Why not go on a microadventure?

May 25, 2013 – 10:00 am

Alastair Humphreys, author and adventurer, writes about the excitement of a microadventure

Adventure is a loose word, a spirit of trying something new, trying something difficult. Going somewhere different, leaving your comfort zone. Above all, adventure is about enthusiasm, ambition, open-mindedness and curiosity. I imagine that many parents would consider these to be positive traits to try to foster in their children.

Al Humphreys

Al Humphreys

If this is true then “adventure” is not only rowing oceans, climbing mountains or cycling round the world. Adventure is everywhere, every day and it is up to us to seek it out and to help our children to seek it out. We need to encourage them that wilderness and adventure and calculated risk are all good things, not things to shy away from.

I’m a full-time “adventurer” (I feel the need to add the inverted commas as it doesn’t really feel like a proper grown up’s job description). And I have spent much of the last couple of years pursuing adventures on my own doorstep. Only last week I camped in a field near Milton Keynes and cooked a campfire supper on a hilltop in the South Downs. These are unremarkable adventures. But the essence of them – the wildness, the simplicity, the rawness – is exactly the same as the essence of the adventures that I had when I walked across India or cycled over the Karakoram mountains.

Children looking along the river towards Lode Mill, an eighteenth century working cornmill, in the grounds at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire

Children looking along the river towards Lode Mill, an eighteenth century working cornmill, in the grounds at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Britainonview/David Levenson.

Many young people derive massive satisfaction from adventurous programmes such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Gap year projects or backpacking tours. I’m a real advocate of all these things. However, I often field nervous questions from parents whose post-school age children are heading off “on their first big adventure”. The parents are generally pleased, proud… and very worried! Adventures tend to begin with toddlers climbing tall sofas but then fizzle out too quickly in our risk averse society. Not enough children or teenagers experience the thrill of adventure. But here’s the thing: risk is a good thing, a vital thing. It teaches us about our limits and personal responsibility. It encourages us to try harder, to learn the consequences of failure and the pride of hard-won success. It teaches us that our capabilities are far greater than we imagine.

This is why more people need to try small adventures, tiny adventures, even microadventures. Children and teenagers can’t go on huge adventures all the time. But they can have a microadventure. You do not need to fly to the other side of the planet to find wilderness and beauty; even people living in big cities are not very far away from small pockets of wilderness. Adventure is only a state of mind. Adventure is stretching yourself; mentally, physically or culturally. It’s about doing something you do not normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability. You do not need to be an elite athlete, expertly trained, or rich to have an adventure.

A microadventure is an adventure that is close to home, cheap, simple, short, and yet very effective. It has all the ingredients and the spirit (and therefore the benefits) of a big adventure. It’s just condensed into a weekend, or even a school night. Here’s one example of a microadventure which I hope will help change the perception that adventures are time-consuming, dangerous and expensive. This idea is so simple your children could even try it without parental supervision once you are comfortable with their levels of responsibility and common sense.

Cooking at the National Trust campsite at Wasdale Head, Cumbria

Cooking at the National Trust campsite at Wasdale Head, Cumbria. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Joe Cornish.

Pick a warm Friday evening, perhaps June 21st (the summer solstice night). After school and homework, pack a bag with the basic essentials – sleeping bag and mat, bivvy bag, warm clothes, food and a torch – and head up a hill. Eat your tea on the top. Enjoy the view. Light a campfire if you have permission. Look up at the stars. Chat and share ideas. Sleep under the stars. Wake early as the sun rises and the birds begin to sing. Dawn is the “Wow” moment, if you have not already felt it, when you feel vindicated in deciding to sleep on a hilltop. Waking early but refreshed, with a view more uninterrupted and magnificent than any five-star hotel, on top of the world.

Imagine the excitement! Imagine the fabulous exciting adventure of sleeping on a hilltop and watching the sun rise from a view so familiar yet so new. You do not need to wait for children to leave school before they venture off on their first adventures. Start them today, as young as possible, and I believe you will be thrilled with the results.

Why not commit to trying a microadventure yourself? Do it alone or with friends. Climb a hill, jump in a river, sleep under the stars. Try it. What’s the worst that could happen?

