Robert MacFarlane

 

ROBERT MACFARLANE

I first discovered Rob MacFarlane when I read his book Landmarks about five or six years ago. I think it was reviewed by Resurgence Magazine which is where I get a lot of book recommendations.

The book explores various examples of language that is used to describe place. Not only did I love the book, I also bought all the books that he talks about in Landmarks. I subsequently read The Peregrine and Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez – which I also really enjoyed.

One of the things Robert MacFarlane does is talk about words from particular dialects. My favourite word that he introduced me to was smeuse. This is a Suffolk word for a small gap in a hedge made by the repeated passage of wild animals. The great thing is that once you know this, you see more of them. If we know what things are called, we are more likely to be able to save them.

There's also a great way of describing kestrels but I can' t put that one on this website.

Of course, Robert's book Lost Words, illustrated by the unfathomably wonderful Jackie Morris went platinum or something just before the pandemic with every other school in the country doing displays on creatures and plants that had been dropped from the junior dictionary.

Through my reading, I began to learn more about Robert MacFarlane himself. He is a professor at Cambridge university amongst other things. I love words and in many ways I wrongly began to feel that he was who I would be if I had been to a decent school and had middle class parents. When I was in the sixth-form I asked if I could apply to Cambridge to read English and was told that no one from my school had ever been to Cambridge before so there was no point applying.

I'm very happy with where I am these days, and I probably wouldn't have made a very good professor anyway. A few years ago, however, I had the opportunity to be a part of the same event as Robert MacFarlane. It was the Hay on Wye winter festival, 2018. His talk had the slot just after mine. I got quite excited when I found this out. Since reading some of his books I had developed this fantasy that I would discover some word or phrase from where I lived. Something that would be fascinating to Robert. I travel all over the country and I'm always intrigued by different accents and ways of speaking. In his books, he tells stories about people sending him new words. Sometimes he goes and visits them. Maybe I would find a new word for him and he would come to visit me! We would drink tea from a teapot and laugh about words and... stuff.

By the time Hay came round however, I had not unearthed any forgotten dialect on my travels. Nothing.  But I still wanted to talk to Robert. Just to tell him how much I loved his books.  Maybe ask him about... different words for rabbit or something.

When the moment came though, I completely bottled it. I wasn't entirely sure what he looked like but the Hay on Wye Winter Festival is a lot smaller than the summer edition. There is one tiny green room and only one or two venues. I found myself standing next to a man who could only be Robert McFarlane, in the green room, in front of a plate of sandwiches. He was close enough to touch. There was no one else in the room.  It would have been socially awkward not to say hello.  And I didn't say a word. I just grabbed some sandwiches and left to do my show.

I don't really get star-struck. I've worked with all sorts of famous people. Once at Hay, I came off stage to find the glorious Archbishop Desmond Tutu blessing my baby son. I had a nice chat with him – no problem. When I did my show in New York, Robert DeNiro brought his children. I went to a literary festival in Nairobi with Ben Okri and had dinner with him every night for a week. I've chatted to Christian Slater, Russel Brand and Lesley Grantham! Karl Hyde off of Underworld is one of my best mates. I once asked Phillip Pullman whether he wanted a wee or a poo. I am not impressed by fame or fortune. I do not get star struck.

Apart from Robert MacFarlane apparently. I literally couldn't talk in his presence.

After Hay that year I was appalled at myself for failing to make friends with him.

So much so that I emailed Peter who runs the thing. Could he introduce me? How could I contact him?  What would be the best approach?  Peter said, “I could just give you his email address if you like,” but I then realised that I couldn't just email Robert MacFarlane. I would at least need to hand write something with a proper pen or a quill. And have it wrapped in vine leaves and carried by a sea eagle or a team of bespectacled badgers. You can't just email him!

And also, what was I going to say? "Hello.  You like words.  I like words.  What's your favourite word?"  No.  I needed to wait until I had found that undiscovered word or phrase. That combination of sounds that would mean so much to him. And so I listened. Every day I listened to every teacher I spoke to in every school, every child in all the corners of the country. Watching and listening for the phrase that would enable me to write to Robert with something to say. Something to impress him with.

And then one day, it happened. It was something said by my one of my children's many grandparents. Colin is his name. Colin is awesome. Colin talks with a properly old-fashioned Suffolk accent. He talks quickly and loses consonants like a dog sheds hair. If he's excited, you need a translator.  And a grammatical dustpan and brush.

One Sunday he came over for a roast dinner and we sat and talked about the storm that had swept East Anglia the night before. “Did you hear the rain last night?” he asked. Of course I had. It looked like All Quiet On The Western Front in the back garden.  And then he said it.

“It rained so 'ard,” he enthused. “That it broke the sky.”

I sat and stared. My heart stopped. I wasn't sure if I'd misheard him. So I repeated it back to him quietly. “It rained so hard that it broke the sky.”

He carried on talking but I drifted off into a reverie of that pot of tea and Robert MacFarlane. “Have you found any other accidentally poetic phrases?” Robert would ask me. “I'd like to put you in my next book,” he would say. “It broke the sky,” will be the title of my next book,” he would say.

What an amazing metaphor! It rained so hard it broke the sky. Just imagine that! The sky in pieces, scattered over a wind-coiffed field. Otters and desperate deer hurrying for cover in their smeuses as scalenes of blue and grey crash from above like splinters of a giant failing greenhouse.

“Dear Robert MacFarlane,” I began to compose in my head...

It rained so hard that it broke the sky!

It rained so hard that it broke the sky!

It rained so hard that it broke the sky!

And then I realised that actually, Colin was talking about the television.

It had rained so hard that it had broken his Sky satellite dish.

He couldn't watch Eurosports and had missed the women's cricket.

I couldn't speak for days.