Bench mark

It may be a simple invention, but the humble bench allows us more than an opportunity to rest a while; they’re also spaces to appreciate the joys of the everyday, argues Alison McClintock “Most of the time we’d just watch the world go by, taking it in, o

Every summer as child I was packed off for a few weeks to Grandma’s. She lived in a weaver’s cottage just over a humpback bridge. Less than 20 miles from the town where I lived, to six-year-old me it may as well have been the other side of the world. Her TV showed programmes in black and white and was only switched on at the weekends for the wrestling and Songs of Praise.

She didn’t have a car and there was no bus route. And apart from finding out what one flavour of crisps the local village shop was selling that week, the main source of entertainment was sitting on the bench outside the front of her house.

Sometimes we’d sit with a bucket of freshly-picked peas and broad beans between us, shelling them into a saucepan for supper. Most of the time we’d just watch the world go by, taking it in, on our own terms.

Local farmers with tractors full of hay would offer a nod of acknowledgement as they bounced over the bridge. People would pass by on their evening constitutional, comment on the weather, maybe or maybe not say hello. Others would share news, alerting Grandma to recent deaths and births and marriages way before the parish magazine ever made it through the letterbox.

There was nothing special about that bench, but just by being there, and giving ourselves permission to pause and look out at the world, the world came to us.

You probably pass by a bench or two every day, and if you don’t need it you won’t notice it; just an obstacle to skirt round, part of life’s furniture.

But that ordinariness makes them extraordinary. Take a seat and see what happens. No minor miracles or feats of wonder, just the enjoyable everyday happening around you.

You don’t need any special skills to be good at sitting on a bench. There’s no age restriction or dress code. You can just sit where you’re at. Be yourself, by yourself for as long or as little as you want.

Benches allow you to be sociable on your own terms. Unlike picnic tables, there’s no need to make eye contact on a bench. And you don’t have to ask permission to join someone already sitting on one

because there’s enough personal space for each of you, to sit with your thoughts.

But here’s the curious thing, you won’t be or feel alone on a bench for long. They were named to be companionable. The word comes from the old English benc which means ‘long seat’. By 1300, they were seats for judges, strategically located where they could observe the whole court room. And that role hasn’t changed much. You can still sit down on a bench and reserve (or pass) judgement.

Urban design theorist William H Whyte spent years studying plazas in New York observing the dynamics of city life, searching for ways to make public spaces in Manhattan more fun and less fearful places to be. His findings revitalised the city. It also made it safer. The nub of his successful formula was providing ‘sitable space’, increasing the city’s numbers of what you and I more commonly recognise as the humble public bench.

“People tend to sit most where there are places to sit,” Whyte said. “The most attractive fountains, the most striking designs, cannot induce people to come and sit if there is no place to sit.”

There’s no need to try harder than that. Just offer people the chance to simply take a seat and enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting in the fresh air, whether watching people going about their business or pausing to admire a beautiful vista.

Who needs social media when you can say hello to passing dog walkers? Why spend time unravelling the narratives of a weekly soap when you can watch the flickering embers of a teen romance, or the drama of gulls squabbling over their potential pickings?

All of this comes without the need for screen or licence fee, in high definition and glorious technicolour, played out in real time, in real life.

And benches are not just a chance to see stories, they can be the story, with captions that give strangers a glimpse of a life well lived and that allow those that chose the dedication to access a bank of days spent with a loved one no longer present but whose presence is felt and remembered in that place.

Along sea fronts, in shaded parks, on rolling hills around the country you’ll find benches etched with humour, longing, sadness and love.

Paul Griffith’s favourite bench is in Wensleydale and he and his family have been visiting it for over 25 years. He loved it so much that he started a Twitter feed about it called @MyFaveBench convinced that others must have a favourite bench, too.

Today, he’s got over 16.4k followers and people from all over the world send him photos and stories about their favourite bench. He gets up early every day before work to answer their messages personally. Before we chat, he sends me a picture of him on his favourite bench, and another with his grown-up sons sitting on the bench next to it, waiting to have their turn.

We share a laugh over the bench in Liverpool that comes with its own warning sign for those who use it to dare to read The Sun newspaper. And I realise I had no idea how close I live to Ian Dury’s bench in Richmond Park that comes with its own QR code so you can sit and listen to his songs and the ones he picked for Desert Island Discs.

I confess to Paul that, aside from fond memories of sitting there with my grandma, I don’t have a favourite bench and to having a bit of bench envy for those who do. And he tells me of a young lad from Bristol who’s been on Oprah and become famous for ranking benches, giving each one marks out of ten. “I couldn’t do that,” he says, “I could never give a bench a three, because for someone, somewhere, that bench is a ten out of ten.”

I’ve still to find my benchmark – my ten out of ten. But in the meantime I’ll keep trying. Enjoying the process, just happy to sit with it.