Alastair Humphreys is an author and adventurer. He was a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year in 2012 for his microadventure campaign

www.microadventures.org

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

The State of Nature

May 24, 2013 – 10:26 am

The recent report ‘State of Nature’ highlights the need to rekindle our own and our children’s love of nature, writes David Bond

I’m stuck in an office in the centre of London. It is clear that nature is fighting a losing battle against the concrete expansion. It is a sacrifice of living and working in a major city. But I imagine that I can grab the children, jump on a train and, within an hour, enjoy some deep green. But a recent report called ‘State of Nature’ reveals that may not be true for long.

Put together by the RSPB and 24 other wildlife organizations from a wealth of data collected over the last two centuries, the report assesses the changing state of our plants and animals. Here’s the situation:

60% of UK species have declined over the last 50 years, with 31% exceeding the ‘strong decline’ threshold

Recent environmental changes across the UK have caused over 50% of species to dramatically decline and change their habitats

More than 1 in 10 species are severely at risk of extinction

These new statistics are eye-opening.  And they are universally significant – they will inevitably affect us all in some way. While filming Project Wild Thing I found that as our attention is drawn to screens and other indoor distractions, we become increasingly separated from the natural world. The irony is that as this separation increases, we cause more harm to the natural world. By leaving it alone, we kill it by neglect.

Spiders web on a foggy day in autumn in the grounds at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire.

Spiders web on a foggy day in autumn in the grounds at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. ©National Trust Images/Mark Bolton.

The more time you spend learning about nature first-hand, the more you will care about, and recognize its vital importance. I can talk for hours to the children about how a spider spins a web. But they’ll learn more in 5 minutes in the company of the spider. This is what I’m most scared of for my children and for coming generations – that as they grow insulated from nature’s positive influence, they reject it in its time of greatest need. Nature needs passionate naturalists, who care for the plant and animal species struggling to maintain their positions in rapidly changing habitats.

Where do these people come from? They grow up in family gardens and spend time in local parks, woodlands and seashores. They care about the environment because they experience it. They have a sense of oneness with nature and as the relationship grows they start to develop a feeling of responsibility for its welfare. This attitude has to start young and requires the freedom and time to explore. I spent countless hours with friends climbing trees, building dens, catching bugs and watching birds – not for any reason other than to learn and to have fun. My children get their nature in small, controlled doses. I’m genuinely frightened that my childhood experience is evaporating – not only because children spend more time inside but also because the ‘stuff’ of nature is disappearing.

Perhaps the decline can be slowed, stopped or even turned around. It is hopeful to see such a large group of organizations come together for this one purpose. Our own Wild Network has formed in a similar way. It is heartening to see individuals and groups joining together to give strength to a cause that will determine the quality of millions of future childhoods, and their environment.

What can we do? We can raise awareness of the gravity of the situation, and the fact that it will get worse unless we act.  We can find ways to encourage involvement in local nature reserves and research-based projects. But top of the list – and this should be government policy – we must work to rekindle our own and our children’s love of the ultimate free wonder-product: nature.

Then, if we’re lucky, we might produce a new Durrell or Attenborough.

Find out more about the State of Nature report.

David Bond is a film maker whose film Project Wild Thing will be out this summer. Follow Project Wild Thing on Twitter and join the pledge to balance screen time and wild time here.

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Taking a different route on the walk to school

May 23, 2013 – 2:29 pm

Jayne Phenton writes about the benefits of walking to school

How did you get to school? Chances are if you’re old enough to have bought a Duran Duran single you are one of the 81% who walked. Just like your Beatles fans parents who were probably among the 93% who walked to school.

Now less than half of our children do so. In Must Try Harder, published on Monday to launch Walk to School Week, Living Streets highlights that over a quarter of parents automatically drive their children to school and one in five have never considered doing anything else[1].

Jigsaw of Living Streets' Walk to School Mascot Strider

Jigsaw of Living Streets’ Walk to School Mascot Strider, created by school children in Blackpool.

Does it matter? Consider that one in three children are overweight or obese when they leave primary school and obesity is estimated to cost £27 million by 2015, then there is a clear economic, environmental (did I mention the school run accounts for 23% of traffic at peak times?) and health imperative to encourage us all to be more physically active.  Getting into the walking habit at a young age means more active, healthier adults in the future.

