Blog Archives: Miscellaneous

A walk round Silver End…

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

It was the day before the autumn equinox, but the weather had other ideas: perfect blue skies and hot sunshine, in a last flurry of summer. Where to go? What to do? Why not a trip to Silver End: train to Witham, then bus to our destination, only 40 minutes’ travel if the connections work.

We do like a bit of social history, especially living history in bricks and mortar. Over the past few years we have spent very happy days visiting Saltaire, New Lanark, Port Sunlight and East Tilbury, all living villages that were created to house the workers from local industry. Whether through philanthropy or a desire of the ‘master’ to exercise control over his workforce more easily is a moot point…

But our closest ‘model village’ was until this weekend a mystery to us, despite the fact we have driven past the sign to it on the A12 countless times over the years. Silver End was developed from 1926 as a village to house workers for the Crittall windows factory, and plenty of the original buildings survive, mostly with the distinctive metal-framed windows produced at the site, and apparently used here to test their durability in the face of British weather.

Especially on Silver Street and Francis Way, the view is still remarkably intact, with flat-roofed ivory-white buildings, often with pebble-dashed chimneys, in remarkable conformity.

Aside from these, there is an array of contemporary housing designs, each immediate group differing from others through the whims of different architects, together with buildings providing community services such as schools, hotel, larger houses for the management and municipal parks.

One of the most celebrated of the listed Modernist houses is ‘Le Chateau’, the one that established the template for the rest of the village, although its current state of apparent neglect shows that listing is of little value in itself unless it comes with a responsibility to maintain.

But the whole community still feels intact. We had been expecting the worst, especially having seen East Tilbury, but we were very pleasantly surprised…

East Tilbury still has the iconic BATA factory, albeit in a state of dereliction, at its heart…

… but sadly at Silver End, the Crittall factory buildings were mostly demolished in 2008. The heart was ripped out of the meaning of the whole settlement, despite its recognition as a conservation area.

Just a few disused factory buildings survive today, amid a vast swathe of brownfield land. It is hard to imagine any modern development that could replace these without destroying the raison-d’être of Silver End. Perhaps it would be best left in this state of ‘urban decay’, which of course would certainly add wildlife value into the mix.

The small area we were able to explore (most is behind serious exclusionary barricades) had a typically random mix of plants from Narrow-leaved Ragwort to Raspberry, and Red Valerian to Guernsey Fleabane, all covered in Large and Small White butterflies and Seven-spot Ladybirds. Brownfield sites never fail to excite!

 

While the hub of Silver End seems to be the Co-op, on the site of a department store to serve the model village which burned down in 1951, only at the edge of the village is there a pub, the Western Arms. And what a find that was: a good pint (or two!) and great food  (homemade pie for me, mushroom linguini for Jude, with a seafood starter from the fish kiosk) in the beer-garden. And with a female Migrant Hawker  for company  as well! She found the wooden fence to her liking, and arched her abdomen several times as though she were egg-laying, although no water in sight: a mystery to finish our excellent day out!

 

The future of field guides?

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous

After a series of false starts, our new WILDGuide is winging its way to those who pre-ordered and into the shops! What makes this different to other botanical field guides on the market? Why should anyone buy it?

Firstly, it deals only with the 600+ most widespread plants you are likely to see, wherever you are, using distribution data from the new, magisterial Plant Atlas 2020 from the BSBI (also published by Princeton University Press). Every plant found wild in more than a third of the 10km-squares of Britain & Ireland is covered.

We deal with everything from ferns and conifers to flowering plants, including grasses, sedges and rushes – some groups that often fall off the radar, but which are interesting, ecologically important and eminently identifiable if you have a way in. This is that way in.

But no distinction is made between natives and non-natives. If you are likely to see a plant in the wild, it will be included, irrespective of its provenance. Recording the arrival and establishment of non-native species is a vital role of the army of citizen scientists in Britain & Ireland.

We begin with a roadmap that allows identification by a range of methods, from flower, to twigs to habitat forms. We take you through the process of identification, learning as you go: an antidote to the ‘flick and pick‘ of so many guides and to the apps that give the ‘what’ (usually – but certainly not always – correct!) but not the ‘why’.

