The Very First Paddyfield Warbler

In the early 1950s we were not aware that the desolate North Kent marshland just a hop, skip and a jump from our York Road terraced house, and stretching from Dartford in the west to Whitstable in the east would in the not too distant future be recognized as one of the most important natural wetlands in Northern Europe. It simply was not something that crossed our minds although my ornithology obsessed young brother always seemed to have known that up to 300,000 migrant birds used the Thames mudflats as a regular stop off point in their routine journeys between the Arctic and Africa. The Estuary marshland is now one of more than twenty environmentally sensitive areas recognized by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs now known as DEFRA. In more recent years the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has taken over considerable stretches of the Hoo Peninsula including Northward Hill, High Halstow and parts of Sheppey. Even the Medway Council’s Riverside Park at Gillingham is an example of managed public access to the wetland but way back then the area was largely uncontrolled. It became totally familiar to Bernard as he ventured ever further from home and deeper into the ambiguities of local wildlife.

He was not generally lacking in confidence as far as meandering away from York Road was concerned but there were definitely times when he would actively cajole me into accompanying him and this might have been more out of a desire to convert me to a particular enthusiasm than a lack of self-assurance. I recall several trips to the Rook Roost at Northward Hill in particular which necessitated interminable bus changes and lengthy periods of walking. Little wonder perhaps that I displayed somewhat less apathy when he first mentioned the Paddyfield Warbler he was quite certain he had discovered in reed beds where Swanscombe merged into Northfleet and should by rights be nominated as Our territory. He urgently wanted me to return with him to see it and when I asked why it was so important he claimed it was a most unusual discovery because the Paddyfield Warbler was quite unknown in the area. I may have said something about him possibly being mistaken in that case but without a great deal of conviction because I knew from experience that where identification of birds was concerned he was invariably right.

For days he could speak of nothing else, bombarding me with details as to its likely wingspan -15 to 17cm, and possible weight - 8 to 13 gr, and the fact that the example he was certain he had seen was definitely light brown in colour though with paler plumage beneath. At first he had thought it might simply be a Sedge Warbler, still exciting but hardly inconceivable but upon a second visit he became convinced that it was in fact the known to be elusive Paddyfield Warbler itself, not ever seen in this part of North Kent previously – at least as far as he was aware. At his insistence and in heavy rain we set forth for Swanscombe one Saturday afternoon and spent an uncomfortable hour or two awaiting the arrival of Our Bird back to the reed beds that should by rights have belonged to Northfleet.

Sister Joseph, head teacher at the school in Springhead Road reported that my brother had been missing for over a week when he finally and triumphantly waved a series of blurred and out of focus photographs of the kind we referred to as Snaps back then in her face. She was singularly unimpressed. The thoroughly modern Kodak camera borrowed from Cousin Margaret's unknowingly generous young husband was returned intact and unscathed and the images that could have been clearer were displayed to all and sundry who had ever shown an interest in local birdlife. The problem was that not a great deal of interest ensued.

It would be true to say that Bernard paid little attention to what was happening at school, feeling it was largely an imposition in his life. Having very little understanding of mathematics as he grew older he avoided attendance on days featuring that subject and so his understanding diminished even further. His interest in ornithology was already established as a passion and he spent as much time as humanly possible wandering the marshes from Crayford to Higham identifying birds. By the time he was fourteen he had engaged in a great deal of deceit and petty crime in order to finance bus fares, bird books and the acquisition of a pair of binoculars that eventually resulted in a brush with the police. Old Nan who was engaged in a fair amount of petty crime herself said little about his minor thefts and the ongoing duplicity in his life but was definitely of the opinion that the sooner he discarded that Tomfool Bird Business the better. He was going to be a grown man in next to no time and it looked like he’d end up being one with a mania - It wasn’t natural! My mother, who had unwittingly and somewhat surprisingly first inculcated the obsession by pointing out to him when he was two and three years old, thrushes in the hedgerow and the occasional chaffinch in the hawthorn bush, was in despair. What had started as a pre-school diversion had developed into an overwhelming fixation. By the time he left school at just fifteen he had not distinguished himself academically in any way, preferring at all times not to catch the attention of the teaching staff. Largely he succeeded and emerged ready for the workforce with no practical skills.