But most children aren’t concerned with public health policies, NHS budgets or monitoring carbon emissions. The children who take part in Living Streets’ Walk to School schemes tell us that they are motivated to walk to school because they actually enjoy it. They enjoy socialising with their friends, they gain confidence and they relish feeling independent when they reach the rite of passage when they’re ‘grown up’ enough to walk without an adult.

Living Streets research found that children who walk to school are more engaged with their local communities – you never get to speak to the lollipop person if you’re sitting in a car – and had greater spatial awareness and road sense.

If we cocoon our children in cars we deny them the opportunity to experience and explore their local neighbourhoods, stimulate their curiosity and fuel their imagination. Busy roads, fast moving traffic and poor walking infrastructure are common barriers cited by parents.

Investment in a safe walking environment may not only deliver a fitter, healthier population, a reduced public health bill and a cleaner environment, but might also mean our children enjoy a happier and more fulfilling journey to school.

Jayne Phenton works at Living Streets.

May is National Walking Month and there’s still time to log your walks, take up a walking feat and win prizes www.livingstreets.org.uk/nationalwalkingmonth

[1] All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc.  Total sample size was 1,009 GB parents of children aged 5 to 11, Fieldwork was undertaken between 1st-6th May 2013.  The survey was carried out online.

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Are children losing touch with nature and does it matter if they are?

May 22, 2013 – 12:03 pm

Play expert, Bob Hughes, writes about the importance of outdoor play for children with those of their own age

Children in the garden at Moseley Old Hall, Staffordshire.

Children in the garden at Moseley Old Hall, Staffordshire. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Arnhel de Serra.

It is true that today’s children are not generally as likely to become immersed in, for example, natural play experiences as were previous generations. Until the 1960’s children would have not only have played outdoors but the outdoors would have provided them with the bulk of their play props, and the backdrops for their play narratives. In short, they would not only have played in the outdoors but with the outdoors too. Since that time, because of the advent of heavy traffic, prolific building and an exponential increase in parental anxiety, both the frequency and intensity of children’s playful interaction with the outdoors has diminished alarmingly.

Does it matter? Yes it does. Children are biological as well as social entities. To adapt to and survive their surroundings they need to have a deep awareness of what their surroundings are and they gain that by playing with them in numerous different ways known as play types. Playing outdoors provides children with a level of diversity which far exceeds what they would be exposed to indoors.

John Byers tells us “The idea is that natural selection designed play to shape brain development, and most likely they [children] are directing their own brain assembly”.

This wonderful and complex proposition, highlights that:

  • Natural selection designed play
  • Play was designed to shape brain development
  • Through play children shape their own brain development
  • Children are in control of the process

However, this proposition loses much of its richness if only seen in an indoor, urban or technological context. It is only when children play in the natural environment, in woodland, fields, moorland, streams, and heaths, with the million and one other species that will also live there, that the incredible power of the child shaping its own brain is revealed, as we get some sense of the potential complexity of the neural connections formed when the child interacts with the wild environment.

Children playing in the cascades in the garden at Belton House, Lincolnshire.

Children playing in the cascades in the garden at Belton House, Lincolnshire. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Megan Taylor.

The nature and importance of the child’s playful interaction with the environment – natural or otherwise – is well known. What is less known is the nature of that interaction.

Wherever children play, they shape their own brain development by making decisions, derived from three discrete questions, what do I want to do, why do I want to do it and where do I want to do it? The resulting interaction between the child and the environment is what produces the brain growth and organisation to which Byers refers.

Note however, that these unconscious decisions are made solely by the child and not with the help of parents or teachers! Vandenberg and Koestler stressed this when they stated “the more an activity is contaminated with other agendas the less it is play”.

Yes, outdoor play is vital, but only if it is with other children and not suffocated by adult interference.

Bob Hughes 2013

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Bioblitz your garden this June!

May 21, 2013 – 9:22 am

Finding out what lives in their garden (or a friend or relatives) garden is a great way for kids to get closer to nature writes Richard Comont

The Garden Bioblitz (www.gardenbioblitz.org) is a great way for kids to find out just what else calls their garden home. For a 24-hour period across the weekend of the 1st and 2nd June 2013 (you choose when to begin and end), people the length and breadth of Britain will be venturing out into their gardens armed with nets, cameras, and a desire to discover what a wealth of wildlife even a small garden can contain.

