An ode to my grandparents, thanks for the Escape Pod.

A foreword (or Wise-word, I suppose – if you like that sort of thing). 

This blog, in quite a few ways is a departure from my regular go-lucky scheduling - don’t worry it’s not a completely heart-wrecking piece I promise, unless you’re emotional in which case maybe have a box of tissues handy. Anyone who knows me intimately will tell you that I rarely share my more negative emotions – not out of some weird stoicism and desire to appear strong and confident, but rather a weirdly deep personal commitment to pretending everything is fine, not to the benefit of anyone but rather my personal life tends to get rather busy, and emotions get in the way of things I find. 

If you are looking for a more light-heated read, I’d suggest my previous entries – they’re pretty good and can also be found on the Biodiversity Literacy website that you’re likely reading this on. Although this is one that’s more from the heart rather than the brain. 

The Blog 

Growing up, as people semi-unfortunately tend to do, I have incredibly fond memories of those who were in my life for the shortest periods, which unfortunately tends to be a recurring pattern in my life – absence makes the heart grow fond I suppose, particularly though my maternal grandparents, Ken and Phil. 

The staunch Irish woman she was, Phil (short for Mary Philomena Duffy – apologies if you somehow thought my grandparents were the first case of a queer male relationship adopting in the UK) spent a majority of my childhood taking me to church, before her dementia worsened, where I spent a majority of my childhood with my mum taking her to church instead in a role-reversal situation. 

My grandad, Kenneth Faraway, spent the two- and a-bit years we overlapped in the world teaching me about the various garden birds in his garden. He would sit on his white plastic bench outside the kitchen in the back garden of 12 King Edward Road, smoking whilst I ate toast, pointing at the blue tits that returned yearly to nest in his bird box on the shed. They had these little blue hats that looked like coiffs of dyed hair with far too much hairspray and darted back and forth with a frantic energy I couldn’t quite grasp as a (fairly) carefree child. I now know that blue tits need to find hundreds of morsels of food a day to feed a single clutch of chicks. Every day! No wonder they looked like they were running out of time – I enjoyed particularly being able to have them come so close to us – it was my own little personal zoo to 2-year-old Wiseman. I am incredibly glad of my ability to have these thoughts at a young-age, I’d like to think that my little brain knew to remember these things, but in truth it was probably just chance. 

It’s that same plastic bench where my grandad smoked what I presume to have been his last cigarette before having a heart attack and departing this world. 

Cheery, I know! 

Phil, my gran, I am happier to say, spent a considerably relatively longer amount of time shaping my formative years. I didn’t particularly understand her dementia fuelled oddities till I was older, but I did understand her passion for a walk. 

I spent a great many weekends having ‘sleepovers’ at her house around the corner – my mum’s cunning plan and way of ensuring I spent time with my Gran whilst also helping her as her mind began to fray (and ensure she didn’t put milk in the kettle…). We would wake up, watch the birds from the kitchen window as she plopped me up by the sink whilst my cheese on toast grilled, and then walk Jack, her rather aptly named Jack Russell, around Hangman’s wood. 

Hangman’s wood was nestled neatly behind my house (plus about two roads) an ancient oak woodland seemingly slotted into Suburban/Rural Grays, Essex. To me, and my family, it was always just ‘the woods’. To the wider surroundings it was a relic of an older time, an older Essex that has somehow survived the ever-growing concrete shuffle (you can’t barn-dance to that one, sorry) of the A13. It had slow worms - something I found out whilst recording the VIP podcast aren’t indeed snakes but rather legless lizards – creatures that decided legs were overrated, evolutionarily speaking, and did away with them. They would bask on the edges of the trimmed paths, and my Gran would breeze past them without breaking stride, presumably muttering some prayer or other under her breath as she tended to do, not knowing that, in a similar manner to our walks, they were also creatures of habit. Slow worms are largely secretive, sedentary, and territorial (the comparisons between me and animals continue...) and the slow worms we used to see were likely the same ones over and over – which makes me want to go back and start looking at them harder now... The woods, much like my Granny’s pockets, were a condensed mishmash of different things – in her pockets mostly sweets, but the woods? Life – the woods contained bats flitting about at dusk (the woods are now a Site of Special Scientific Interest and you can find three bat species there (Brown long-eared bats, Natterer’s bat, and Daubenton’s bat – all of which would occasionally visit my garden unbeknownst to little me who thought all bats were weird looking night birds) as well as many jays screeching and moving acorns about the place, although moving doesn’t really do a jay justice. A single jay can move thousands of acorns across the year and store them for later use, although similarly to me I often lose things, and, and they do too, causing oaks to grow around the woods – secret oak planting, I like their style. And of course, what would the woods without what seemed to be an endless field of brambles with a supply of blackberries that stained my finger purple for days, and when I grew up began supplying my blackberries for brambles (a personal favourite cocktail of mine). 

