Spring Reigns Eternal

Posted on April 21, 2018 by johnshortlandwriter

Alexander Pope’s hope springs eternal, is so often misquoted as hope reigns eternal that I thought I would take the misquoting one step further with the title of this blog post. Over the years, having witnessed more change of seasons than I care to admit to, the transition from winter to spring has to be the one that I long for the most. As the frosts and snows melt and the sun’s rays warm both the soil and the soul nature and humans alike are energised.

A Comma Butterfly, fresh from hibernation, warms itself in the spring sun

There are so many aspects of spring that bring joy: the intensity of colour in the chartreuse green of new shoots; the translucency of the young leaves as they filter the strengthening sunlight before it reaches the forest floor. The first bluebells; the starry golden celandines; the skylarks tumbling song all vie with the myriad of new life crying out the same positive message.

The intensity of spring colour feasts the eyes after months of grey

Autumn, of course, also gives moments of pleasure with the splendour of its glowing oranges, tawny browns and fiery reds but, compared with spring, these are but fleeting and only serve as a reminder of the dark, cold days of winter to come. Spring offers not just new life and beauty but also the hope of better days – perhaps this is why Pope is misquoted. Hope springs eternal is such a positive message.

Bluebells and beech woods in spring – can there be a more joyous sight?

Richard Jefferies, the Victorian naturalist, wrote eloquently of the joy of watching spring move towards summer in his book The Life of the Fields. “…every blade of grass, each leaf, each separate floret and petal, is an inscription speaking of hope…there is so much for us yet to come, so much to be gathered, and enjoyed.”

Poor-man’s-weather-glass, the scarlet pimpernel, opens its flowers on fine days

The cup of spring is never half-empty, neither is it half-full. It is always overflowing. Let us drink from it whilst we can.

Ablaze in the spring, gorse hedges are at their very best

Richard Jefferies – His Passion Lives On

Posted on February 19, 2014 by johnshortlandwriter

Great artists such as Gainsborough, Turner and Reubens speak to us down the centuries through their work as do poets but how many people still read the great – or the lesser – writers from years past? The Bible is still read regularly by some, Shakespeare’s more famous lines are often quoted and we all think we know Bronte and Dickens whereas, in reality, most of us know the characters only as interpreted through television and film. However, authors from past centuries still have much to offer whether it be for historical background, research or, simply, pleasure.

I have always lived in the country and my fascination with the natural world began at a very early age. My kindergarten class was taken on a nature walk and, as our teacher showed us the magical things to be found along the way, I became hooked and wanted to know more. There are many excellent wildlife manuals and handbooks, new and old, that give detailed descriptions more often than not, in a rather dry, analytical way. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was someone who could give all this information in great detail; who would notice the minutiae of everyday things, whether a flower, a wild creature or even of man, himself? In the late nineteenth century there was one such person, now forgotten by most, and his name is Richard Jefferies – most definitely not a poet but there is poetry in his words.

Jefferies, born in 1848, in a Wiltshire (England) farmhouse suffered ill-health and subsequent poverty for much of his life. From a young age he had enjoyed solitude and wandering about the countryside and here he developed a fascination for the Iron Age hill fort on nearby Liddington Hill and the wildlife that could be found there. Employment as a reporter, initially with a local newspaper, developed his writing skills and his literary work began to be published, first as a series of essays and later in book form, from 1874. He died from tuberculosis in 1887. His books vary from collections of nature notes and the countrymen he encountered on his travels to novels, including one, After London, which would now be described as post-apocalyptical. In it he describes how nature has taken over the now vanished city with its few surviving inhabitants returning to the lifestyle of many centuries before. Jefferies still has his devotees, myself included, and he deserves better recognition. The remainder of this post is my demonstration of how his words are of relevance to everyone today, especially those who are passionate about the wonders of nature – not the awe-inspiring world famous creatures or places but the everyday ones, found all around us, that should be equally awe-inspiring.

Nothing sums up my feelings towards the natural world better than these words of his. They almost seem to have been written to illustrate this photograph of myself aged four with my father.

“So it seemed to me as a boy, sweet and new like this each morning; and now after the years they have passed, and the lines they have worn in the forehead, the summer mead shines as bright and fresh as when my foot first touched the grass…”

The Open Air, 1885

“Next he stepped into the current, which, though shallow, looked strong enough to sweep him away. The water checked against him rose to the white mark on his breast. He waded up the rapid, every now and then thrusting his head completely under the water; sometimes he was up to his neck, sometimes not so deep; now and then getting on a stone…” The Water Colley (Dipper), The Life of the Fields, 1884

“In the evening of a fine day the mists may be seen from hence as they rise in the meadows … beginning first over the brooks, a long white winding vapour marking their course, next extending over the moist places and hollows.”

Wild Life in a Southern County, 1879

“Sometimes through these narrow slits (of cloud), long beams of light fall aslant upon the distant fields of the vale. They resemble, only on a greatly lengthened scale, the beams that may be seen in churches of a sunny afternoon, falling from the upper windows on the tiled floor of the chancel, and made visible by motes in the air. So through such slits in the cloudy roof of the sky the rays of the sun shoot downwards, made visible on their passage by the moisture or the motes of the atmosphere… the labourers say that the sun is sucking up water there.”