Child spotting wildlife in the garden at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire

Child spotting wildlife in the garden at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire ©National Trust Images/John Millar.

How important are gardens for wildlife?  With 29 million trees and 5 million bird boxes in 23 million gardens across Britain, the answer is ‘more than you might think’.  Although the larger, more visible animals – deer, otters, peregrine falcons – may be more often associated with wilder areas, they can all appear in gardens if you look at the right time, and smaller species – butterflies & bees, frogs and toads – are year-round residents.  Once you start looking – and especially if you have a pond, or leave an outside light on – you’ll be amazed by the diversity of life living alongside you.

Whether your garden is large or small, urban or rural, there will be wildlife in it.  Gardens form a chain of green oases through the concrete desert, mobile species like birds passing through, more sedentary species setting up home.  Some do both – adult butterflies pay fleeting visits to flowers before wafting away on the wind, but will also leave more lasting mementoes in the form of egg batches, which quickly hatch into earthbound but continuously-chomping caterpillars.

The sheer diversity can dazzle at first, and with so many species to choose from the differences between species are sometimes only slight.  Luckily, with the internet, it’s easier than ever before to get the opinion of experts.  National experts in ladybirds, bees and much more can be found on the Open University’s iSpot site (www.ispot.org – upload a picture and they’ll do the rest!), while we’ve also put together a list of the best wildlife ID sites from all over the internet if you want to have a go yourself.  We’ve even made a check-list of 20 common garden species – see how many you have in your back yard!

Last year we ran a trial event, and 26 intrepid garden surveyors, scattered between Scotland and the very tip of Cornwall and with assorted friends and family in tow, submitted over 2,000 records of 780 different species, including 44 species of bird, 15 species of butterfly, and a lot of garden snails! Hundreds if not thousands of photos were taken, sightings were tweeted about, blogs were written about the experience, and there was a huge overall sense of achievement.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner, or if you ‘only see common things’ – gardens are about the most under-recorded habitat in the country, so your records will be adding something new to the national picture, whatever they are! And for kids they can get on their knees and see the wildlife in their garden in a new light.

Our aim has always been to make the Garden Bioblitz as simple and inclusive as possible, so if you’d like to take a closer look at the wildlife outside your windows, head on over to our website or find us on Twitter as @GardenBioblitz.

Have a poke around in the garden, learn how to identify and record what you’ve found, and most importantly of all, have fun!

Richard Comont works for the Centre for Ecology and Hyrdology and helps to organise the Garden Bioblitz. Don’t forget, the 1st-2nd June 2013 is the national Garden Bioblitz weekend. Help us Blitz the UK’s gardens for wildlife.

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Why learning in the outdoors should be a key experience in all schools

May 16, 2013 – 10:18 am

Andy Robinson CEO of the Institute for Outdoor Learning writes about the importance of outdoor learning.

The Department for Education is currently reviewing the National Curriculum seeking to improve the core skills and knowledge amongst school age children.  Given the innovative approach to incorporating learning for sustainability and the use of the outdoors that is being developed by the Scottish Government the limited reference to these issues in the current DfE proposal is disappointing.

If you’re interested in how the Scottish Government is integrating the outdoors into teaching see their helpful guidance to teachers.  Essentially this guidance points to outdoor learning as a vehicle for many subject areas, rather than a discipline within the PE or Geography curriculum. ‘All aspects of the curriculum can be explored outside. The sights, sounds and smells of the outdoors, the closeness to nature, the excitement most children feel, the wonder and curiosity all serve to enhance and stimulate learning.’

Children walking on the Hidden Bridge at Stackpole, Pembrokeshire.

Children walking on the Hidden Bridge at Stackpole, Pembrokeshire. ©National Trust Images/John Millar

So why should we be pushing Government to provide clear guidance on the effective use of outdoor learning and to train teachers up to enable them to incorporate use of the outdoors into their lessons ? Here are a couple of reasons quite apart from the enhancement of learning.

The World Wildlife Fund’s 2012 Living Planet Report shows that globally, humanity is currently using 50% more resources than the planet can sustain.  The issue of sustainability may be one that the current generation feel able to file under ‘too hard to deal with’ but it is surely one that we must at a minimum start helping the next generation prepare for.  Exploring the issues around the sustainability of our relationships with the natural world becomes a memorable and meaningful lesson when based in the natural world rather than the classroom.