The roadmap leads to the Galleries, a process from which jargon has been stripped out wherever possible. Necessary botanical detail is explained with annotated photos (and serving also as a compendium of terms that will be found in other books).

The Galleries help you arrive at a family. Here are two Galleries of flowery families, those with superior ovary, radially symmetrical flowers, free (non-fused) petals, and with either superior ovary or inferior ovary, for example:

Visual matching with the Gallery images then points you to the species accounts, arranged by family. Big families are broken down into bite-sized chunks, and comparison tables deployed where it seems useful.

The entry for each of the species covered includes, with photos of detailed botanical close-ups and often plants in their natural habitat, all annotated to highlight their distinctive identifying features, with distribution maps, and icons to show phenology etc.

Hopefully that process will get you to the right answer: identification achieved, and job done. Unless of course it is a rarer plant that we don’t cover. Your appetite for plant identification might just be whetted!

Will it become the indispensable guide for beginners and improvers alike, and to those undertaking botanical surveys, in a readily portable format? We hope so – it is your springboard into the exciting world of botany! And with 320 pages and more than 4,000 images,  good value as well as useful…

Then in a couple of years, there will be a three-volume companion set to cover ALL of the plants wild in Britain & Ireland. Chris Packham referred to an earlier WILDGuide on Britain’s Orchids as ‘the future of field guides.’ Hopefully you will agree the future has now arrived!

The book should be available in all good bookshops, in the real world as well as online, and direct from Princeton University Press at British and Irish Wild Flowers and Plants | Princeton University Press. Happy botanizing!

Fun on the Fylde, Sefton Coast and Wirral

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, Travel by Rail

For the third of our 2024 monthly short breaks by train, it was our usual mix of quirky attractions, art and architecture, food and drink, and of course wildlife, this time in north-west England.

First stop, an hour in Preston gave us chance to take in the bus station, recently threatened with demolition but now listed. Described as Brutalist, the curves added by Ove Arup to the car park above lend it a more Modernist feel.

And the rest of Preston also impressed us… so much so we resolved to return after the Harris museum and art gallery reopens in 2025:

On then to Blackpool. No surprises there… an out-of-season beach resort, full of faded glory, tarting itself up for the summer, west-coast-wet, and always the iconic tower – giving us the best view we have ever has out of  Premier Inn room!

… a view which remained in ever-changing form right through the night.

Of course there is much more to Blackpool than the Tower …

… but the seafront was reliably traditional, with Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls everywhere …

… but even on the Central Pier, nature was trying to burst through, Danish Scurvy-grass managing to flower between the boards among the sea-spray-rusted seats and a small flock of Eiders offshore in the silvery track of a sinking sun.

Next morning, the the seafront tram took us away from the glitz of Blackpool to Fleetwood, more down-to-earth and down-at-heel, with stone lighthouses, views north and east over the Marram to two nuclear power stations, plus the Lake District and Forest of Bowland.

But also to the initial inspiration for this whole trip, another modern listed building we first saw featured in the Guardian, St Nicholas’ Church, designed around the form of an upturned boat.

Back on the train, via Liverpool, we arrived at Crosby to see another much-anticipated sight, Another Place by Anthony Gormley, a hundred life-sized sculptures of his body along 3km of beach, each looking out to sea. Who doesn’t feel that, staring towards the horizon, there must be a better place across the water, only to realise that better place might just be in your own mind, within your grasp if only you are prepared to see it?

A very impressive installation, helped by the sun tentatively peeping out for just about the only time on our middle day, bringing the beachscape to life even without the sculptures, the interplay of water and light, and an evident richness of life with Lugworm burrows and all manner of shells.

Heading back to the station, realization that the west coast is warmer than the east, with Ivy-leaved Toadflax already in full bloom, as well as wetter … this array of five ferns in just a metre of mortar was something we simply couldn’t see at home.

And the snail feeding-trails on a garden gate showed you don’t need to be an artist to produce art!