Wild Life in a Southern County, 1879

“It is midsummer, and midsummer, like a bride, is decked in white. On the high-reaching briars

white June roses; white flowers on the lowly brambles; broad white umbels of elder in the corner, and white cornels blooming under the elm; honeysuckle hanging creamy white coronals round the ash boughs; white meadow-sweet flowering on the shore of the ditch; white clover, too, beside the gateway. As spring is azure and purple, so midsummer is white, and autumn golden. Thus the coming out of the wheat into ear is marked and welcomed with the purest colour.”

Nature Near London, 1883

“…and finally is lost in the vast marshes which cover the site of the ancient London… There exhales from this oozy mass so fatal a vapour that no animal can endure it. The black water bears a greenish-brown floating scum, which for ever bubbles up from the putrid mud of the bottom. When the wind collects the miasma, and, as it were, presses it together, it becomes visible as a low cloud which hangs over the place. The cloud does not advance beyond the limit of the marsh, seeming to stay there by some constant attraction; and well it is for us that it does not, since at such times when the vapour is thickest, the very wildfowl leave the reeds, and fly from the poison. There are no fishes, neither can eels exist in the mud, nor even newts. It is dead.”

After London, 1885

“…the heat pours down by day as if an invisible lens in the atmosphere focussed the sun’s rays.

Strong woody knapweed endures it, so does toadflax and pale blue scabious, and wild mignonette…”

Pageant of Summer, 1884

“Nature is a miniature painter and handles a delicate brush, the tip of which touches the tiniest

spot and leaves something living. The park has indeed its larger lines, its broad open sweep,

and gradual slope, to which the eye accustomed to small inclosures requires time to adjust

itself. These left to themselves are beautiful; they are the surface of the earth, which is always true

to itself and needs no banks nor artificial hollows. The earth is right and the tree is right: trim

either and all is wrong.”

Field & Hedgerow, 1889

Fortunately, much of his work is still readily available as books and, often, as free e-books. The Richard Jefferies Society promotes his writing and holds regular meetings. Visit their website by clicking the link here. The farmhouse where Richard Jefferies grew up is now a museum dedicated to his life and work and well worth visiting. Click here for details.

Fields of Red

Posted on August 6, 2011 by johnshortlandwriter

Everyone seems to love poppies. It doesn’t matter if they are the delicate crepes of the Icelandic or big and blousy Oriental poppies – even ‘though the latter so often lie sprawling across the ground, flattened by the weather or their own weight. But most loved of all are the wild scarlet poppies that create a violent red gash across acres of wheatfields.

Despite being forever linked with the trauma and sadness of the Great War, poppies refuse to lower our spirits. Perhaps they even comforted and uplifted the tortured bodies and minds of the survivors of the battlefields. The famous lines from In Flanders Field have immortalised poppies in poetry but thirty years earlier that great (but now almost unknown) British naturalist, Richard Jefferies, was eulogising “proud poppies, lords of the July fields….no abundance of them can ever make them commonplace….”. How right he was.

Even the odd, single flower, struggling in a bit of dirt at the side of some waste ground, brings joy and admiration but it is, en masse, when the sight of thousands of them in flower in a cornfield stops you in your tracks and, for a moment, loses you in a heady delirium of colour.

When the steep, wild flower filled grass banks that make the ‘walls’ of the secret valley have given way to the flatter, arable lands and the lush water meadows and meandering river lie far below, the fields become larger and hidden by high hedgerows. The character of the secret valley is much changed up here: those unfamiliar with it would not know of its existance it is so concealed. The old field names reflect this – lower down the names end with the words ‘banks’, ‘close’, ‘grounds’, ‘meadows’, now they all end with the word ‘downs’ and you could be forgiven thinking that you were on vast rolling downland, for the eye leaps over the valley to more cornfields beyond. And, a few days ago, I climbed the old, timber stile that pierces the hedgerow to walk in the field known as’17 Acre Downs’ to be greeted by the lords of the July fields.

However it was not the sight of crimson stretching as far as the woodland in the distance that stopped me in my tracks for there, at my feet, was a single, pure white poppy. Just one amongst tens of thousands of scarlet.

Walking further I was stopped once again, this time by some pale pink blooms, not many, just about twenty. The sight was enchanting and magical. Why here? Why so few?

Once you look closely at a poppy in flower you realise just how spectacular it is. En masse, your mind is blown by the quantity and you stop seeing them as individuals. Now, with my senses heightened I realised that a field of red poppies are made up of numerous variations even though pink and white are very rare finds. The photographs below show just a few of these: crimped, streaky, waxy, single petalled, multi petalled, plain buttoned, black cross buttoned, the variations seemed endless.

It isn’t just the flower that deserves this close inspection. For the seedhead is also quite lovely. Its capsule, before ripened, the palest green with a black and cream striped lid, a black collar, encircles its tall, upright stem, covered with soft bristles. Once ripe it takes on the same golden hue of the corn crop it has invaded. Will these poppies breed true and will there be pink or white ones next year? Who knows, for the next day the field had been mown and, if not for the photographic record, could have been dismissed as a pure figment of imagination.