The outdoors also provides a wealth of opportunities for children to learn about risk, recognise it and develop ways of managing it.  To quote Judith Hackitt, the Chair of the Health & Safety Executive “The next generation is tomorrow’s workforce. Helping young people to experience and handle risk is part of preparing them for adult life and the world of work. Young people can gain this experience from participating in challenging and exciting outdoor events made possible by organisations prepared to adopt a common sense and proportionate approach that balances benefits and risk.” ¹

Child taking a close look at wildlife in the garden at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire.

Child taking a close look at wildlife in the garden at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire. ©National Trust Images/John Millar

The activities that the schools use do not need to be so adventurous that the teacher requires expert help.  Bug hunts in the school grounds or local park or orienteering in similar environments are manageable by many teachers.  A wealth of resources and help is available from more experienced outdoor practitioners.  Some schools have developed a progressive approach to accessing outdoor learning starting with exploring nature in the school grounds through experimenting with water filtration in the local stream and moving on to incorporating initiatives like Duke of Edinburgh’s Award or John Muir Award so the students gain recognition as well as learning.

¹ Quoted in ‘Nothing Ventured…..balancing risks and benefits in the outdoors’, an excellent publication by Tim Gill that debunks some commonly held myths about outdoor adventurous activities for school.

The Institute for Outdoor Learning is the UK wide professional body for outdoor learning practitioners.  As a charity its primary objects are to develop standards in outdoor learning and promote access to all forms of outdoor learning.  If you are interested in supporting or participating in the work of the institute please contact us at 01228 564580 or visit our website www.outdoor-learning.org

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Are we afraid of the outdoors?

May 14, 2013 – 10:06 am

The news can keep you indoors, writes David Bond

The full horror that took place within 2207 Seymour Avenue in Cleveland is private.  Only the victims can know it. 24-hour news media seeks to get as close as possible to their pain.  Video footage, testimony, pictures, interviews, artists’ impressions and journalists’ guesswork give us the wire-framework onto which we construct a voyeur’s view of the events. The details are seared into our brains, our curiosity is sated and our own worst fears are justified and compounded.

The initial thought, how awful for the victim, turns to, how awful if that happened to my child, and then, if I’m not careful that will happen to my child.

The message from the media – never explicit, but bubbling below the panic – is don’t take your eye off your child.  If you let them wander freely, a predator will take them.

During the making of my upcoming film Project Wild Thing, I met with mums of young children who talked about why they are nervous letting their children play outside unsupervised. The Holly and Jessica story is back out in the news again, and you hear those cases and you can’t help but think about it, one young mum told me.

Do these horrific child abduction news stories make us afraid of the outdoors?

Children playing in a tree, Dovedale, Derbyshire. Restrictions ©National Trust Images/John Millar

Children playing in a tree, Dovedale, Derbyshire. Restrictions
©National Trust Images/John Millar

When I was growing up there was no 24-hour news but we did have our own kind of risk-aversion propaganda. I would play near a fast flowing river with friends. Rumour had it that someone once drowned in the river. No one knew who this person was, or when it was, or if it was even the same river. I used to be really good at jumping off walls and curbs on my bike. Apparently someone died doing that, once, somewhere. I got the picture. I needed to remember to stay safe when there were no adults around. But we were sensible and looked out for each other, so these stories didn’t stop us wanting to roam.

I recently interviewed writer Tim Gill. The worst case scenario is not a helpful scenario to spend very much time in as a parent, he said.  You’re constantly being drawn to the downside of risk. Tim believes we need to strike a balance between protecting our children and giving them the freedom they need to learn how to look after themselves.

But perhaps stories of children going missing still make the news precisely because they are a rare occurrence. It is some comfort that we are very familiar with the names of missing children. Whilst the idea of such a tragic event happening to you or your loved ones is unimaginable, the odds remain vanishingly small.

