…at least it has that feeling for me, and I am sure that it is the same for the team of Year 12 House Prefects and the Year 7 boys who will be spending one night out of the next 5 wild camping on the Longford Estate, literally in the middle of nowhere. No phone signal so no mobile devices. No comfy bed. The usual routines banished and replaced by a needs-driven series of tasks focusing on basic things; shelter, food and survival. Great Yews remains a real test for them as, probably for the first time for some, they have to confront nature close up and personal. You eat what you manage to cook (on an open fire, lit from scratch), you sleep under canvas that you are responsible for setting up and your relationship to your team lies at the very heart of everything that you do. The original intention of the trip in the early years of the last century was clearly to push young people out of their familiar environment and get them to work together on unfamiliar tasks, and the aim is still there over a century later. The camping trip is one of the most frequent memories to return when alumni gather, and very often senior prefects at the camp start conversations at the camp by saying “do you remember 6 years ago when…?”
I will be camping on Sunday and Thursday evenings this year and, being of a certain age I anticipate a price that will be paid afterwards as my body also recalls what camping implies. No matter. It is something that I look forward to each year partly for the learning, partly for the companionship by the fire but also for the close-ups of nature that I get every year in different contexts. Last year it was a pair of Goshawks that had taken up residence within earshot of the camp. The summer before the pandemic it was the profusion of wild flowers that had appeared along the walking route. This year has already had a highlight during the camp for Year 12 that precedes the main Great Yews week. On a still, warm June evening I took a dusk stroll to the north of the wood hoping to be able to glimpse some badgers at a large set nearby. I had mis-judged the timing as the light had faded so as to make the field margins an exercise in guesswork, but as the horizon remained bright and sharply defined I took up residence on a stile and waited in silence for what might appear. I was lucky; a small black shape silhouetted against the sunset swiftly resolved into the shape of a quartering barn owl, which plonked down on a fence post perhaps 10 metres away – it had seen me and, I suspect, had heard me breathing too. We looked intently at each other, me using binoculars though he needed none. Then, wanting a closer inspection of the invader of his territory he floated over my head and landed momentarily barely 3 metres away on the gate; he leaned forward and gave me the once-over, then decided enough was enough and rose silently to continue the hunt for rodents in the long grass. I was spellbound, transfixed, mesmerized by the encounter. A creature from an utterly different world had just visited mine and had utterly transformed my evening and my trip.
Birdwatchers have a lonely life at times, often at unsociable hours, sometimes in poor weather and often seeing very little. It’s experiences like that farmland meeting that leave indelible impressions on the memory. I will remember my encounter with that amazing bird for good, I am sure. My hope is that all of the Great Yews campers over the years – whether they are seasoned campaigners, newbies, prefects or the youngest Bishop’s Boys have similar memories in due course. James Oldham, our @BWSAdventure Leader often refers to outdoor activities as ‘a different classroom’, and he’s absolutely right. That’s what Great Yews can do.
SDS