At university and before I have frequently wondered where my passion and joy surrounding the outdoors and nature came from, given my fairly urban upbringing and my only exposure to camping being cubs/scouts/explorers and that was more about surviving outside than enjoying being there. I hated Essex. I hated Grays! It wasn’t and isn’t a nice area (although I had a knack for taking some nice photos of it as you’ll see). I had a questionable time at school in a Catholic Science Academy (I’m not quite sure either...) in East London being queer. None of that mattered as much as it should have though, because when I wanted to escape the realities of where I lived, where I was in life and when people would say hurtful things, I could step outside. 

Losing those key figures in my life was like having a heavy, locked, impenetrable door slammed shut on that part of my world. Walking the dogs felt like a chore, so I stopped going. Walking past my grandparent’s house after Gran was put in a home – and then again after we sold it – felt like a heavy punch to my memories of that lino-floored, fluorescently lit kitchen with it’s weird green accents. I avoided the woods. I stopped looking for blue tits. I didn’t see the slow worms and jays again. 

Several parts of my life have come and gone. Family, dogs, friends, houses, partners. What hasn’t changed – what I’ve come to realise – is the inheritance my grandparent’s actually left me, the ability to walk outside, sit down, and exist. Not as a student, not as a real person with a messy personal life, a huge overdraft, bills, deadlines and a fairly busy schedule, but as a part of nature.  

I finally now understand why my grandad pointed at those birds so insistently. He wasn’t teaching my ornithology or ecology. He was handing me keys to my own personal escape pod. I'd like to think knew he wouldn’t have much longer on that bench with me and wanted to make sure I knew how to find that door to the outside on my own. 

This is not to say I wouldn’t have had this ability without them, but now when I spend time in nature, I feel immediately more grounded and connected with them. 

Phil and Ken are gone. The house with the lino is someone else’s kitchen now and likely rennovated past recognition. That plastic bench is probably long gone, and god knows what happened to the shed, and its bird box. Jack the Jack Russell is long gone, probably secretly in Grays Cemetery with my grandad, much like Rusty (a dog before my time). The blue tits are still around, probably not the same ones of course but they’re still there. They don’t care that bench is empty or gone. They’re still out there, trying to find the hundredth bug before sunset. 

A few years back, I built a box. It’s not as good as my grandad’s. I used probably too much varnish, and the front hole is probably too big. But I put it up anyway in my old garden.  

I don’t genuinely think we owe it to nature to engage with it, which I suppose is counterintuitive to the point of these blogs – to engage people with nature. But I do think we owe it to the people who sat on that metaphorical bench before us. We owe it to ourselves, for the days where those harsh fluorescent lights of our kitchen are too harsh. Nature is the respite from humanity. 

If you’re reading this for the module (Will) feel free to tick the box, write the response, walk the walk and grade the grade, so to speak – but if you’re reading this and you hear traffic or your own music rather than birdsong, I implore you to do something for me. Go outside. Find that dandelion pushing through a crack in the paving slabs, find a crow hopping about the place, find a roly poly under a rock, and find out a fact about it. Doesn’t have to be anything complex – not an essay, just something to know. That’s what my grandad did, he handed me a fact each time we sat on that bench, one slice of toast at a time. If you have the time, look for those frantic blue-haired/ blue-capped birds. Look for those legless lizards pretending to be a snake. Watch them live for a few minutes. Look for the keys to your escape pod. That’s it, that’s my call to action. 

Find your escape hatch, it’s always open, but you can’t expect it to work without putting some effort in. 

Phil and Ken, I miss you and will always do. Thanks for anything, thanks for my personal keys to the escape hatch, and thanks for being there for me. 

Thanks, Ken, for Alex Airways – that paper aeroplane is still on my notice board, and Phil your name tag is too. 

The old woods!

My old walk to work

A friend from the garden below

The old garden before we moved