Warwick Cairns’ book How To Live Dangerously considers the risks of living too safely. He explains that the actual risk of a child being abducted and murdered by a stranger is 0.00007%, which equates to 1-in-1.4 million-years. But if you still feel like this is a risk you would rather not take then please remember that keeping children safely at home is by no means risk-free. A child dies at home from flames or smoke inhalation once every ten days. If that made as good a news story as abductions, we’d actively chase them out of the house.

We should worry less about the risk of rare events like child abduction and murder, and more about the slow, creeping emergence of a generation of children out of touch with their world. Ultimately our children will suffer at the hands of something far more inevitable and relentless than a predator. They are going stay indoors and suffer because we fail to judge risks. The consequence of this for their future environment is unimaginable.

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

National Children’s Day: Let kids be kids

May 13, 2013 – 10:58 am

If we let kids be kids then their imaginations can run wild and their creativity can flourish, writes Hattie Garlick.

Where are mini conservationists, zoologists and explorers made? Is it on their first trip to London Zoo, squinting through the bars at a Sumatran Tiger taking his tea? Or the first school field trip, peering out at a sodden landscape from under an anorak hood? No. In my experience, for my son at least, it happened two weeks ago, in a friend’s garden, while I was looking the other way. 

After half an hour of intense silence, prodding a stick into a pond and examining frogspawn, he asked to take some home. We scooped some into a jam jar, filled an old coke bottle with pond water, and cycled home via a nerve-racking and leaky trip round Sainsburys.

They lived in a yellow bucket in the garden, under the grave and vigilant guard of an enrapt two year old. And last week, they turned into tadpoles.

Tiny frog in a child's hands at Stourhead, Wiltshire, in September. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Nick Daly

Tiny frog in a child’s hands at Stourhead, Wiltshire, in September. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Nick Daly

Our kids don’t always need us to prompt and prod their enthusiasm for learning. That instinct, that spark of curiosity and need to explore how the world works, is innate within them. And sometimes, we blundering well-meaning adults who have lost that connection with the world, just get in the way. We talk about the importance of play, but then trip ourselves up with the urge to quantify it in adult terms – what impact is it having? What are its results or its ‘value’?

As Bill Gates has said, “If you’ve ever watched a child with a cardboard carton and a box of crayons create a spaceship with cool control panels, or listened to their improvised rules… they you know that this impulse… at the heart of innovative childhood play…. is also the essence of creativity.”

National Children’s Day UK (http://www.nationalchildrensdayuk.com/) is about making sure that, at least one day a year, we stop to appreciate and liberate that instinct in our kids. Big players from the National Trust to Play England and Eureka, the national children’s museum, have signed up. It’s the easiest call to arms ever issued to adults: on May 15th, simply step back and let them take the creative lead, wherever that ends up. Maybe they will build a cardboard space ship, unleash their inner adventurer through the National Trust’s 50 Things to do before you’re 11 3/4, nurturing tadpoles or, as William Bake wrote,

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wildflower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour

Hattie Garlick is a Director of the Save Childhood Movement (http://www.savechildhood.net/) and writes a blog, Free our Kids, on raising her son for free in a big city (www.freeourkids.co.uk)

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Bluebells

May 10, 2013 – 9:00 am

Continuing our celebration of spring and getting outdoors, leading travel writer for The Times – Christopher Somerville – capture’s the wonder of a walk in a perfect ‘fairy’ bluebell wood.

‘O, that lone flower recalled to me

My happy childhood’s hours,

When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts,

A prize among the flowers.’

In this simple verse Anne Brontë tells it like it is. There’s something about our first encounters with bluebells which tastes of pure magic, that flood of intense blue released across the oakwood floor as if from some generous sorcerer’s hand. Beatrix Potter’s fable of guinea pigs and a travelling circus, The Fairy Caravan, is a disregarded tale these days; but I loved it in childhood for its description of the bluebells in enchanted Pringle Wood, ‘as blue as a bit of sky come down.’ That exactly caught it.

There are memorable bluebell walks on dozens of National Trust properties – for example, the superb displays among the trees at Stourhead in Wiltshire, along the steep gorge of Allen Banks near Hexham, Northumberland, and in the woods on Toy’s Hill, site of Octavia Hill’s pioneering gift of land in 1898 to the infant National Trust.

