly creative lives, gardening, painting, reading and campaigning for rural conservation. They were fulfilled, apparently, though their child-sized single beds upstairs spoke of a deep solitude – different from the kind of quiet I was seeking.

          It is not difficult to avoid seaside crowds: just hop onto the coastal path and, anywhere more than half a mile from a car park, you are pretty much alone. On a stretch of the Llyn Peninsula there is – again, thanks to the National Trust – a tenanted farm that is run on conservational principles designed to encourage biodiversity. I found myself alone there, nodding approvingly at the information panels that describe the work being done. The farm makes the case for rolling back the ill-effects of monoculture and gives a glimpse of the past – and possible future – of farmland. Afterwards, back on the cliff path, I shook my head disapprovingly at the sight and sound of high-powered, gas-guzzling boats and ‘boatercycles’ charging across the formerly placid sea in a fury of pointless, fossil-fuel burning.

          Early next morning, before the motorboats had been refuelled and dragged into the sea, I walked the cliff tops in near silence and with only butterflies accompanying me. In the distance, I saw another walker, peering through binoculars and, as I approached, decided to greet him. “All quiet on the Western Front,” I said, cheerily. He looked at me, uncomprehending. “Have you spotted anything interesting?” I continued. Then, as he reeled off a list – curlews, seals, a gannet – I noticed his foreign accent. It turned out that he was German. If he had picked up on the reference to the Great War that I had just unthinkingly made, he was gracious enough not to let on. We talked politely about how pleasing it was to see more than just seagulls, then set off in opposite directions in search of more biodiversity.

Person Power

          The City of Bradford, once the wealthy, global hub of the worsted industry, is now a spent shell of a place, with no apparent purpose and no money. It is still a populous metropolis and its leaders are looking for solutions to its economic plight, but progress is patchy. The city holds little appeal for visitors: the evidence of poverty, decay and vandalism (the council demolished the handsome Victorian core in 1971 to build a road) is plain to see. Yet, for those who look closer, there is much to admire. There is some impressive surviving architecture and a rich seam of history, comprising stories of individuals and their achievements.

          One of these, Titus Salt, in the 1850s built the suburb of Saltaire, an enormous mill surrounded by a model village, incorporating schools, a church, a park and social, cultural and medical facilities for its workers. The business eventually collapsed in the 1960s, but the infrastructure, which survived intact, is now a designated World Heritage Site and the mill houses a gallery devoted to another famous Bradfordian, David Hockney. Everyone knows Hockney, but who, apart from those of us who were boys in the 1950s, has heard of the Jowett brothers? They were local engineers, whose legacy includes sleek, futuristic-looking cars, the Javelin and the Jupiter (as well as the more prosaic Bradford delivery van). The marvel is that they had the vision and the wherewithal to create such glamorous machines from the grim ruins of post-war austerity. Were they inspired by the fearless, evocatively-named Titus?

          I speak of Bradford because I have just been there, but examples of individuals whose ambition, vision and determination have helped move history along are to be found everywhere. Of course, the list includes people like Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Ghengis Khan, Donald Trump etc, but I want to concentrate on those whose intentions could be construed as benign and whose achievements as beneficial to society or humankind. Not all of them are well known. For example, there was Ada Salter who, at the turn of the 20^th century, was the instigator of the Bermondsey Beautification Society. It may not sound much, but she planted flowers on the derelict plots around the borough – thereby pioneering urban guerrilla gardening – and, later, lined the streets with trees and improved the local parks. Ada’s vision did not catch on universally: for example, one hundred years later, trees were being planted on Manchester’s city streets for the first time. (Though, to be fair to Manchester, its lady visionaries of the time – the Pankhursts – were pretty much tied up with their Suffragette movement, another and arguably even more important social advance.)

          However, the quality of our environment is now at the forefront of urban planning – in principle, if not in practice – and, as usual, we have individuals to thank for driving the initiative, for it is evident that our health and welfare cannot be entrusted to politicians who are lobbied and funded by fossil-fuel and agro-chemical industries, whose concern for environmental protection and eco-sustainability is, at best, marginal.

          The names of our eco-warrior pioneers may not trip off our tongues as easily as the movements they founded – Greenpeace or Green Party – but the latest one to capture the limelight, Greta Thunberg, is likely to rectify that. She has several advantages in her favour: as well as being a schoolchild – guileless, straight-talking and au fait with the facts – her name is easy to spell and she has social media at her disposal. There are, inevitably, some people who dismiss her and, in doing so, dismiss the scientific prognosis of pending eco-catastrophe. Just how their minds work is a mystery to me, though Ogden Nash* may have nailed it when he wrote “The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.”

*Poet, 1902-1971.

Summer Weather Report

          British summers are like life itself: unpredictable. You can plan everything down to the last detail, but we all know that picnics and BBQs are better regarded as aspirations than as fixtures and that, when anticipating any summer entertainment, it is prudent not to pin all your hopes on fair weather. Always have a backup contingency, like an awning, for instance.

