When you’re out and about exploring new places, do you find yourself instinctively drawn to a particular sort of landscape? In spite of yourself, do you sense an affinity with the open, flat countryside of the Fens, or the dramatic ranges of the Peak District? I can’t imagine living anywhere that wasn’t within reach of the sea, but at the same time, I’m in love with the hills and combes, the trees and hedgerows of the West Country.
Do our childhood surroundings imprint us with a love of a certain type of landscape? Even in towns and cities, you’re aware of the topography underlying the buildings and streets. When I used to catch the bus home from work in Islington, I loved the ride northwards, climbing up through Holloway and Highgate to Finchley. But how delighted I was when I first took the Metropolitan Line as far as Uxbridge, to discover so much unspoilt countryside still remaining there.
As a child growing up in the Midlands, I lived on the edge of countryside that was to be completely built over during the 1960s. Kinver Edge was a local beauty spot where we always meant to go for a picnic but somehow never did. Mum and I set off on the bus but got lost, settling for a picnic in a newly mown hayfield instead.
Mum loved the sweeping bleakness of Salisbury Plain but it took me many years to appreciate its sculptural beauty. The train journey between Salisbury and Westbury is a fine way to see the Wiltshire’s downland: not only are these hills full of history – with names like Scratchbury, Battlesbury, Breakheart – but they are simply beautiful, whatever the season.
What’s your favourite landscape? Does it influence what you enjoy reading? Do you gravitate towards books set in a landscape you know, or do you seek somewhere new to explore on the printed page? Probably a mixture of both, but I bet you’ve got a favourite landscape in your heart!
First time I went to Ireland, it felt like coming home. For years I’d looked for landscapes in England that didn’t exist. When I did some ancestry research I found a maternal connection that dated back to the potato famine. Genetic memory perhaps?
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I think there’s a lot in that, Jac. Not sure what it is but I really do believe in it! whereabouts in Ireland?
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The mystery of all the stuff we can’t explain. Maybe that’s why we’re writers? I also used to dream about Tibet before I knew where it was, sadly I’m not likely to ever visit there.
I was in southwest Ireland, around the Ring of Kerry.
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For me it’s the trees. I love the sea, and rolling hills, and the chalk downs, but it is the trees that make it home. When I worked in Cambridge for a few years other incomers said “oh the countryside is boring, it’s so flat” but what I couldn’t accept was that there were so few trees.
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I love trees too, and feel unhappy in landscapes that don’t have many – dramatic and breath taking as some remote parts of Scotland, for instance, must be, I’d really miss the trees! And that’s what I found unlovable about Salisbury Plain to start with, the huge fields compared to the much smaller fields, with hedgerows, of Somerset.
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Reblogged this on Frome Writers' Collective and commented:
Nikki Copleston reflects on the landscapes in your soul.
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