There’s no doubting the therapeutic effect of these magical flowers. In the late 1880s Lady Louisa Knightley of Fawsley Hall in Northamptonshire provided a bolthole in her gamekeeper’s cottage for one of the most wretched and alienated men in history – Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, an outcast because of the mysterious affliction that hideously distorted his face, skin and body. Merrick loved walking in the Fawsley bluebell woods, breathing free air and casting off his demons for a few short days.

As a symbol of spring in full flow in these islands, the bluebell has no rival. Recently, however, a fierce if silent struggle has been going on between the familiar species and a foreign invader. You’ll usually find our native bluebell growing in woods or very shady places. It’s easily distinguished, because the flowers are sweet-scented; and they grow on the same side of the stalk, so that their weight bends the head of the plant into a downward-hanging curve. The interloping Spanish bluebells, on the other hand, tend to shun woods and look for sunnier locations. The flowers are all but scentless, and they grow all round the stalk, so that although they hang down like those of the English bluebell, their weight is evenly distributed and the stalk itself stands straight. The two species interbreed; and when they do, it’s the Spanish genes that dominate. So keep your eyes peeled for the real deal!

Ashridge credit Rebecca Judge rs

  • Christopher Somerville’s latest book, ‘Where To See Wildife In Britain And Ireland’, is published by Harper Collins on 25 April. He’ll be talking about it at Stanfords Bookshop, Corn Street, Bristol on that date.
By Alec NT | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

“The world’s not such a bad place”

May 9, 2013 – 9:21 am

“The world’s not such a bad place,” says Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes fame, “when you can get out in it.”

One word sums up the current experience of children in Britain: “enclosure.”  It is a cultural peculiarity: no previous generation has known it, and traditional societies all over the world have given children a precious freedom.

Once out of infancy, Native American children were traditionally free to wander wherever they wanted.  Lakota children “grew up without a sense of restriction and confinement.  Their faculties became accustomed to space and distance… and to freedom in its full meaning,” writes Lakota chief Luther Standing Bear.

Freedom makes children competent, and I’ve seen Sámi children aged ten and younger sent trekking for hours through fog on the tundra, looking for lost reindeer, and fully trusted to be able to look after themselves.  Inuit boys of fourteen or fifteen would traditionally have the freedom – and the skill – to journey alone with a dog team over hundreds of miles of Arctic ice, and I was told how the freedom which Inuit children traditionally experienced was crucial to their characters, and made them into “self-reliant, caring and self-controlled individuals.”

Indigenous Australian Bob Randall speaks of his childhood and its “non-restrictive nature, psychically and physically.  I was always totally free.”  He too links it with qualities of wise strength: a freedom which meant autonomy but not licence.

Children with a cat in the garden at Springhill, County Londonderry.

Children with a cat in the garden at Springhill, County Londonderry. Copyright ©National Trust Images/Arnhel de Serra

This is not only an issue of physical liberty but the freedom of the psyche within the natural world, reflecting children’s easy and extraordinary acceptance that they can imagine their way into the minds of animals.  (Any child, asked what their pet is thinking, will assume the question is eminently sensible.)  Indigenous societies traditionally encourage this sympathy of child psyche with animal world, through ritual and dance and story, as part of the inter-relationship of humans and nature.  Pueblo Indian children, by tradition, from three years old, transform themselves into animals: antelope and deer, donning fox skins or parrot feathers, and embodying and embracing the kinship.

The vision quest is one profound way in which children form connections with the natural world, and the essential mindcraft of this quest is just as familiar to our society as to any other, but it has been relegated to fairy tales.  In fairy tale quest and vision quest alike, the child must go alone, questing for insight.  Isolation, fasting and prayer are features of the traditional vision quest, and it mirrors the lonely, often orphaned and hungry fairy tale hero, full of wishes as fervent as prayers. They take to the woods, to the mountains, to the wilds, as do children undergoing a vision quest.  Once, there, both fairy tale hero and questing child must listen to the “animal-helpers” for wisdom, must learn lessons of generosity, courage, perseverance and profound self-reliance.  Keeping children enclosed away from nature also means alienating them from their own stronger selves.

……………………

Jay Griffiths is the author of “KITH: The Riddle of the Childscape” and is in the feature-length documentary, Project Wild Thing, screening in summer 2013. Watch a trailer for the film here.

Find out more on her official website.

By annarawcliffe | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 219 other followers

%d bloggers like this: