W E F O L L O W T H E S U N
Photos and words from our time together on Monday 17th August.
Please note that this is a private webpage only sent to those that attended the session.
Feel welcome to post any of the below images to your social media.
If you could tag the following handles that would be fab:
@mattmaude
(with a little camera symbol)
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'I remember finding a swallow in the street. It was young. Not a baby but not yet full grown. It must have been able to fly. Its wings were open. I thought they were broken. I thought it must have been hit by a car. I folded its wings carefully and picked it up, carried it home. I could feel it’s heart beating. Fast. I was afraid it would have a heart attack and die in my hands. My father showed me how to inspect it, how to open its wings. One wing at a time, restraining it, reassuring it, making sure it didn’t try to fly. I’d never seen such tenderness from my father before. I was more used to seeing him with tools in his hands, chopping wood, splitting logs, turning over the soil, lighting fires, fixing engines. But not fine things like tending the baby bird he now held in his hands.
Do we need to feed it? I asked. Should I go look for worms?
No, it doesn’t need to eat, he said. It’s well enough to fly, and once it flies it’ll catch its own food.
But you don’t think it was hit by a car, maybe has internal injuries, I asked.
No, it’s fine, he said. Sometimes, when they’re young they just misjudge their flight path and hit the ground. Then it’s not so easy to get back into the air. Come, let’s go back where we found it.
We went back to the street. It was quiet, late afternoon, people at home preparing dinner. Father let me carry the swallow. I’d become quite attached to it. Perhaps it felt the same because it took a moment or two before it spread its wings and flew away.
I remember when my mother told me I’d never see my father again, to forget I ever knew him'
W O R D S
Howard Evans
I remember mermaids made out of sand
I remember my ice cream sticky-hands
I remember long drives down winding roads
I remember finding beaches and pirate coves
I remember the tide coming in and up the beach
I remember making sure our towels were out of reach
I remember cups of tea on dad’s boat
I remember lying in the sea trying to float
I remember jumping in and out of the foam
I remember warm showers when we got home
I remember waking up to gunshots, thinking fireworks night had come early
I remember helicopters and sirens, a street flooded with blue
I remember quietly closing the window and trying to go back to sleep
I remember the blood splattered white tent being posted all over the news
I remember the pub opening the next day
I remember evidence markers outside our local corner shop
I remember a well-dressed reporter coming to the door, or was he just a mormon?
I remember people crossing the road to get a good look at the crime scene
I remember candles and flowers and pictures of a man I never knew
I remember a time where I felt safe in my home
Aimee Brown