Unearthings

A summer's day in deepest darkest East Anglia, and a record of the changing physical and sonic landscapes of the countryside. It's an area of ghost airfields, buried history, and vast wide open fields under a vast wide open sky.

Transcription of larksong by Professor Walter Garstang.

Voices -

Mr. William Aldred, an 80 year-old farmhand, recorded in 1936

Professor H. C. Wyld (reading an extract from Beowulf)

Basil Brown, the archaeologist responsible for the discovery of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo

Olivia Masi, reading her poem and talking about the disappearance of corncrakes from the countryside

It was a Sunday in mid-May. We were in Suffolk, listening to a cuckoo in a wood near a nuclear power station, and the time seemed to stand still. On our way home, we stopped by a patch of heathland, and were serenaded for more than an hour by a pair of nightingales, who were drowning out the sound of the military aircraft that were rumbling overhead. It was a clear evening. There was a sundog before the dusk decended, and a tawny owl called into the night.

Readings:-

The Cuckoo - anon

The Cuckoo - a poem by Frederick Locker-Lampson (1857)

An account of the barley bird, by the Rev. Robert Forby (The Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830)

Sweet Suffolk Owl - anon, possibly by Thomas Vautor, fl.1600-1620)

A celebration of allotments, the patron saint, birds of the air and the bard, along with the arrival of spring. The words in the cuckoo section are taken from Our Bird Friends by R. Kearton (1900).

Incidental music for the feast of St.George, which also happens to be Shakespeare's birthday. And his deathday. I guess the party was a bit of a downer...

Mousehold Heath is an expanse of heathland on the northern outskirts of Norwich. Although now much reduced, it has over the centuries played an important part in the development of the city's character, and events which have taken place there have had national and international repercussions. The first part of this programme is an adaption of a passage from George Borrow's Lavengro, which is followed by a field recording and soundscape of the Vinegar Pond, which in springtime is a breeding ground for frogs, and is usually full of frogspawn by the end of March.

HMP Norwich is on the southern side of the heath, just up the road from Kett's Heights, which was the base of Robert Kett during the rebellion against land enclosures in the summer of 1549.

Norwich was the scene of the first case blood libel, which was leveled against the city's Jews in 1144, after the supposed murder of a young boy, William,whose body was found dumped in a shallow grave in woodland on the heath. It was an early example of fake news being used to demonize an entire race of people, and this event sparked a flame which spread across Europe, and even now, more than eight centuries later, it is still burning.

An extract from the third Unearthings podcast, this time inspired by the landscape and history of Mousehold Heath, an ancient area of heathland on the outskirts of Norwich. The Wind on the Heath is adapted from the writing of George Borrow, and the Vinegar Pond is a breeding ground for frogs in the early spring.

The second of a series of scratchy, glitchy, low-fi podcasts from sanderson & sanderson. Although February is often the harshest month of winter, there's always the promise of better times ahead. It's the most schizophrenic time of the year - a time of snowstorms and snowdrops, sap rising and earth freezing, of Valentines and Lenten fasting, of optimism and resignation. Remember man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return...

A danse macabre from the second Unearthings podcast

The music is the landscape, and the landscape is the music, and we’re all tied to it by our shared history...

Unearthings is a series of transmissions inspired by the changing seasons and changing landscape of East Anglia, drawing on poetry, prose, found texts and field recordings.

we walk through dark woods

leaving the past behind us

towards the unknown

*

wind rustling the pines

the white noise of the forest

voices in the trees

*

the edge of hearing

thin brittle branches snapping

sound of slug eating

*

ant metropolis

tens of thousands of workers

in endless labour

*

female grouse disturbed

flies for cover into trees

away from humans

*

roe deer disturbed

darts for cover into trees

away from humans

*

the wind changes -

a time of uncertainty

days are blown away

***

a tartan landscape

heather turning to purple

crows perch on outcrops

*

rivulets singing

as they flow down the hillsides -

we drink up the song

*

water glistening

pools of light catching the sun

dazzling our eyes

***

waiting for winter

a ski-slope dreams of the snow

as summer passes

*

the need to ascend -

a steep climb upwards, moonwards

cloud forms question mark

*

technology's song -

wind blows through radio mast

a lonely chorus

*

how many long miles

have we travelled to be here

at this journey's end?