The Wild Places of Essex

[Ian M]

This is a documentary, part of the Natural World strand, made with Robert McFarlane, the author of Wild Places. Taking Essex as an example of the most apparently unpromising location for wild places (apart from the usual jokes about Friday night in Basildon), he finds examples everywhere amongst the industrialisation, urbanisation and wastelands. Falcons wheeling above the power station, pockets of ancient woodland, barn owls, water voles - all existing alongside the urban jungle. Most importantly it is beautifully shot, with an eye for the strange and remarkable natural world which often passes by unnoticed. It is the sort of film which will make you look again at your environment, realising that you don't have to go to remote places to find natural wonders. Good soundtrack as well.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qsxy5

[Des]

Thanks for this, Ian - although my TV is broken I will hopefully see this on the iplayer.

Essex is indeed a great place for wildlife, especially for urban ecology nuts like me - I love the gritty interface between the natural and industrial landscapes. As a frequent visitor to Rainham Marshes I can thoroughly recommend the county - it's well worth exploring.

[Des]

Just watched it - one of the most beautiful natural history films I've ever seen.

[Ian M]

Really glad you liked it. I wanted to draw people's attention to it because it is not really a wildlife or natural history programme in the usual sense of the word. It is just a beautiful film which changes the way you think about the natural world around us, and deserves to be seen by a far wider audience who might assume it is just another natural history programme.

[Ted]

I knew nearly all the places in this film. Beautifully shot (and carefully framed) it makes them look rather more picturesque than they actually are. Thats not to deny their beauty, but if you go and stand by the estuary at Bradwell the huge, tatty nuclear power station exercises a sort of psychic dominance over the scenery in a way that a documentary can't really capture. Knowing what was just out of frame in some of the shots made me smile.

The place I love most for this kind of stuff is Orford Ness, which is just over the border in Suffolk. It's an island that was used for weapons testing until the sixties. It's been left to go wild and the strangely shaped concrete shelters and test platforms are gradually being reclaimed by nature. I love it for its strangeness. Very J.G. Ballard.

[howard male]

Well, at least I now know where I’ll be going for my summer holidays this year!

But seriously, thanks for this tip-off, Ian. I must confess the title alone, or even a half decent write-up, might not have prompted me to watch this film, but I’m really glad I did. It was the content of the voice-over which lent the experience an extra richness, I felt. And even our cat (who shows little interest in 99% of TV) loved the falcon footage.

Much of the imagery also made me think of the 20th Century painter, John Nash. I’ve just been reviewing a brilliant new exhibition of his quietly disturbing landscapes at the Dulwich Picture Gallery (I’ll post a link as soon as it’s up on the Arts Desk). The only difference was that Nash had no interest in including either people or animals in his very English, haunted by war, landscapes. Although there is one of those spooky white owls flying low over the ocean of mangle German fighter planes (as if to mock them, perhaps) in Totes Meer (Dead Sea.) I could have watched a whole hour of nothing but footage of that remarkable bird.

[Des]

I could have watched a whole hour of nothing but footage of that remarkable bird.

Nothing compares to seeing the real thing - it's a bird that was rare when I started birding but whose population is now in a very healthy state and is now easy to see in suitable habitat.

I loved the bits about Deakin and Baker too.

[Hugh Weldon]

Visually quite stunning. I'm not so sure about McFarlane though. I've skimmed through his book and it struck me as a mite pretentious. I'm sure there is better and deeper stuff to be done on English landscape. It reminded me of that other big disappointment W.G.Sebald and his walk along the Norfolk coast - yes he describes it all and gives you the history but for me both are essentially too posh and clever touristy. I don't know, I just want more muddy boots, freezing fingers, encounters with aggressive dogs, sex and drugs and rock and roll. Or something.

[Des]

Norfolk coast

Suffolk actually.

Richard Mabey is still the best nature writer we have. I'm off to see him give a talk in Bristol tonight and I hope I have the guts to talk to him afterwards. Mark Cocker is also excellent.

Historically, Jefferies and Hudson are essential reading for anyone interested in the English landscape.

[jackdaw version]

. . . I just want more muddy boots, freezing fingers, encounters with aggressive dogs, sex and drugs and rock and roll. Or something.

Read the book, don't just skim it. Lots of muddy boots and freezing fingers. Perhaps the other stuff you're looking for isn't to be found in what you seem to consider a landscape book — which is far from what Wild Places is. But McFarlane does climb trees and go swimming in odd places as homage to Roger Deakin.

[Des]

...and Mark Cocker, in Crow Country, gives a great description of the sheer misery of getting cold in Dumfries, and getting frighteningly lost in the Yare valley on a winter's evening that is highly evocative of many outdoor excursions.

Again, it amuses me how some metropolitan types want everything described to them and have no interest in getting out and doing it themselves.

[howard male]

As promised, here's a link to my Paul Nash review at the Arts Desk. You can just about see the white owl in the reproduction of Nash's 'Totes Meer (Dead Sea.)

http://tinyurl.com/yb4xnm8

[Des]

There was a review of the Paul Nash on Front Row last night - I think there is a fundamental difference between his vision of nature and that of McFarlane though - whereas Nash is constantly fretting about the fragility of nature in the face of Man's destructive influence, the Wild Places of Essex celebrates nature's resilience. It is this aspect that makes McFarlane so compelling for me and informs my own response to the natural world.

Having said that, Nash is very underrated and I hope to go to the exhibition.

PS I've always assumed Nash is representing a gull, not an owl in Dead Sea as that corresponds more neatly to the tradition of seagulls being thought of as the souls of dead sailors.

[Hugh Weldon]

Jonathan

Read the book, don't just skim it.

Ok, I've just ordered it. Though I fear I might find myself sympathising with some of the more negative comments amongst the Amazon reviews, which echoed my first response to my skim, eg:

"Much of this book seems to me to be pompous and smug...There's also this slightly sanctimonious and quasi spiritual tone throughout - very hard to put my finger on, but it irritates me - it reminds of the writing that fills the pages of Resurgance magazine; all rainbows and wonder....It's modish, of course, part of a current movement, and self-consciously "beautifully written" in that creative-writing-school, hothouse-lexis sort of way. But is there any real connection here, any passion and experiential richness? Or are we just being asked to admire the imposition of a writing scheme upon a subject-area about which, if we're to take his finally consigning "The Wild Places" complacently and uncaringly to a kind of post-apocalyptic Ballard-world, the author appears ultimately to care very little?"

But I'll report back in due course.

[jackdaw version]

Come on, Hugh, you don't take those Amazon reviews for gospel, do you? I'd disagree with just about every point in the one you just quoted. And, if you're unconvinced, why not just get the book out of the library?