Let me tell you the tale of
how I ended up staying the night with a wonderful couple, Sue and
Doug Hilton, in the bedroom of Sir Peter Scott.
Last
year I found out one evening that after a day birding at Cliffe Pools
and Northwood Hill, both RSPB reserves, and whilst being on a tour of
all the RSPB and WWT nature reserves, I had missed three RSPB
reserves that were back at Cliffe.
I
retraced my tracks and found them all and decided that as a reward I
would have a full English breakfast in a cafe I had seen the day
before located beside a huge chalk pit.
On
entering the esptablishment I noticed one of my favourite books, Paul
Gallico's Snow Goose, on a top shelf. It was the special edition
illustrated by Sir Peter Scott's beautifully painted plates. Back in
the day when I was a Primary school teacher I used to read this story
to the children. A very special, beautiful and heart-rending tale,
the story tells of an disfigured artist, Rhayader living alone in a
lighthouse far out on a lonely saltmarsh in Essex.
(interesting side story to this portrait taken from the book . . . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/artsales/9138774/Unseen-portrait-of-novelist-and-beauty-Elizabeth-Howard-emerges.html )
A young girl,
Frith, scared because of village gossip, overcomes her fear and takes
an injured bird to him, a snow goose. Rhadayer heals the poor lost
Princess and a friendship grows between the girl and man but only
when the snow goose is present. As soon as the snow goose returns to
the North Lands, the girl leaves.
The
story develops until one day Rhayader goes to help rescue the British
soldiers on the beach at Dunkirk.
The
Wildfowl & wetland Trust are re-issuing the book with the same
artwork by Sir Peter later in the year and I urge you all to get in
touch with the WWT and buy a copy.
The
fundrasing by the WWT in order to reissue was very successful and
from their webpage detailing this is the following text:
The
Snow Goose
A
novella no thicker than a love letter, in which every sentence seems
to shiver with the salt-laden chill of the desolate landscape in
which it is set.
It
is a love story between an uneducated village girl who comes to visit
the hunchback outcast artist in his lighthouse bearing a wounded snow
goose for him to heal is so well-known, perhaps because of its
fable-like quality. The silence and growing sympathy of the first
two-thirds of the novella, broken only by the cries of the wild
birds, is in stark contrast to the noisy clamour of the conclusion,
related entirely in dialogue between soldiers in the pub and officers
in their club, who witnessed the man in his little boat and his
heroic attempts to rescue the stranded men from the Dunkirk beaches.
It
has been hugely influential to work over the years and we believe it
still has the power to inspire today:• Michael Morpurgo cites it as
an influence on War Horse• The inspiration for William Fiennes’
The Snow Geese• Lisa Allardice’s Guardian Winter Reads 2011 - “It
may not be free from sentimentality, but this sad, sweet tale has an
elemental power that makes it soar”
Peter
Scott
Peter
Scott was the father of modern conservation founding WWF, the IUCN
Red List of Threatened Species & WWT, whose 70th anniversary is
this year.
Not
only did he illustrate the best selling 1946 edition, but he also
inspired the book itself as an Olympic medallist in sailing who kept
a wildfowl collection at his lighthouse before the war and served at
sea during it.
My
breakfast ordered, I chatted with the ladies behind the counter and
asked why the book was on the shelf. They explained that the owner of
the cafe and lake ran a nature conservation charity called the Snow
Goose Trust. They phoned the owner, Doug Hilton and despite being
very busy and needing to get to the House of Commons to lobby the MP
Eric Pickles over a local environmental issue, he came and sat with
me for over an hour telling me the story of why The Snow Goose.
Doug
told me the whole story of how Sir Peter met Paul Gallico and invited
him to stay at a lighthouse, a lighthouse far out on a lonely
saltmarsh.
Here
the two collaborated on the Snow Goose story and book. Doug
embellished the story with many details of a love for an American ice
skater unrequited and made the links between the story of Rhayader
and the life of Sir Peter in the lighthouse; artist, wildlife lover
and WW2 hero.
Back
in 2010 Doug had bought a lighthouse far out on a saltmarsh in
Lincolnshire, the home of a certain Sir Peter Scott from 1933 to
1939.
Then
Doug repeated Sir Peter's invitation to Paul Gallico by inviting me
to stay at the lighthouse.
So
here I was, over a year later, cycling up the long lane towards the
ex-home of my childhood hero.
Into
the beautiful home that Doug and Sue, his wife are carefully and
painstakingly restoring to former glory. Into the lighthouse with
dining table in the bottom floor room and misshapen door and stairway
to access the upper rooms. Up the first flight of stairs and into Sir
Peter's bedroom.
Up
a steeper set of steps and into another empty room and up an almost
vertical set of steps and into the light room.
Outside
where a long pool with attendant wildfowl could have been taken from
Slimbridge, the HQ of the WWT, itself. A bridge over the lake is
modelled on a Monet picture and the one end landscaped to take on the
southern features of The Wash.
Red-breasted
geese, a small group of pink-footed geese showing still the effects
of the guns that brought them to this sanctuary and …..
snow
geese.
An
evening with Doug and Sue flies by as conversation about aspirations
for not only the lighthouse, with a planned visitor's centre about to
be built but also of Doug's conviction to help nature in practical
ways through future housing development planning laws, is one of
those wonderful experiences where one could listen forever and wonder
at the energy and commitment.
To
bed and where else could I sleep but on the first floor of the
lighthouse, Sir Peter's old bedroom.
The
morning tour and photographs and goodbyes. I cycle off towards the
next bird but stop after just a few hundred yards. There is a pair of
barnacle geese beside the river and with them . . . a snow goose.
I've a copy of that book I picked up many years ago in a second hand bookshop.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed a beautiful story & beautifully illustrated.
Keep up the good work, fate works mysteriously & meeting the new owners & staying in his very room sounds almost fated. :)
Sorry I haven't seen your comment in the intervening years. Fated indeed, a magic encounter. All the best, Gary
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