#27 – 1984 Week 30: Underneath The Stars

A big old place, perched up on a big jutting hill

Sunday 22 July 1984
204-161 Week 29

Up early. Caught the train and coach to Swansea and were taken to camp site by van. It is a lovely place, just near Three Cliffs Bay, in a kind of basin, surrounded by trees. The sun shines on it all day. We pitched our tents in a circle around H.Q. and built a table in H.Q. At night there was no moon, and I have never seen so many stars so clearly in all my life. There are millions and millions.

Three Cliffs Bay, Gower Peninsula, Wales

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Monday 23 July
205-160 Week 30

Slept extremely badly last night and woke up feeling grotty, with a bit of a headache, which I had all day. The tent was a bit wet inside, but apart from that it is amazing. What a cool tent. During the day it gets so boiling inside. I am in H.Q. so I helped deal out breakfast and then went down to the beach all day. Lay down and began writing a letter to Charles, but failed after a side or two. It was so hot. The sand, in parts, was too hot to stand on. I love getting tanned. I got a bit ripped up by some breakers while climbing on barnacle covered rocks.

Sand is annoying. Very. Went back to camp and cleaned up. All going well. I emptied the porta-potties and dropped the most important lid down the disposal hole. “Whatever you do, don’t drop….” and it went. When everyone had turned in, the convict girls from Intermediate Treatment* came over to say hi, and scrounge a few fags. Went to bed and made notes for diary.

*What I.T. meant in 1984! Heck, someone made a youth justice timeline.

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Tuesday 24 July
206-159 Week 30

Everything organised efficiently! Went for a walk along the coast – rugged rocks, breakers, crags, overhanging cliffs, gloomy, drizzling weather – really Welsh. Climbed into a sort of smugglers’ cave, which was a cave bricked up at the front with several levels and windows. Smelly.

Some sort of lunch. This week we are living off bad food. Eggs, bacon, yuk! Beard growing into nice smooth hairs. Visited ‘Mumbles’ which is a town (?) and it rained. Back at camp we played volleyball against the neighbouring troop.

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Wednesday 25 July
207-158 Week 30

The usual morning waking and rising. Cold wash etc.

We had a long, agonizing drive to Carreg Cennen Castle in the Brecon Beacons. What a feeling of the past! It was a fairly big old place, perched up on a big jutting hill, with one track leading to it. The ruins are magnificent. The view is splendid. The weather hot, but just breezy. But the best bit was to walk outside the castle on the outcrop, alone amongst the sheep. One wall of the castle was on a sheer face, the others also on steep slopes, with juttings here and there, like figureheads on ships. Wordsworth! Peace! Wandering lonely. A bird’s feeling. I could have stayed up there for ages, lying on the grass or on the hot rock. Cut off from people.

Afterwards we cooked – fried in grease – 120 fishfingers. In the evening some of us went to the pub. I got happy. We came back to a small fire and stars.

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Thursday 26 July
208-157 Week 30

This morning we chopped down a dead tree that were not supposed to, as it is Forestry Commission land. However, we did not know this, and needed the wood for our camp fire. In the afternoon when everyone else went off somewhere, I stayed with Simon and Simon to build, construct even, the campfire. We worked and worked and then nipped off down to the beach for a few hours. We did a bit of bare foot rock scrambling on the cliff above the bay.

In the evening we lit the fire, which went up like a rocket. The flame coming out of the top in a perfect triangle, must have been about 20 feet off the ground. Unfortunately the leaves of the surrounding trees were only about 25 feet up, and they got shrivelled. It was most dangerous and extremely worrying. The campfire was fairly boring.

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Friday 27 July
209-156 Week 30

Some of us stayed in camp and got organised, and lazed in the sun until lunchtime. Afterwards we went for a walk. Five of us ran on ahead, and came back the short way. We skipped in time along the road and everyone tooted and waved at us. Just before dark we put all out tents away so they would not be damp and all went round the fire, which we built up again. I found the most comfortable place that you could lie on, on the ground with a slight slope for your back. It was a bit out of the main circle of the fire, but it was still hot enough to get out of my survival bag, without getting all dewy. And above there was a large oval-shaped gap in the trees, and the stars were above my head. I watched them moving across the heavens and was wide awake. I slept well, the best sleep of this camp.