Back onto the train, it was down to our favourite hotel, The Ship at Parkgate (we were last there eight months ago) for a sliver of sunset across the Dee before a truly sumptuous meal.

And breakfast! With Great White Egret on the menu!!

Before a walk along the estuary front, finding Ash flowers bursting like purple pearls, before heading back up to Neston station (in the rain)…

Today’s destination: Birkenhead. A revelation…! First, Hamilton Square…

… The Priory …

… the views from the Wirral Path across to the unique Liverpool skyline.

And best of all, another Guardian tip, the edifices of the ventilation system of the Mersey Tunnel: built in the 1930s, their utilitarian bulk perhaps reflecting the contemporaneous, hulking Gilbert-Scott Anglican cathedral across the river, but decorated and enlivened with lovely art-deco design features.

The largest ventilation shaft of all, 65 metres in height (needed because of its space constraints right by the river) was simply magnificent. We were actually expecting Brutalist concrete, a modern megalith, but what we got was bricks and bulk, lavishly decorated with art deco detail, not dissimilar to Battersea Power Station which featured on our January tour.

But by now a very cold breeze had sprung up, so our trip was topped off perfectly with a welcome hot coffee and even warmer welcome at Amelie’s café! A simply amazing three days.

Eastern Scotland by train: Dundee – architecture and art

Miscellaneous, Travel by Rail

A couple of weeks ago as the south baked under an unprecedented September heatwave, we had fortuitously booked a rail trip to eastern Scotland where although still lovely and sunny, the temperatures were much more amenable.

This is the first of four blogs covering those six days. Dundee for the first two nights proved to be very exciting and full of interest, and now for me a real challenger to Glasgow as my favourite Scottish city. In no small part that is down to the best-located Premier Inn we have ever been to, overlooking the ever changing beauty of the Firth of Tay, the road and rail bridges spanning the water east and west respectively.

A couple of hundred metres along the waterfront is its cultural heart, the magnificent new V&A design museum, the thing that drew us to Dundee in the first place.

A shapeshifter of a building, close up it seems to be a heavily stratified sea cliff…

… while walking into and under it has all the echoing moistness of a remote sea cave, with ever-changing reflectascapes in its rockpools:

From further away, it transforms into a cruise liner echoing Dundee’s past as a major trading port.

And then from another angle, it is nothing less than an snapping leviathan from the deep – yes, the city has a whaling past too.

A delight to be alongside, at any time of night or day:

Inside the museum there’s some photogenic building design features and interesting artwork and exhibits:

Alongside the V&A is berthed the RRS Discovery, Scott’s vessel for his first Antarctic expedition, with visitor centre:

And the Slessor Gardens, full of sculpture, art… and yes plants too, including fences cleverly reflecting the organised chaos of a reedbed!

 

Then we came to the Tay Road Bridge, a low-rise affair, but providing remarkable disappearing vistas through its underbelly…

And finally on the waterfront (for now – there are plans for an Eden Project there in the gasworks of the old East Dock), the transformed docks surrounded by historic (and modern) buildings. The dock has its historic vessels too, the HMS Unicorn and a lightship rusting into oblivion in a very fetching manner.

Away from the water, the jute-milling past of the city is now firmly in the past:  the many jute mills have mostly been demolished or repurposed as flats. But one remains to keep the memory alive, the Verdant Works museum. Described to us by a friend as ‘the best museum ever’, the other reason for us visiting Dundee, and we found it hard to disagree with that assessment.

 

Other cityscapes included the two hills rising out of it, numerous chimneys, churches, art and other buildings, many in a pleasing warm local red sandstone that didn’t match our southerners’ preconception of a dour Scots town (helped by the sunshine and blue skies!).

Our final main location was of course the Botanic Garden. More about the plants and other wildlife there in the next blog, but it also features interesting art and sculpture, along with views across the firth.

It probably says something about our age, but a highlight of our walk home from the Botanic Garden around Balgay Hill  was what we both agreed was the most comfortable park seat ever. Well done to the City Council!

More than enough to keep us fully entertained for a couple of days, it is a city to which I suspect we will return.

