RSPB Havergate Island

War and Peace:  a MAD hare day

Take some more tea, the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

I've had nothing yet, Alice replied in an offended tone, so I can't take more.

You mean you can't take less, said the Hatter: it's very easy to take more than nothing.

Nobody asked your opinion, said Alice.

 

The rivers Ore and Alde form a single stretch of water that winds its way from Shingle Street to Snape Maltings, passing by the towns of Orford and Aldeburgh.  From Orford Quay the National Trust runs a ferry to Orford Ness and the RSPB organises boat trips to the reserve of Havergate Island. 

I visited the strange world of Orford Ness some years ago, poking my nose into concrete bunkers and scrunching over banks of shingle.  It’s a sinister place, just past the centenary of its involvement in warfare, from when it was purchased in 1913 by the War Department.  At the end of World War I there were over 600 staff living and working on the site, not to mention a number of POWs…. 

In WWII it was the province of the RAF, though they brought in many lay-scientists.  Bomb ballistics were the priority, with work here contributing to the 22,000lb earthquake bomb, but it had also seen Robert Watson Watt’s development of an aerial defence system in his ‘Ionospheric Research Station.’  This led to the creation of Chain Home Radar stations (which directly affected the outcome of the Battle of Britain, and my own father’s career in the war – please see  http://www.richardpgibbs.org/2013/02/a-war-in-italy.html for more on this.)

At the height of the Cold War the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) and Royal Aircraft Establishment used Orford Ness for developmental work on the British Atomic Bomb (Blue Danube), which involved the creation of the iconic concrete Pagodas (and a complex of developmental experiments on G forces, resistance to temperature extremes, shocks and Ore).  The AWRE ceased operations here in 1971, though in the meantime the Anglo-American System 441A, ‘over-the-horizon’ (OTH) backscatter radar project, known as ‘Cobra Mist’ was initiated here, in a building which still shelters the BBC Word Service transmitters (and nothing else?  Still very secret....) 

The MOD continued to have a Bomb Disposal unit based here until 1986....

As the National Trust’s own pamphlet states, Orford Ness is emblematic of not only the Cold War, but also of the whole of the 20^th Century warfare.  During this period the systematic application of weapons and warfare resulted in the ability of one country to subject an opponent to the threat of ‘total war’ across oceans or continents.  This came to be known as MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction….. a concept which divides political leaders to this day.

On this occasion I am bound for a night on Havergate Island, eschewing War and seeking Peace, though in the company of MAD brown hares. 

I am in good company.  We are a select group of keen amateur photographers, tutored by professionals, organised by Wild Adventures under Suffolk’s Skies which works together with the RSPB.  

The weather forecast is uncertain, but we remain dry.  The evening light is lovely, the sun streaming across the sea lavender and tussocky grasses, and, as hoped for, we soon find a hare or two that don’t seem too mad for now.  

In fact they are at peace – the only predator here has been a fox from the mainland with an Olympic swimming pedigree.  For a moment I see Albrecht Durer before me, drawing his famous Feldhase in 1502.

With a three-quarter moon rising, I work on catching lesser black-backed gulls against it, though they seem luna-shy, and veer away just before coming into line.

The light fades, and the colour leeches from the  land- and water-scapes.  Jeremy demonstrates ideas for landscape photography, and I enjoy experimenting.

Then, as darkness falls, we gather round the barbecue for a mad-hatter’s tea party.  I like islands. This one formed as Orford Ness grew southward, causing sediment to accumulate at the mouth of the Butley River.  Then, about five hundred years ago, farmers built an embankment around the land to inhibit flooding.  Crops were grown, and livestock was brought over to graze, initially by swimming them across at low tide, then later, until the second world war, by barge.

During the war years, while Orford Ness was busy, Havergate was neglected, and it became partially flooded.  In 1947 the first avocets to breed in Britain for a century were discovered here, and in 1948 the RSPB bought the island, eventually using the avocet as its symbol.

I like islands, and this one, with no electricity, no traffic, and far from the madding crowd, is a place of peace.  [OK, it may be beyond practicality to take up residence here, but it has its attractions, despite the fact that I also like belonging to a greater conglomeration.  Life's a Russian Doll sometimes!]

I hardly need have brought my tent. Not only does it not rain, but it is very warm, and day breaks almost as soon as I have zipped myself in.  A yellow band briefly illuminates the dark clouds.  Gulls and waders, who don’t seem to have slept at all, are newly excited at the increased visibility.  