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Saturday 28 July
210-155 Week 30

Woke at 6-ish and I had to gulp down a rapid bowl of cereal so that we wouldn’t miss the coach to London. In London it was unbearably hot and there were thousands of people rushing about all over the place like a load of ants. So many weird people too. Odd hairstyles and clothes – great! They liven things up. As long as they are not violent. London is amazing and it is disgusting. Oh well. Home. Bath. Beard is really itchy. Two bloody German families arrived. 12 people in the house. I can’t take it.

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Sunday 29 July
211-154 Week 30

Helped unpack camp kit. It is excessively hot. Tried to start work and also to write up weeks’ diary, but was interrupted. People are annoying.

In the evening I went over to Charles’ and we cycled to Leigh for a night hike. What a bad night hike it was. Half the people dropped out, and there were eventually nine of us – a good number. We got lost once. It was only about 8 miles. We stopped and built a fire and sat round it. I began to get bored. There was this girl called Frances. Charles failed.

Got back to Leigh after 3am – we went slowly, and then I had to cycle back home. 4.30am and it was getting light. Slept a few hours, and… over to Monday —>

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2024: Ah this is a breath of fresh air. Literally. Scout camp in the healthy outdoors. Much less time for unhealthy introspection.  I’ll go easy on my commentary this week. Especially as I’m rushing to get ready to head West as I write. Not to Wales this time, but to Falmouth in Cornwall. I’m taking Ethiopian band Krar Collective to a music festival. Hopefully I’ll find time for a quick dip in the sea. Rock n’ roll, baby.

Though before I sign off, outdoors, there are the stars. The Gower peninsula, where we were camping, is today still relatively free from light pollution. This is a cool, and salutory, thing: a map of light pollution. Click here.

The stars are our constant companion. Strange, since of course they are so far, so how is it that humans relate to them? It’s all in our heads, that’s the real wonder of it. In a world of rapid environmental change, they are maybe the only true constant, though of course in their own time frame even stars age and die. I wrote a poem last year as I looked up from a London park, straining to remember the profusion of stars you can today only see in truly dark places, as I did at that campsite 40 years ago, and imagined them speaking to us…

Noctalgia

Sometimes Orion lies, sometimes he stands,
And when he stands he seems to say:

We are still here,
Look up and never fear,
We are still here.

One day to ashes you will turn;
That’s when you’ll be like us,
You’ll burn.
A spark of beauty.
Never fear,
That’s when we shall be near,
Burning, turning, guiding, bringing hope.
Though we too, look at Betelgeuse,
All, one day will flare,
Will flicker, die,
We do not choose.

But we have watched you grow,
Been there with you when first you smiled,
When first you looked at us,
Your mind on fire,
A heart inflamed with pure desire.
We know,
Or so it seems,
The life you’ve lived,
The dreams you’ve dreamed.
We, still, are here.

But look up now, and look up oft.
And let us burn a point into your eyes,
And learn to see between the lines
Of the Great Bear, the Swan,
And steady Cassiopeia.
For we are many, many, many.
Feel us, learn to sense us too
Beyond the clouds, the blue,
The blaze of sun.
Steal our blessing;
Is it for you that we have come?

Yes, look up oft.
In villages, go out and leave your torch,
Beyond your porch
In summer lie upon the grass.
In towns, climb the locked gates of parks
To find your patch of dark;
Commune with us.

We call, entreat, we will you to,
We guide your steps to seek the shadow.
It has been always so,
The Magi know.

Look up, and never fear, look oft,
For times will come when
All around you feeble lights obscure
The power of our being
Which to you is pure
Philosophy.
Let us be burned into your soul,
Be part of you, which makes you whole.

A time will come when
Light will bring a darkness
And you’ll only ever see us through a mirror
darkly, on a screen.
You will forget the twinkling spark,
Our fame, our joy, our power will be less.
There will be some who know not what it means
That we are many.
Who know not how to reach up from their heart,
To dream.

Store us inside your heart,
Your mind, imagination, soul, in every part.
We need you, too, to bring us life.
Your gaze, your measurements, your theories and your poetry.
Broadcast it loud:
They are still here, look up and never fear.
Don’t be afraid to speak into the air;
Though sound may never travel through the void
Of a million years to reach our ears,
We see your lips and read
Your blessing, which at once ignites us
And fulfils your deepest need.

Look up, look oft, look with your heart, your mind, with love,
And never fear.

We are still here.

Sebastian Merrick, 2023

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And as musical accompaniment here's a song I've been listening to a lot recently. Underneath the Stars, by Kate Rusby arranged here for Voces8. Warning! It's achingly gorgeous!

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Let me know if you like the poem!