Falmouth's Victorian cemetery in Spring.
It
was a search to see an Ivy Bee that first led me to the older parts of Falmouth
cemetery and I was not disappointed, I found both ivy and bees. This was back in 2014 and
since then it has become a special place and a passion project for me.
During 2015 I began recording some of the insects in the cemetery with a focus on the solitary bee, bumblebee and solitary wasp species to be found there. The highlight was the discovery of the nationally rare cuckoo bee, Nomada hirtipes that has few records in Cornwall. Although it was the number and variety of species to be found there that equally signifies its value for wildlife.
By 2016 responsibility for the maintenance had passed to Falmouth Town Council. This prompted me to write a booklet (Nature in a sacred place: Falmouth cemetery) detailing its value with a list of species I had recorded there and my thoughts on its maintenance.
The council responded positively and this has led to an ongoing conversation with Simon Penna, the Grounds and Facilities Manager. For me this has been both an education and a pleasure to see how he and his teams have both adapted some of my ideas and innovated their own. The result of their work can be seen in the cemetery today.
It
may surprise you but all of this is not the result of a lifetime interest in
bees and the natural world. For most of my life it was photography that was my
passion and this led me into a career in television.
Like
many people who up to attending one of Brigit’s talks or reading her book, Dancing
with Bees, I only knew of honeybees and bumblebees. Filming an interview
after a talk she gave at Garden Organic in 2013 opened the door on a much
bigger world that is all around us yet mostly overlooked. For the first time I
heard of solitary bees and that we have more than one type of bumblebee.
While
I walked away from the talk more knowledgeable about bees, even more amazing
things were to follow. Visiting my veg patch in my garden bees were appearing
all over it and a variety of types too. Admittedly I later discovered quite a
few were hoverflies, learning to tell the difference is something all beginners
have to go through. Even so I was still seeing quite a few bees with three
bumblebee species visiting a patch of chives in flower alone. To cap it all
that summer I found four bumblebee nests. I still find watching workers
returning to and leaving their nest fascinating and it gives me a real David
Attenborough moment.
That
autumn I moved down to Falmouth and after settling in, the following year I went
out to discover Ivy Bees, found the cemetery and started a new chapter in my
life.
So ten years later when Brigit raised the possibility of visiting the cemetery this spring on Instagram I not only jumped at it, I rather cheekily asked if she would be happy to do some filming. After a phone chat we decided on filming interviews and I started to search for an interviewer.
Chloe Eathorne as well as being a Cornish poet is also a journalism student who presents and produces The Wildflower Hour, a weekly radio show on Source FM. Having listened to her interview with sound Artist Justin Wiggan which I highly recommend (link at bottom of page) she seemed the ideal choice. Meeting with Chloe for a tea and chat we discussed ideas for the filming and the possibility of also using the audio to produce an episode of her radio programme. We settled on the idea of a relaxed walk around the cemetery with a mix of interviews and conversations between Brigit and Chloe.
On the day of filming we all met by the chapel and once everyone had been introduced, Chloe and Bridget were fitted with radio microphones. After this technicality we began our walk around the cemetery giving time to the ladies to chat and get to know each while exploring the cemetery. Even so it cannot have been easy to relax with a cameraman (me) and sound recordist (Jon GD Brown) ever present.
Brigit is an ambassador for Caring for God’s Acre, a non-religious charity that supports groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy churchyards and burial grounds. So for the first video interview we asked her about the charity and its work.
Links
To buy a signed copy of Dancing with Bees from Brigit visit, http://beestrawbridge.blogspot.com/
The
wildflower Hour: https://www.mixcloud.com/THEWILDFLOWERHOUR/
Caring for God’s Acre: https://www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk/
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