My Mum And The Skylarks
Music: The Lark Ascending
Artist: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Shared by: Susan for her Mum
“‘It’s there, see? A little dark dot in the big sky.’ I can picture it now like a video in my mind: the soft clouds, pockets of blue sky, the exhilaration from the climb, the feel of the wind on my face, and Mum laughing kindly at my lack of skill.”
My Mum Ann always loved listening to The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was regularly played when she was alone in the living room, alongside classical compilations, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra. I always knew that she was having her own quiet moment, and would leave her in peace.
What links The Lark Ascending to my Mum, is not just the pure transcendence of the piece of music, or the quiet joy she took from it when listening, but that she would be able to point out skylarks in flight when we climbed the Derbyshire hills as children and young adults. She explained that they were protecting their nest on the ground by distracting us skyward with their beautiful song. I could never see them because they were just so small in the big sky. But I heard them and they were glorious.
I have a particularly strong memory of standing below Bowstones at the back of Lyme Park where the formal gardens climb up into the beautiful Peak District. It was a lovely clear spring day looking across the Cheshire Plain toward Jodrell Bank. A Skylark singing above us, with me trying to trace Mum’s finger to find it. ‘It’s there, see? A little dark dot in the big sky.’ I can picture it now like a video in my mind: the soft clouds, pockets of blue sky, the exhilaration from the climb, the feel of the wind on my face, and Mum laughing kindly at my lack of skill.
After she died in 1998, whenever I heard them, I was suddenly able to see them. I would recognise their rapid, sweet, unmistakable song, and instantly they were visible. I found a nest once on Ingleborough in Yorkshire, with its clutch of three tiny speckled eggs, the bird suddenly taking flight and singing above us. This is another memory etched in my mind like a film. They even found me when I lived in Saudi Arabia where they nested on the sandy banks around our compound, and I’d see them on my walks… and I’d always say “hi Mum.”
What a musical gift and a life of memories that she gave me.