Radio Lento

Birdsong in rain from inside the derelict chapel at Abney Park nature reserve
^{42:54 | Episode: 68 | May 22nd, 2021}

There’s a special feeling that comes with the sound of falling rain. With a sky still free of jet planes, this is how the day unfolds within the secret space of the derelict chapel of Abney Park. It is first thing in the morning, when the birds begin to sing and the trees change from dark shadow into green.

May rain after daybreak
^{42:36 | Episode: 67 | May 15th, 2021}

It must have broken through a mist of spring rain when it came, the dawn, the first light of day. It would have come into a watery sky too, one busy with clouds, but full of blossoming spring and still clean, free of jet planes. The birds will have seen it coming, long before. In fine voice they sing from the mid-distance like in a dream, reflected off so many back garden walls. None in this back garden though, with its wide hanging tarpaulin, tumbled stacks of empty flowerpots, upturned planters, and old paint tins. The timpani, for when the rain drops fall.

Listening to the longshore drift
^{32:42 | Episode: 66 | May 8th, 2021}

There’s a point along the promenade at Bexhill-on-Sea where the pull of the crashing waves outweighs the ice cream hubbub underneath the pavilion. Where no matter your age, you’ll find yourself leap from the walkway and begin the short steep shingle scrunching journey down towards the sea. It’s a point, buffeted by a salt-scented onshore breeze, that has no need for sign or marker. No need for a call or shout. A turn-off, from the flat walkway, where you simply follow the invisible tracks of everyone who’s ever been, and fall headlong into your own childhood dream. We saw in the distance a man walking across the beach with his child, a kite bobbing in the sky in front of them. We jumped down. We strode in giant steps steep down the shingle. We followed the old wooden groyne and stopped when it stopped, at the water’s edge, beside the foam fizzing waves. Standing so near to the surf zone we could feel it. The weight of the sea. Thudding the shingle through our feet. How can anything matter in the face of such weight and movement? We could hear the waves rolling in, interlacing, unfurling and breaking. Swooshing in from left to right, pushed by force of current and prevailing wind. This is the sound of longshore drift. The reason the beach is bisected by groynes.  We listened, and marvelled, at the gloriousness of the waves as they raced up the beach to meet us.

65 Songs from the churchyard of St Mary’s Gilston
^{50:25 | Episode: 65 | May 1st, 2021}

The parish church of St Mary, Gilston in Hertfordshire dates from the 13th century. It is set within wide open farmland north of Harlow. It’s one of only a handful of buildings, surrounded on all sides by fields and outcrops of old trees, left behind from when the land was cleared for farming. As we walked along the narrow lane away from Eastwick, thickly verged and wafting with spring flowers, we listened as the noise from the A414 gradually subsided behind us, and dwindled with each turn in the lane, until at last it was nothing.

Waiting for skylarks at the Rye Harbour nature reserve
^{23:08 | Episode: 64 | April 24th, 2021}

If I sit here, very still, so as not to scare the water birds, might they come back? I hope so. They’ve wheeled away again, like they do. It’s their drifting altitudinous song that I most want to hear. Sparse clouds are hurrying by. When the sun is out, it’s surprisingly strong. It makes the air smell of warm grass. A sea breeze is blowing. Swishing in, from left to right through the tall stems. This spot is only a few hundred yards from the crashing waves of the sea, but a steep shingle ridge softens the sound into almost nothing. 

Taking forty winks at the seaside – Norman’s Bay, East Sussex (sleep safe)
^{28:44 | Episode: 63 | April 17th, 2021}

The perfect spot for a snooze on a windy beach is the leeside of a shingle berm. Sheltered from the onshore breeze, you can’t see over to the sea, but you can hear it, with all its wholesome sound. You can feel it too. The vast gravitational swell, the ever alternating push and tow. It’s why the sea changes the rules of everything. Even time. Just below the crest of the berm, the roar of the breakers is quelled. Cushioned into comforting rumbles, topped with white swishes. Basking in this safe and soporific place, there’s no need for words. No need to think, plan, or worry. For this little bit of timeless time, it’s just you, the berm, and the sea.

Mistle thrush sings amongst wind hushing conifers
^{28:09 | Episode: 62 | April 10th, 2021}

A city at low tide (sleep safe)
^{50:14 | Episode: 61 | April 3rd, 2021}

It is said that cities never sleep, but from inside north east London’s Abney Park nature reserve, the silken hum tells a different story. It’s the early hours of Christmas Day 2020. The park has long since closed. Nothing is about. From part way up the trunk of one of the many ivy-clad trees, the microphones are recording. Capturing the murmurations of the city at night. The traffic has retreated. The torrents of noise have shallowed. An urban sprawl that’s gone out to the horizon. This is the sound of the city at low tide. The indeterminable rumble has thinned, to a soft hum. A panoramic hum that shifts, and billows, like curtains of audible silk. It’s sometimes lost amongst the hiss and rustle of the ivy. A fox barks. An undulating tone fades in and out. Somewhere off, an unsteady bough squeaks, like a rusty garden gate. Lone cars pass in long hushing waves. Near to the microphones ivy leaves rustle. Then, is that something singing from through the leaf bare trees? Is it a silvery glimpse of dawn? It is a robin. But it’s only dreaming. Dreaming out loud, of tomorrow’s song.