          Mind you, this very unpredictability can add joie de vivre to proceedings if, and when, it works in your favour. I’m sure that’s why I so enjoyed last week’s Welsh jaunt, which took us, with friends, to the Mawddach estuary for a couple of days. We walked quite a lot, along the estuary’s disused railway track, through the hilly hinterland and across the bridge to the seaside resort of Barmouth. The terrain is famously attractive, and it certainly looked splendid in its sun-soaked summer colours. But the extra bonus was the retro-experience of being in Barmouth when its staycationing population was out in force, enjoying the beach, lapping up the ice cream, scoffing the fish and chips and thronging the novelty shops. It was as though the place had been in hibernation and nothing had changed since the advent of continental package holidays left it stranded, though there was one notably contemporary addition to its attractions – a coffee shop offering artisanal brews for city-folk like us, desperate for our preferred caffeine concoction.

          We were glamping nearby – that is to say our friends were – and, despite my enthusiasm for campervanning, I did envy their spacious and exotically furnished tent, their outdoor, covered kitchen/diner, their boy-scout firepit and their composting loo (though I did not make use of it) which was set, modestly, some distance away. The rain and winds that had been forecast arrived, conveniently, at bedtime on our last night so, when we decamped the next day, it was with the satisfaction of having snatched so much summertime pleasure from the jaws of a nasty-looking, approaching weather front.

          Life goes on whatever the weather – and so does death. We were attending a funeral service (or stone-setting, since it was a Jewish ceremony) one afternoon last week and everyone had come expecting to get drenched by rain. But the sun shone down on us and, afterwards, the official in charge of the cemetery told us that, in all his 25 years there, it had never once rained during a stone-setting. If he did consider it miraculous, his faith was not sufficiently robust to have told us in advance that brollies would not be required. More likely, his memory is selective, as is mine.

          Our lucky streak continued when we had lunch to mark a friend’s birthday. We took a table on the pavement terrace of a Didsbury restaurant (under the awning, ‘just in case’) and, in due course, hailed several friends who were passing on errands. We persuaded them to join us for a drink and thus augmented the jollity of the occasion. Serendipity, yes – but weather-enhanced.

          Even a daytrip to Liverpool coincided with a cloud-free afternoon, though it was an indoor event that took me there. I went, with friends, to see an exhibition at the Walker Gallery of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s life and works. His work I was already familiar with: his life, not at all. I learned, among other things, that he created a public image deliberately, changing his name from McIntosh and posing, artistically dressed, for a publicity photo. I’m sure he would have made an avid, successful and very stylish Instagrammer.

          We walked back to the station in warm sunshine and I reckoned that I have enjoyed many a fair-weather spell this summer. But, even if I hadn’t, I would not complain. Variable weather keeps me on my toes and enhances my appreciation of the difference. That’s life.

The Stuff of Nightmares

          I woke up this morning (cue classic blues riff) in a bad mood because of a nightmare. I had dreamt I was changing a lightbulb, but what should have been a simple task turned into an excruciatingly complex and frustrating one, a saga of flickering lights, tangled wires, mislaid tools and total bewilderment. This may not qualify as nightmarish for most but, for someone who prides himself on having a degree of competence in matters practical, it felt like a painful puncturing of self-confidence that left me feeling superfluous, anxious and angry all through breakfast. Now, nobody is really interested in other peoples’ dreams (except professional psychoanalysts, gypsy fortune-tellers and, perhaps, acquaintances who feature in them), but I’ll tell you anyway. My dream had been a re-working of an actual event earlier in the week, when I had spent hours trying to fix a fault in the heat-exchanging ventilation system in our apartment. I admit that, in doing so, I was pushing the limits of my competence, but curiosity sometimes gets the better of me.

          A dream is unique to the dreamer. No one else is involved in the experience. It is ephemeral and vanishes in the full awakening of consciousness. But, when the residual effect is to set your mood for the day, your dream does impinge on others. So, I duly apologised for my grumpiness and resolved to put it behind me. After all, a sour mood induced by nothing more than a dream must surely not be allowed to set the tone for the day: there is much to be done and much to enjoy. Carpe diem and all that.

          Just one of the things that must be done – and which is currently occupying some of my time – is to convince the Establishment to act to prevent the climate emergency developing further. The declarations, intentions and targets so far extracted from governing bodies represent recognition that the problem exists, but do not carry much conviction. Actions, as ever, will speak louder than words. Inevitably, there are obstacles in the way of effective legislation, the obvious one being the reluctance of vested economic interests to let go of their profits. Less obvious is the distance effect, i.e. the further away is the threat, the less is the urgency. We all know how that works, but here is a climate-change related example. Last week it was so hot that train services were disrupted by buckling rails: this week it is so wet that services are disrupted by flooding. I didn’t mind so much about last week because I wasn’t travelling by train, but this week I was and therefore had to admit that the inconvenience caused by severe weather was not just someone else’s problem.

          My journey was neither critical nor urgent in the context of the world’s troubles, though there may have been other passengers who felt differently. I was going to Heaton Moor for a session of the Heatons Jazz Appreciation Society – my reward for having worked during the day at tasks, such as fixing things and saving the planet, that can be quite tiresome. A balance of work and play is a reasonable aspiration for those of us who are lucky enough to have a place in a prosperous society, yet even this simple aspiration could be beyond the reach of future generations if we do not prevent the eco-disaster that is unfolding.

          I wake up most mornings torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard enough to plan the day, but it’s even harder when the trains don’t run on time. A bit of a nightmare for some.