But the sun doesn’t rise [also].  A narrow bloody splodge at the horizon is a momentary signal, 

And then Aurora stretches out her rosy fingers, and the pagodas on Orford Ness come into view, reminding me how close we are to concrete and the scars of conflict.

The sky fills with light and cloud, a flowing series of colours and shapes.  Avocets and redshanks are now busy feeding, egrets and herons fish the shallows, meadow pipits and corn buntings flit among the bushes, while a flock of tearaway young starlings scour the hedges. 

At the south end of the island the lesser black-backs are still rearing their chicks and they dive at me relentlessly when I get too close, their red-rimmed eyes fearful that I may bring harm.  Kevin advises me on camera technique, though the birds seem not to appreciate my practising.

And so, all too soon, it is time to strike the tent, pack up and clamber aboard the little ferry boat back to Orford Quay.  Leaving peace behind, but passing the remnants of war on the way, our group returns to reality, to the balancing acts that daily life entails.  I hope that the hares on Havergate, and Orford Ness, will continue, under the protection of DEFRA, with funding from the EU LIFE-Nature programme (?) and with the stewardship of both the National Trust and the RSPB. 

As the RSPB website (currently) advertises, The Alde-Ore estuary is important for many species of European importance. Because of this, a new EU Life+ funded project has been set-up to sustain and enhance the habitats and species at Orford Ness and Havergate Island.

This new project builds on work supported by previous LIFE grants and work already carried out on by us at Havergate Island and The National Trust at Orford Ness.

I do hope that the work will continue and that future generations will be able to enjoy peace here, and to compare it with the ugliness of war.  I hope this is not too much to ask.

In fact, we need more of this sort of tea party.  More peace like this…. 

I know that nobody asked my opinion, but…..

Thank to the hares, and thanks to my fellow castaways,

And very many thanks to Jeremy Hennell James, Kevin Sawford and Monika Koch.

For she's here only for a moment,
Durer's Hare;
the frame can barely hold her.
Her shadow is a shifting thing,
slippery as a raincloud in wind,
and even as you look,
twitches to be gone

Durer's Hare

By Anna Wigley

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[Located approximately 800m to the east of the Vibration Test Buildings, the Hard Impact Facility was built by late 1962, in which a weapon, minus its fissile core, was propelled by a rocket powered sled against a concrete wall. It comprises a reinforced concrete wall orientated south east to north west with a battered rear to the south west; this side also has an extended tank at its base now infilled with shingle.....]

*    *    *    *    *

Rock of Ages

Shelter from the storm

I’m in the doldrums.  Brexit has cleft us all in two.  In Burrington Combe, not far south of Bristol, I stop for a bacon roll and a mug of tea.  Brown sauce stains my shirt.  The limestone walls of the gorge rise precipitously above me.  On one slab of near vertical rock there is an inscribed slate which bears the words:

Rock of Ages

This rock derives its name

from the well known hymn

written about 1762 by the

Rev A M Toplady

who was inspired whilst sheltering

in this cleft during a storm

Lucky Toplady!  He had somewhere to hide, though 'Twas in another lifetime (one of toil and blood, when blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud….)  and, to a certain extent, times have changed.    

This was not a good day.  Everything up to that point had been left unresolved, so I Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm. 

Unlucky me.  The chills of the insular Brexit wilderness surround me, a creature void of form, and I am up on the Mendips, slogging up to Beacon Batch, the highest point on Black Down, aptly named for my current mood.  People lived here in pre-historic emptiness.  Who knows what they felt in the darkest hour, before dawn?  Now, the sweeping views over Blagdon, and across the wild uplands, give me little solace. 

I trek across the watery tracks to Rowberrow Warren, and down through the forest, where seeing wood from trees is a pathetic joke.

Then I rise up over the flowery slopes of Dolebury Warren, with church bells tolling the knell of another wedding in the folds below.  The fort atop the Warren is traceable in dips and rises, piles of stones and grassy mounds.  To think that this was once London, or Brussels, to the people then.  To think that once mighty royal assent was dispatched from places such as this.

I slip down through the ash woods, as yet defying the disease that is sweeping across the continent.  I seek comfort in a cottage at Churchill Batch, ironically named The Crown, though no sign currently gives this away.  

Here an unseasonal fire cheers the small gathering of locals.  Conversation trips around the heady matters of the day, but no one is celebrating.  Temporary though this cleft may be, at least there is still some shelter from the storm.