 

Essex Field Club and the Essex Naturalist

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, WildWivenhoe

In the county of the Essex Wildlife Trust, with more than 37,000 members one of the very largest county wildlife trusts in the country, the importance (indeed the very presence) of the Essex Field Club (fewer than 300 members) is all too easily overlooked.

Essex Field Club has a venerable history, founded in 1880 when it was a learned Victorian gentleman’s (largely) society, for the study of the natural history, geology and in those days the older archaeology of the county, although it has to be said that, in common with the times, much of their interaction with nature was at the end of a shotgun…’what’s hit is history, what’s missed is mystery‘ was the attitude of a time before high quality, portable optics and cameras, and when identification literature was scarce or absent.

To this day it remains misunderstood, the ‘F word’ being indelibly (and now wrongly) associated not with ‘field trips’ but ‘field “sports” ‘. (Note the use of ironic quotation marks – there is nothing sporting about chasing a Fox on horseback with slavering hounds, nor shooting unarmed birds.) In reality, it is the leading county organisation for the study of our wildlife and geology, by amateurs and professionals alike: knowing what we have and where, and how those have changed over time is of crucial significance to those seeking to conserve wild Essex.

As with all such clubs, it has a range of activities, both indoor and outdoor, throughout the year. But for me there are three things about EFC that stand out. Firstly it maintains a panel of county recorders for particular taxonomic groups and subject areas, experts who give their time freely to help curate the public record so that it can be relied upon as an evidence base.

Second, there is the website. In addition to the usual newsy functions, the site contains information and distribution maps for most species. Of almost everything! A few keystrokes and you can find details of previous records of a species from the county, an incredible free resource, as used for example in our blog from earlier in the year Lockdown Localism – finding rare and special invertebrates close to home.

Third and not least, there are the publications, especially the flagship transactions Essex Naturalist. And here again the website excels, with all publications going back to 1880 scanned, indexed and searchable. So this includes four volumes each of annual Journal and Transactions (1881-1884); these evolved into the Essex Naturalist, which comprises 31 volumes between 1887 and 1976, covering up to five years in each volume. From 1977 to 1992, the Essex Naturalist (New Series) vols. 1-11 were published irregularly, each being a ‘special publication’, essentially a standalone book. Essex Naturalist (New Series) reappeared in annual transactions format, edited by Colin Plant, from 1995-1998 (vols. 12to 15), before emerging into its current, larger, annual format in 1999 (vol 16), with an editorial panel, masterminded by Peter Harvey from the outset. Together, a digital treasure trove going back into the heart of the Victorian era (although the volumes since 2005 have not yet been archived), an window into the past to provide inspiration for the future – what was once, can be again, and better…

Now, the largest ever annual edition (Vol. 37, 316 pp) has just arrived with a thump on the doormat. We are very pleased to have five papers this year – this is a real lockdown bonus, giving us time to contribute to this important written record of natural world, the first time for several years. 

First one is the longest, with John Hall, a twenty page account of the ultimately successful campaign to save Lawford Tye field, home to Lunar Yellow Underwing and more, from the clutches of housing developers after Public Inquiry. Hopefully this will have useful lessons for others in a similar, sadly all-too-frequent situation.

Then an account of new botanical finds around #wildWivenhoe, including rarities hiding in plain sight as close as 20 metres from our door! As covered in a previous blog.

Next, the story (again blogged previously) of our successful campaign to encourage Beth Chatto Gardens to tackle the pollinator-murdering habits of the pond plant Thalia dealbata.

And the discovery of two new big red-and-black bugs (see past blogs here, here and here). The Firebug also features in two other papers by different authors – clearly it has arrived in a big way since 2019, especially around Harwich, but also elsewhere in Essex and adjacent counties. Coming soon  to Mallow and Lime near you!

Finally, the identification of a first for Essex, the rare sawfly Pamphilius sylvarum, after an identification gestation of 8 years, jointly with Yvonne Couch, who found the second, although first to be identified. Confused? Then read this blog.

All of this and much, much more (see Contents page above) could be yours for just £15, from the Essex Field Club. That’s 15 to buy…or why not spend the same sum, join the Club, and get Essex Naturalist along with all other member benefits for free?

