What will you miss most if your hearing begins to diminish? Those secretly overheard snippets of conversation on the bus? The throwaway comments of partner or child? A great Shakespearean in full flow on the stage of the National? High on my list would be the Dawn Chorus. Once it starts up again in full orchestral mode you know for sure that winter is on the wane and spring must come. That cacophony of trills and warbles is a convincing restatement of nature’s invincibility. We might be doing all we can to destroy the environment but the birds are still singing loud enough to wake you from the deepest sleep. To no longer hear it every morning would be a crushing blow, an absence of hope.
Even in the heart of the city the song of a single blackbird can be deafening above the din of traffic. A lunchtime sandwich in a West End square would not be the same without the sound of sparrows cheeping. Birdsong, even in this high-tech world, is so much part of the fabric of life it’s no surprise it’s always featured strongly on radio. Back in 1923 the first ‘live’ outside broadcast was of the cellist Beatrice Harrison playing a duet with the nightingales in her Surrey garden. The broadcast became an annual event.
No Radio 4 year would be complete without a new series about birds by Brett Westwood and the sound recordist Chris Watson. And when back in 1991 Quentin Howard wanted to test the transmitters of the new Classic FM station before it went properly on air, he used a 40-minute recording of the birds in his garden, creating such a buzz among the listening world it’s become a permanent fixture of the airwaves (check it out on www.birdsongradio.com). As far as I know, though, we’ve never before had a Tweet of the Day, dedicated each morning to the song of a single bird.
When this was first announced as the latest big series on Radio 4 (produced by Sarah Blunt), I wondered why anyone would want to tune in at 5.58 for a wake-up call of birdsong. All you have to do (even if you live in the centre of Peckham) is fling open the bedroom window and get a blast of the real thing. But after just a few days I’m converted.
It’s surprising how much you can pack into just 90 seconds of airtime. That’s only about 200 words max, given that we’ve also got to hear something of the bird, but so far on each day I’ve learnt something I didn’t know before. On Monday we had the call of the cuckoo before this month’s presenter, David Attenborough, gave us lines from Wordsworth (‘Shall I call thee bird,/ Or but a wandering voice’), a brief description of the cuckoo and the story of its migration each spring from the equatorial forests of central Africa to the British Isles (the most extraordinary cuckoos I’ve ever heard were on Mull). So far so much understood.
Attenborough then explained that because our ancestors didn’t understand about migration and why the cuckoos stopped singing in winter they used to think they turned into sparrowhawks. Brilliant! Last week in the park I saw a greyish bird, with barred plumage and a long tail but none of the predatory air of a hawk, and was baffled. No longer.
The Radio 4 series of conversations on a theme, One to One, also packs a lot into its short slot, just 15 minutes of airtime (or 2,200 words max.). This month it’s the turn of Ritula Shah to explore a ‘personal passion’ by talking to just one person with a story to tell on that theme. Shah was brought up as a Jain and the focus of her conversations will be Renunciation, which is central to that religion, giving up not just material things, such as possessions and family, but also spiritual ownership, turning your back on ego, self-importance and pride. Shah herself has renounced her faith but she is still intrigued by it. Why, she asked her first guest Satish Kumar, talking to him at the Jain Temple in Potters Bar, did you choose to be a Jain monk, taking to the road with a begging bowl.
His father died when he was four, he explained, ‘and seeing my mother crying I wanted to get rid of death… The only way to get rid of death is to renounce the world.’
What did your mother feel about this? Shah asked.
She gave me her blessing, said Kumar. As a Jain she was willing to renounce her right to her son.
How have your experiences as a monk influenced your attitude to death? ‘I’m less fearful,’ said Kumar. ‘I welcome death. Death is liberating. Renouncing my worldly ties has given me freedom from the fear of death. It’s given me the self-awareness that death is only a transformation from this body… My life-force will continue.’ His calm conviction was appealing.
Comments