Happy places (1)

We all need our happy places. These happy places become our mind's bolt-holes, a mechanism to reset, good for our mental wellbeing and act as refuges in times of trouble or uncertainty. They can stabilise our thought processes, remove us from the present if the present is somewhat unpalatable or, if we just wish to embark on a bit of happy time-travelling, are a ready made destination to do so. And - because they exist in reality, are beacons of calmness to be visited when time and logistics allow.

Fortunately I have several happy places. It will come as no surprise to long-time readers of this blog that Dungeness is one of them. To save on any repetition I will not dwell there as my reasons for its inclusion have already been shared with you down the years. But there are others. For a happy place to become a happy place can take years to be accepted as such or it may be instantaneously given the honour. Off the top of my head here is the first of my (non-Dungeness) happy places. Others will follow!

Beddington Sewage Farm, Surrey. The place no longer exists in the form that my memory recalls and the specific spot that my memory takes me to has altered beyond recognition. It is a happy place created by time and probably has become a happy place partly because it is now unobtainable. I'd better explain. During the late-summer and early-autumns of 1975 and 1976 I was making several visits a week to the sewage farm, driven largely by the presence of passage waders. These migrants were stopping at the farm to feed on the settling beds, which were banked earth squares filled with drying sludge, full of food for the Green, Common and Wood Sandpipers, Dunlin, Greenshanks, Snipe and Ruffs to feed on. There was a group of three settling beds that were consistently the best for attracting these most sought after of birds and it was to these beds that I feverishly visited. Remember, I was at the beginning of my birding journey and these visits were still an exciting novelty, with my familiarity of waders still in its infancy. To have them appear so close to home, way inland, was something that amazed me. And, to heighten the experience, the summers of '75 and '76 were both blessed with sun and warmth, so my memories are golden in more than one way. To get to these settling beds I had to cross the evocatively named Cuckoo Lane (a green track that ran west to east, bordered by a mature Hawthorn hedgerow) and duck under the boughs of a large fallen willow, cross a culvert, and creep up the earth banks to peer into the sludge beyond. The vegetation growing on these banks was lush with hemlock, nettle and goosegrass, covering my clothing in sticky balls and my skin with rash - but it didn't matter, my mind was totally focused on the birds. It may have been Greater London, but that green lane, water-filled culvert and fallen willow were like Norfolk to me, with a touch of the Kenneth Graham's and Jack Hargreaves's about it all. My excitement as I looked across the sludge has never - and I mean never - been repeated whilst birding. What would there be? Had the waders increased in number? Any new species? I had to stay still as birds would be hidden, feeding behind vegetation or fly in to settle from other beds. It was here that I would listen to the utterances of Snipe, learn the difference between the calls of the sandpipers and my heart would leap whenever a Greenshank broke its self-imposed silence, a call that cut through the muggy air and still, to this day, gets me going. Typing this now, 50-51 years later, I can still remember all the detail, and can relive the feelings as if it happened yesterday. In 2026, to be able to stand on Cuckoo Lane by the fallen willow and try to recapture some of the essence of that time is impossible. It's all gone. The old-fashioned sewage farm is no more, gone under land-fill, a waste incinerator and major landscaping. It does mean that its inclusion onto my list of happy places is one purely of the memory banks. In some ways that makes it all the more special. So, what do I mentally bathe in when this happy place projects its images in my mind's eye? The innocence of youth; of wonder; a sense of belonging to the birds and the place; a recall of a strangely alluring pungent smell and a feeling that anything was and still is possible.