 

Lockdown diary: Gallery updates

Miscellaneous

One of the opportunities of Lockdown has been the time to add to our website. Several new photo Galleries have been created, and most of the existing ones substantially added to. The announcements below give a flavour of them, but for many, many more please click on the Galleries tab at the top of the page…

 

Life on the Garden Fence – the Virgin Bagworm

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, WildWivenhoe

As a naturalist, it is not uncommon for me to be sent photos and specimens in the hope of an identification. One of the most frequent of these are the mysterious things that reside on garden fence panels, occasionally in abundance: what are those strange pupae? Why are the Blue Tits pecking at my fence?

Well, they could be pupae. Or larvae. Or adults. It is a very unusual micromoth, a bagworm called Luffia ferchaultella that lives its entire life in a silken bag, up to 6mm long, which it adorns with bits of its environment: grit, flakes of lichen etc, usually, but not always, giving it a considerable degree of camouflage.

Adults are wingless, and so look rather like larvae. And what’s more each and every one is female: they reproduce parthenogenetically, producing more flightless females – hence the English name I give them: the Virgin Bagworm. She lays her eggs inside her bag, and when they hatch, the larvae commence building their own bag while still inside their late mother’s one. In some species, perhaps including this one, one of the first meals may be the maternal body, but for the most part their larval period of a year or more is sustained by grazing on algae and lichens growing around them. Then pupation, and the short-lived adult period, maybe two weeks, necessarily short as the adult is without functional mouthparts.

All very bizarre. But that’s far from the whole story, and there’s no doubt more to be discovered. Very recently through genetic studies it has been suggested that in fact ‘Luffia ferchaultella‘ is actually no more than a parthenogenetic, female-only form of Luffia lapidella. While this has similarly flightless females, they are not parthenogenetic, mating as normal with the fully-winged males. But lapidella is known in Britain only from Cormwall and the Channel Islands, whereas ferchaultella is common throughout England, south of a line from the Humber to the Mersey…

Virgin Bagworms can be very abundant on fence panels, tree trunks, walls etc, and although only tiny, they are easily scavenged en masse by tits, Wrens and other small birds – many a morsel makes a mouthful.

Gallery of other bagworm bags from around Britain and Europe

Although not often noticed, these other species mostly have males, fully-winged albeit weak-flying, rather hairy and sombrely coloured, small to medium sized, day-flying micro moths. Their bags, however, are often seen, if you know what to look for, and most can be assigned with some confidence to a particular species…without ever seeing the inhabitant.

Gardening with Wildlife in Mind

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous

One of the regular talks I give to groups throughout East Anglia is on the topic of ‘Gardening with Wildlife in Mind’. The most frequent thing I am asked for is a list of the plants mentioned in the talk, and at long last, here it is!  This is far from being a comprehensive list of garden goodies (and baddies), just the ones that anyone who has seen the talk will have seen pictures of.

If you need more inspiration, there’s plenty out there, such as the website of the Wildlife Gardening Forum. Or better still, take a trip out to somewhere like the Beth Chatto Gardens, Elmstead Market, a few miles east of Colchester, wander round the garden on a warm day, see what the insects are visiting, and then go into the nursery and buy it, assuming your garden has the right conditions. Nature generally will point the way!

Non-native but valuable nectar/pollen sources; also fruits and seeds

Juneberry Amelanchier canadensis/lamarckii/laevis

Himalayan Honeysuckle Leycesteria formosa  (left) and Giant Viper’s Bugloss Echium pininana (centre and right)

 

Early season food sources for insects

Winter Aconite Eranthis hyemalis

Hellebores Helleborus spp.

