A Treasure Rediscovered!

A Treasure Rediscovered!

What is this life if, full of care,

  We have no time to stand and stare.  

                                                No time to stand beneath the boughs                                                                                     And stare as long as sheep or cows.                                                                                           No time to see, when woods we pass,                                                       Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass…

So begins Leisure by W. H. Davies which has long been one of my favourite poems (as my dear friends Suzanne and Pascal can testify!)  Today I am feeling as pleased as a squirrel which has just rediscovered a particularly delicious nut!  Last night I came across a joyful item which I wrote seven years ago, describing a special weekend when I had felt strangely blessed.  Now I’d like to share it with you.  It was all inside this lovely card.

Beveridge House, St Andrews, 25.2.2012

‘Today I had the joy of hearing a song thrush!  It was here in St Andrews, up in a tall tree, in a garden in the side street into which I had wandered when trying to make my way from the B&B to South Street, one of the three main streets in the town centre.


‘It’s not often that I lose my bearings, but I’m glad I did so today, not only because of the thrush’s wonderful singing, but also because I met a lovely student in that same street.  When I asked if she could direct me to South Street, she told me that she was going in that direction.  We walked along together – after standing still to listen to the thrush.  I pointed out how it was singing each different phrase two or three times over, and told her that because thrushes are now, alas, an endangered species, I was particularly glad to hear the singing of this healthy specimen!


‘From her accent I could hear that she was from Australia or New Zealand.  From Adelaide, she explained.  She reminded me of a friend, Karen, from New Zealand, not only because of her accent, but also because of her physical appearance.  Both she and Karen love Scotland and feel at home here – due to their ancestry, they think.  She told me that she was studying astrophysics.  When I expressed my admiration, I added that my attitude to the moon and stars was poetic rather than scientific! – for example, the strong feeling whenever I look up at the moon through the branches of a tree that this could be a woman doing the same thing in any century since the world began.  She assured me that she too felt the wonder of moments like that.  She just loved her subject.  Believing that God created the universe, she wanted passionately to find out how the stars had come into being, and felt that whenever she was in her astrophysics class, God was beside her.


‘When I mentioned Richard Dawkins’ book The Magic of Reality and my anger at his narrow atheistic view of “reality”, she agreed, adding that his arguments were flawed, and asked if I had read The Dawkins Letters which refuted his theories.  We agreed that it was not a case of Science or Religion but rather of ‘not only but also’.  At this point she reached her destination and I went happily on my way, delighted to have met her.


(Continued at home, 27.2.2012)  ‘The reason for my being in St Andrews at all was that I wanted to see a young student friend, Simon Lamb, playing the part of the writer, C.S. Lewis in the play Shadowlands.

  Simon had met me off the bus earlier that afternoon and had walked with me to my B&B.  On the way he had shown me the entrance to the Barron Theatre, where the play would be performed that evening, then St Salvator’s Chapel where the next day he would be reading the first lesson, from the Old Testament, at the Sunday morning service. This would be a special service commemorating the founders and benefactors of the University, which dates from the year 1413.  Afterwards two wreaths would be laid (one of them by Simon, as the Chief Usher) at the spot on the pavement outside the church where the Protestant martyr, Patrick Hamilton, was burned at the stake for ‘heresy’.

‘Later, wanting to find out more about Patrick Hamilton – whose initials ‘PH’ are set in a cobbled part of the pavement – I found a bookshop and went in to enquire if they had any booklets about St Andrews which mentioned him.  To my surprise they did not.  However, I found the lovely thrush card, which I bought as a glad reminder of “my thrush’s” wonderful song, and of the opportunity of sharing my pleasure with the girl from Adelaide.  On impulse I bought a second thrush card for her.  Outside, I stopped at a little round table in front of a café which was about to close.  As I wrote a little message of thanks to ‘The Young Lady Astrophysicist from Adelaide’, a wee black and white male wagtail came hopping right up to my feet, looking for crumbs.  Magic!  I stood absolutely still while it hopped fearlessly around, and I enjoyed murmuring sweet nothings to it!   After popping the thrush card through the letterbox of the house where the girl had left me, I wandered farther down South Street – where a lovely black, grey and white shaggy dog approached me and sat down in front of me, letting me caress his head and tummy while I murmured more sweet nothings and smiled at his waiting owner, who said “You’ve got a new friend, Seamus!”  Another few moments of delight!


‘Such simple but profound pleasures the whole weekend! - for which I thank God: the thrush, the wagtail, Seamus the shaggy dog, an enthusiastic black spaniel puppy near my B&B, a butterfly in the University Chapel fluttering around the pulpit (beside me) as the Moderator of the Church of Scotland delivered the sermon, and later that day, when I was with my son Michael, daughter-in-law, Wendy and my two granddaughters, Roslyn and Mhairi, in the grounds beside the Cathedral ruins, a little daisy which four-year old Mhairi picked for me, saying, “Here, Gran.  Keep it!” (I did, and it is still attached to the last page of the ‘thrush card’.)

‘Voices…  I began this little account by writing about the lovely musical ‘voice’ of the song thrush.  But it was Simon’s voice which had brought me to St Andrews – his remarkably resonant voice, which I first noticed when he was only about eleven and I was the guest pianist at his primary school’s Christmas service.  He read the lesson from Luke’s Gospel with such remarkable fluency and understanding that I sat up and took notice of this obviously talented boy.


‘Last Saturday, after my arrival, we had a good talk in Northpoint Café.  He was unusually quiet and serious as we discussed what he was going to do with this voice of his – his special talent.


“I just don’t know,” he replied.


‘At that point, I still didn’t know if his acting was better than his prolific writing.  But that evening I certainly discovered that it is very good.  He was splendid in the principal role of the middle-aged C.S. Lewis – a real tour de force!  He has also the gift of a photographic memory – very useful for an actor, I imagine!  Altogether, he seems to me to be born for the theatre, but I shall follow his career with interest, whatever he chooses to do.’


Postscript. Shortly afterwards, I used Simon’s silhouette from the flyer of the play to create a little laminated card for him to keep in his wallet.  I added a quotation from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Words which apply to each of us!

Deo gratias