Then I follow the contours back along the edge of the hills, passing the derelict Lookout, where no one sees what’s coming, and by Mendip Lodge Wood.  Near Bos Swallet I pass a group of young people, toiling along the Limestone Link.  I would like to think they were enthusiastic, but it wasn’t easy to read their tea leaves.  At Sidcot Swallet I cross a stream and mistake my path, soon finding myself rising high away from Whitcombe’s Hole and Burrington Combe, losing my way in the dense bracken above West Twin Brook, and I am on Black Down again. 

Will it never end?  I don’t want to go back.  I seek shelter, but not in retreat.  The reality of being lost squelches beneath me, and Toplady’s words resound in my mind:

While I draw this fleeting breath,

When mine eyes shall close in death,

When I soar to worlds unknown….

It is beautiful on these hills.  If I were to fall into Goatchurch Cavern, or stumble into darkness in Lower Ellick Wood, the world would move on regardless.  But I want to leave the world a better place, I don’t want to see it cleft in two, eroded into chasms into which my children might fall.  I don’t want to think it is hopeless and forlorn.

I am in the bottom of Burrington Combe again, one of the great clefts riven in our rocky uplands.  On the one side is water, on the other, blood.  One side is power; the other guilt…..   At the bottom of this cleft, somethin's been lost…..  I feel that we took too much for granted. The leaders, elected leaders who should have known better,  got their signals crossed. Those despicable individuals who, for various reasons of personal aggrandisement, persuaded many of my compatriots with their silver tongues and golden lies to vote for a completely unplanned future, have now disappeared. Leaving nothing but blood on [their] tracks.

The trouble now is nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts. 

Yesterday I received an email from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which stated that:

The EU Referendum Act received Royal Assent in December 2015. The Act was scrutinised and debated in Parliament during its passage and agreed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The Act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including provisions for setting the date, franchise and the question that would appear on the ballot paper. The Act did not set a threshold for the result or for minimum turnout.

As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement to the House of Commons on 27 June, the referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history with over 33 million people having their say. The Prime Minister and Government have been clear that this was a once in a generation vote and, as the Prime Minister has said, the decision must be respected. We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU and the Government is committed to ensuring the best possible outcome for the British people in the negotiations…..

As the Prime Minister has said.... the decision must be respected....

Why?

Is this Prime Minister, who set up this farrago, and who didn't see through the selfish desire to quash disrespect within his own party, or vitriol from UKIP (United Kingdom Implosion Party).... the spineless Astoroid (sic) who has since jellyfished out of all responsibility.... Is this Primo Ministro to be respected? Should every person within what currently goes under the title of the United Kingdom (soon to be dissolved),  and practically everyone within Europe, suffer the degradation that will follow this vanity and egoism?

Well, I offered up my innocence I got repaid with scorn…  But, now I feel that I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line…..  If I could only turn back the clock.

I am at the bottom of Burrington Combe again, with brown sauce and ketchup on my shirt.  In 1762 the Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady found shelter from the storm here, and thanked his God. 

Not the labour of my hands

Can fulfill Thy law's demands;

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone;

Thou must save, and Thou alone.

In my fear and despair I wish I could place my trust in someone.  I wish there was a God who would strike the discredited and the departing down, but if there is a God, then He must have ordained this situation, and sent the plague to test us.  Just to think that it all began on an uneventful morn….

Instead of going home, I drive to the village of Priddy, where I chance upon a cavalcade of tractors raising money for Air Ambulances.  

On Priddy village green there is a thatched shelter, which houses a stack of wooden hurdles.  An inscription explains that These hurdles are a symbolic reconstruction of the original collection.  They were stored here to form the Pens for the Sheep Fair which moved from Wells to Priddy in 1348 at the outbreak of the Black Death…..   The stack was destroyed in an arson attack on April 28^th 2013.  Volunteers rebuilt it that August….

I wonder how many symbolic reconstructions of things we will live to see?  How much of our history will be lost?  What else will we have to move to avoid the plague?  How many of the things we take for granted will be stranded without love? 

The village phone box now houses a defibrillator.....  No harm in that (Times have changed);  only perhaps that is what the whole nation needs?

If only someone would say Come in….  I'll give ya shelter from the storm....

Back in Bristol, on the edge of the Avon Gorge, looking for peregrines, the ground starts to shake.  I am almost run down by women in pink....

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there....

"Come in" she said

"I'll give you shelter from the storm"

Is there hope yet?

(If you get close to her, kiss her once for me....)