Sara Maitland

From transatlantic hugs to journeys to the stars, technology has been a lockdown saviour

I turned 70 barely a fortnight before everyone had to self-isolate. Just before that, though, my family gave me a lovely birthday party. We didn’t know how long it would be before we saw each other again, but we had a noisy happy dinner with speeches and cake and fireworks. And excellent presents.

And one of the presents turned out to be the perfect gift for what was about to happen: I was given a smartphone because I have no mobile access at home but do have broadband and my son and daughter thought it would allow me to WhatsApp with my grandchild in the USA. And, along with other features, it came with a stargazing app.

In southern Scotland, as in other places, we had one of the dreariest, wettest first quarters of the year, but with the equinox there was a total transformation and throughout April and the first half of May we enjoyed the most glorious spring. The joys of this spring were, interestingly enough, enhanced by the lockdown: the radical reduction in both road and air transport measurably improved the quality of the air, which improved the ‘cleanness’ of the atmosphere.

This had a number of spin-offs, including the extraordinary increase of birdsong, the flourishing of wildflowers (I have never seen the cotton grass on our peat moor as exuberant as it has been this year) and some beautifully clear night skies

Lynn Hatzius unmired by vapour trails or flashing lights. While it seems highly unlikely that all this was laid on solely for the delight of an elderly lady who happened to have acquired a new smartphone, it was a remarkable piece of luck!

Sara Maitland is a writer who lives in Dumfries and Galloway. Her works include A Book of Silence and Gossip from the Forest bellicose red, while each of Jupiter’s moons is named after one of the god’s mistresses. Venus was the goddess of love and the planet – which we often know as ‘the morning star’ – looks particularly beautiful. There are ancient stories for most of the constellations, too. This is not only fun but sharply reminds us how carefully the ancient civilisations observed the night skies, despite doing it without the aid of telescopes.

In fact, this technology is based on GPS – the Global Positioning System, a USA-owned satellitebased radio-navigation system – so I think I could use it even if there were a thick layer of cloud, but I don’t want to. I want to go out into the dark and look at the stars and find something that appeals to me and then point my app at that and learn what it is.

Sometimes people call me a ‘Luddite’ because I can be darkly suspicious of – and even grumpy about – lots of modern technology, and of our increasing dependence on it and the way it can come between us and the natural world. But this new toy feels entirely wonderful. My granddaughter kissed me across the Atlantic and I can step out of my front door and the heavens are open to me and I can become friends with every star. Try it.

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