Late season food sources for insects

Michaelmas Daisies Aster spp. (left) and Hemp-agrimony Eupatorium maculatum ‘Atropurpureum’ (right)

Useful leaves, for larval feeding and nest-making

Stinging Nettle Urtica dioica

Mulleins Verbascum spp. (Mullein moth caterpillar,  right)

Roses Rosa spp. (leaf-cutter bee, right)

Double flowered plants to be avoided (cultivars)

Kerria Kerria japonica ‘Pleniflora’ (left) and Guelder-rose Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’ (right)

But the original wild -types are useful…

Shelter – breeding and roosting (and often much, much more…)

Leyland Cypress xCupressocyparis leylandii

Ivy Hedera helix

Gardening in the Global Greenhouse

Closing the winter nectar gap

Mahonia Mahonia sp. (left) and Laurustinus Viburnum tinus (right)

Drought-tolerant, insect-friendly, beautiful: the borders of the future

Sun-roses Cistus spp.

Sea-hollies Eryngium spp.

Giant Herb Roberts Geranium palmatum and G. maderense

Rosemary Rosmarinus officinalis  (left) and Lavenders Lavandula spp. (centre, right)

Jerusalem-sages Phlomis spp.

Sages Salvia spp.

Possible pests – ones to watch…or ideally avoid

Hottentot-fig Carpobrotus spp.

If you want to know more, glean a few more  ideas, and  find out the reason why my talk is called Gardening with Wildlife in Mind (as opposed to Wildlife Gardening, for example), you can always book me! My rates and a full list of talks can be found here.

Lichenscapes, Groundscapes, Beachscapes and Reflectascapes

Miscellaneous

   

Those who have seen, and hopefully enjoyed, the photos on our blogs will realise that our photos are pretty standard mementos of a walk or a holiday, or some such excuse to write a blog!

But over the (digital) years we have amassed getting on for 200,000 images, and it has long been our ambition to get more of them ‘out there’ and onto this website. We have the Galleries section, and we now intend to use it! The older galleries will be updated in due course, but after a wet and windy late winter period, conducive to spending time in front of the computer, we have launched the first four new galleries: Lichenscapes, Groundscapes, Beachscapes and Reflectascapes.

These are thematic galleries, drawn from our efforts across the years and across Europe. By focusing on these themes, we hope to draw the eye to perhaps unexpected and underappreciated artistic elements of the world we inhabit, colours, forms and textures which we might fail to see if we concentrate only on that which is before us at the time.

So, here we have the first few, each illustrated with a few representative shots from the gallery:

Lichenscapes – the symbiotic ‘art-attack’ which adorns so many inhospitable corners of the world, from mountain rocks, to sea cliffs, to fence posts, to gravestones, and many more;

Groundscapes – come the autumn, as leaves fall from trees, the ground below becomes cloaked in a mantle, tessellating colours and shapes, each characteristic of the type of tree above;

Beachscapes – it is said that a local, stranded in fog on Chesil Beach, can tell where they are from the shape, size and colour of the pebbles at their feet. And so it is with beaches more generally, each tells a unique story of the interaction of geology, tide, weather and Man;

and Reflectascapes – the reflective properties of water are a staple of landscape art and photography. The water’s surface may try to capture the sky and its surroundings, but never quite manages to reproduce it faithfully. It is the mutations, the unpredictable uncertainties and hesitations, that can fill many a happy hour staring at an otherwise familiar vista.

We hope this taster will encourage you to look at the full galleries.

Why Eyes?

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous

      WHY EYES?                                       

SURPRISE!

Peacock butterfly flashes his wing –

Enough to startle a predator

Who may think again

 

 

DISGUISE!

Looking like a fearsome beast

This caterpillar may deter a bird

From making of him a feast

 

 

 

FOUR EYES!

Could two extra eyes upon the shoulder

Make this bug

Feel even bolder?

 

 

 

HORSEFLIES!

Bold headlights of bright green and blue

Ommatidia by the thousand

Such a joy for me and you

 

 

Pipers at the Gates of Dawn

Britain's Wildlife, Miscellaneous, WildWivenhoe

At the Gates of Dawn we stood and listened
To the piping song which filled our hearts
And souls with joy.

Why do they sing so?

At the Gates of Dawn we filled our lungs
And shouted out to the whole world
To announce the day.

Why do they listen so?

To survive we need to attract a mate,
Defend our space, alert a danger
Of a stranger.

That’s why we sing so.

In this world of greed we have a need
To feed on good things, calm things,
Nature

That’s why we listen so.

