Until recently, I didn’t watch much television. I would tune in to sports events, or the odd documentary, but most TV seemed fairly tedious – which is another way of saying that there aren’t many programmes on offer for my demographic. With the arrival of my grandson, however, I find myself glued to the screen for all kinds of children’s shows, from reruns of In the Night Garden to winsome cartoons about talking vegetables.
My runaway favourite, however, is Ranger Hamza’s Eco Quest, in which the eponymous Hamza Yassin leads small groups of children through a country park, or a wildlife corridor, or along the banks of an old canal, to see what they can find of the natural world. What is special about the show is partly Hamza’s infectious enthusiasm, and partly his ability to explain fairly complicated ideas about different ecosystems to his young audience. Where the programme most excels, however, is the way it communicates a sense of wonder, not only about the more obviously exciting creatures the party encounters (a beaver, say), but also about every plant and insect and passing bird that they stop to investigate.
A sense of wonder: there can be no greater faculty to encourage in a child than this apprehension of a living, complex, infinitely interesting world that exists, not in some faraway, exotic place, but right on her doorstep. Nothing is more character-forming than enthusiasm, and the capacity for openness and attentiveness it fosters.
Rachel Carson says it best: “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from our sources of strength.” That final remark reminds us of the myth of Antaeus, the giant born of Poseidon and Gaia who was invincible in combat, just so long as he remained in contact with his mother, the Earth. When that contact was lost, his strength bled away. As with so many of the Greek myths, we overlook this story’s significance at our peril.
I say this as someone who, all too often, finds himself locked into “the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial”, even though I have only to step out of my office and walk a few hundred yards to witness the wonderful going about its business.
This lunchtime, for instance, instead of sitting at my computer nibbling a cereal bar, I could walk to the low cliff over Castle Sands – just a few minutes away – to watch the fulmars as they wander back and forth along the cliff face, occasionally dropping in on a neighbour for a bout of what looks like gossip; heads bobbing, beaks wide, two seasoned wanderers taking turns in a noisy exchange of chirrups and cackling cries for several minutes before the visitor eventually rises and wheels away.
These conversations are intriguing, but what is truly wonderful about the fulmar is its graceful, seemingly effortless flight. Though they are sometimes mistaken for gulls, these birds, who are more closely related to petrels and albatrosses, are long-haul marine rovers who spend most of their lives in the sea wind. They only come to land during the breeding season, which means that they are not only highly elegant in flight but are also capable of surviving the wildest weather that our northern seas can throw at them.
On a sunny spring afternoon, however, as they soar out across the sands and then back in slow waves, they are the very picture of graceful, easy movement, living antidotes to the artificial life we so stolidly endure, all the while waiting to recapture a child’s sense of wonder.
[See also: Nostalgia reveals nature’s true value]
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This article appears in the 03 Apr 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Fragile Crown