Bomb Shelters

Just north of Greenham Common (see "Spring Not Yet Out") is Bowdown Woods, a longer-established nature reserve. This was where we had meant to come, before being distracted by the old air base. As we stepped among the trees the freezing wind dissipated and a faint warmth came with the light through the bud-taut branches.

A wood before spring has fully come is a strange gathering of sticks. Some green is scattered about, but in between the colours are brown below and white wherever the light falls. Last year’s leaves form a thick, uneven layer either side of the path.

The light is unfiltered by the leaves yet to come, and falls straight among the branches, placing shadows firmly on the ground. In one place, we came across a spread of incipient bluebells, all foliage and no flower. We had to imagine the bloom to come.

At least the wood was clear of litter. At this time of year the underbelly of many green spaces is shown to be stuffed with plastic, often blown by the wind until it tangles in the bushes. I remember cautionary tales from school about mice dying trapped inside drink cans, more recently about gulls starving with beer-can loops knotted around their beaks, and in the last few years about the cascade of fragments from decaying wrappers and bags as far as the seas’ abyssal plains and into the soil.

But Bowdown’s no pristine ancient wilderness. It’s right next to an old bomber base, and part of it was used as an ammunition dump. The remains still stand, long parallel banks among the trees. Presumably these were to absorb the effect of any accidental detonation. And unlike the plastic, these military ruins seemed to be positive for life.

I’m not especially keen on the military, despite some strong family naval connections, so I’m very conscious of the paradox that the armed forces are often among the best custodians of wild places. Salisbury Plain, with its array of endangered species and delicate archaeology, is the most notable UK example. But I remember walking along the Peddar’s Way in south Norfolk, beside an area that’s been sealed off for exercises since the 1940s. Tanks and butterflies were visible in the “danger zone” beyond the barbed-wire fence. I was glad that on our side, on “normal” ground, there were no tanks. But there were not butterflies either. That says alarming things about the quality of ecosystems in populated countryside.

The distinctions in Bowdown Woods are not so stark. In full spring, I’m sure they disappear altogether. But the day we were there, when everything else still had winter’s angularity, the explosion-damping banks had a lushness the eye could sink in.

This was moss. I’m no bryologist, and perhaps the species there were no more than run-of-the-mill growth, a small-scale equivalent of bracken or dandelions. Still, the green had depths. In the light, it was an emerald-gold mix that would have cheered our pirate-dreaming daughter. In shadow, the moisture seemed to bulk the miniscule fronds even more, forming cushions to throw yourself on, to Rip-van-Winkle through the seasons, feeling change not as a human but moss-like, softly adapting.

The wind picked up again as we left the reserve and made our way down the pitted track back to Greenham Common. The bare branches rattled above us, and the gorse bushes swelled and contracted like jellyfish in water. We could hear the deep sound of the roads either side and ahead of us.