By Jude, inspired by our recent Dawn Chorus walk.

 

Extinction Rebellion: #WeAreWinning

Miscellaneous, Travel by Rail

Extinction Rebellion? You must have been living on another planet not to have heard of this environmental movement, and the impact it has been making not only on our capital, but all over the UK and the world in the past few days.  And depending on which press you choose to read, you will probably already have a pre-conceived idea of what the Rebels are all about…. litter-dropping, destructive and disruptive louts? or peace-loving people, caring about all of our futures?

We decided to find out for ourselves and went up to the old smoke on Tuesday.  On the approach to Parliament Square the rhythmic drumming of samba drums could be heard, beckoning us, but our first attempt at reaching the large crowd was foiled by a chain of police in hi-viz jackets blocking the route from Westminster station.  Frustration!  But we were spurred on by the many gently swaying flags held aloft by protestors in the square itself, particularly by a most beautiful one of a Garden Tiger Moth.  A very special creature to me, a fond reminder of my childhood when they were plentiful, but now sadly  now very rare, and possibly heading for extinction along with so many other species.

Undaunted, we found an alternative way in and discovered the Square to be full of many hundreds of gentle ‘rebellers’ –  individuals, couples, families and groups.  The drumming had temporarily ceased, and all were listening to the MC outlining the plan for the day (namely the writing of letters to our individual MPs and using our democratic right to request an audience with them, or at least to get the chance to deliver a letter).  Guest speakers provided inspiration and hope – Rupert Read, Green activist; Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South,  and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, MP for Brighton Kemptown; we sang and listened to poetry.

The ‘sharing attitude’ of this movement was very apparent – total strangers offering suntan lotion, pens and paper to write letters, or just stopping to chat.  Free vegan food was available to all – served on paper plates with non-plastic cutlery.  Even with the lunch-time eating and drinking, no scrap of litter could be seen anywhere. Yes!!  A David Attenborough life-size cut-out figure looked down benignly on us all, and at least three protesters had set up camp high in the trees, complete with hammocks and ropes. Chris remarkably found himself sitting next to the son of a former colleague, whose website banner detailed the plight of the arctic ice. See www.arcticdeathspiral.org

 

Having written our letters, with polite demands to support Caroline Lucas’ Early Day Motion 2177 signalling a UK-wide climate emergency, for radical rethinking of carbon policies, the formation of a People’s Assembly and most importantly for ‘them’ to tell the truth, we were shepherded over to Parliament House to (hopefully) get the chance to lobby our MP.  Fortunately being near the front of the queue meant only (!) an hour and a half’s wait but our fellow queuers were great company and the police and liaison officers are to be commended on their humour and efficiency – certainly no sign of heavy-handedness, but of course there was no need as everyone was perfectly calm and peaceful.

Unfortunately our MP, Bernard Jenkin, was ‘unavailable’ (as, shamefully, Theresa May was earlier in the day when Greta Thunberg dropped into the Houses of Parliament) but a group of us was addressed (and listened to) by Gillian Keegan, MP for Chichester.  And she did take on board some of our thoughts and proposals – eg why can’t all new properties be required to be built with solar roofs.  It seems so obvious, doesn’t it?

Whilst we were all in the waiting room as MPs were contacted but few materialised, a live screening of the climate change debate was being aired, in which Ed Miliband had asked searching questions of the Minister. It was disappointing to see how few MPs (particularly Tories it must be said) were actually in attendance at this most important of issues (surely?). However we must all rise above party politics in this emergency situation. We found the red-tape involved in trying to contact our elected representatives tiresome; unfortunately were ultimately unable even to leave a letter due to possible contamination and so instead we will be emailing and tweeting and posting our letter, so Mr Jenkin will be able to see how we are feeling.  If anyone reading this is minded to do similar then please do!

Despite these niggles, it was a fabulous, heart-warming day, well organised, calm, friendly with everyone on the same side.  Long may the movement continue; we shall support it as much as we can.

Such an important message held aloft for all to see here……and as another banner proclaimed ‘ Respect Existence, or Expect Resistance’.  Couldn’t have put it better myself…