MORNING SERIAL

WE walked along the mountain top and the ground was peppered with thick clumps of coarse, wild grass and domed anthills with wimberry and heather in between. There was sunshine, and a gentle breeze blowing, and I began to feel happier with my lot. We had left behind the confines of the valley and suddenly the sky had doubled in size. The last time I had experienced openness like this had been on the sands at low tide on Barry Island. My world had expanded hugely, my perspective permanently altered. The sound of the colliery and the railway had been swallowed by the valley sides, and up here there was just the sound of the wind whispering through the grass and the occasional baa-ing of a distant sheep.

Then there was a faint trilling of a bird, far off, and barely audible.

‘Skylarks,’ said Dad. ‘Come on, I’ll show you how to listen for them, and you see if you can spot one. It’s hard to see them, because they’re so small and fly so high.’ Then he lay flat on his back on the grass to look directly upwards at the sky, and gestured for me to do the same alongside him.

‘They’re high up,’ he said, ‘really high. And they’re really small too. Listen to them singing, and look carefully.’

With my head on the ground and sheltered from the wind, the ethereal sound of the skylark’s song magnified in volume. A tumbling of high notes. It was beautiful. I strained my eyes to see the birds, and fancied that far, far above us a tiny speck of life was swooping through the sky. I did not want to spoil the sound with speaking so I simply pointed at the speck, and my father nodded. I looked directly upward again, so that the whole of my field of vision was the blue of the sky, and the white of small clouds. And the skylarks sang. I felt a deep peace, and imagined the world turning beneath me.

Then it happened...