It was our mother who noticed the card in the window of the New Road Butchery in Gravesend, announcing that a Boy was Needed. It was she who informed the prospective employer that she had just the Boy at home and in need of employment and that four pounds five shillings a week sounded very fair to her and that yes indeed he was a very keen lad, and most anxious for a future in butchery. But although he dutifully started the job and was even there on time each morning it was clear that his heart wasn’t in it and quite apart from that the daily close proximity to raw flesh did nothing to inspire him. He began to talk to the butcher of the bird species that could be seen daily in the nearby marshland and acquainted him with the fact that once he had seen a Paddyfield Warbler, a rare variety but the trouble with that was that nobody really believed him. The butcher did not show a great deal of interest and so during his lunch break he spoke with those working along the road in the Co-op just in case they proved to be more ornithologically friendly than his employer but they turned out not to be. When a month or so passed and the butcher was beginning to wonder how he might best break the news to our mother that her keen son was not proving to be as eager for the job as he had hoped, Bernard decided that the only acceptable future for him was one spent living on the marsh in a pup tent of the kind first designed and used in the American Civil War. Also known as Shelter Halves, he had read of their basic construction, ease of assembly and the fact that as recently as WW2 they were still being used. A pup tent was definitely what he needed! He would erect it close to where he first saw the Paddyfield Warbler and with the aid of a butane gas device and a torch his future might well be idyllic.

A splendid plan that paved the way for an immediate escape from years of butchery but unfortunately it was not going to be realized as rapidly as he had hoped. Neither pup tents nor primus stoves were quite as cheap as he had imagined them to be and might take as long as six weeks of hard saving. It was then that the germ of an idea that eventually involved the theft of the week’s takings on its way to the bank was first devised. The degree of violence that ultimately accompanied the theft was not part of the original plan, of that he was adamant when persuaded to talk about the incident many years later.

Following this episode of undisputed criminal violence Bernard quite naturally panicked a great deal before making the much coveted purchase of tent and primus. He also bought a rather expensive torch, hiking boots and a great deal of chocolate before heading towards the point where Swanscombe mudflats joined the Botany Marsh at Northfleet. It was several days before the police finally found him there and he knew at once that he had probably been betrayed by his own mother.

The Aunts were collectively shocked and talked in low voices about what had happened for months. Mag said it had been no surprise to her on account of Nell not having it in her to be much cop as a mother. She’d always been too hard on him – she was generally hard on both her kids if the truth be told. Sometimes it was necessary to know when to hold back and not give too many hidings. Nell handed out too many wallops and she was too inclined towards thick ears especially since her Bern had Gone. Martha said she thanked the Almighty that she only had her Pat and had never had to bring up a boy especially one like him with his mind stuffed full of Tomfool ideas but you had to admit that life wasn’t easy for widows and she knew that only too well since the war took her Paddy. Maud, who still Thank God had her George, was glad her Desmond had been just that much older and not influenced by Nell’s boy and at least he was at a different school because it was at school where most of the trouble started in her experience. Old Nan was of the opinion that too much was made of school and she herself had never had a day’s schooling and it had done her no harm whatsoever. The problem with that boy was that he was Bad Through and Through though she wouldn’t mind betting that it had been the school that had filled his head with all the bird tripe in the first place.

Meanwhile our mother felt more inadequate than ever, attended the Juvenile Court Hearing, and tried to listen attentively to those who Knew Better than she as to what would become of her lawless son. The Children and Young Persons Act had recently raised the age of criminal responsibility to 10 but it had also required local authorities to undertake preventative work with families who had children at risk of re-offending. My brother was deemed to be at risk even before he was discovered cold and hungry in his new pup tent and so he progressed through the hands of a number of well-meaning officers assigned to him by the Court. It was discovered that the unfortunate butcher had not been his first victim as far as straightforward theft was concerned and that he had been responsible for various acts of pilfering ranging from raiding the purses and wallets of relatives when they came to visit, appropriating our mother’s carefully saved Christmas fund from the top of her wardrobe, and helping himself to a number of LPs, purchases I had made in advance of owning a record player but hopeful that someday I would. These he sold in Gravesend Market. For some time he had not lacked energy and enthusiasm for delinquency on a small scale and it had undoubtedly been the single act of sudden violence that had propelled him towards a category more alarming and with infinitely more consequences.

The Probation Officer called Ken managed to get alongside Bernard and earn his trust sufficiently to ensure that from time to time he listened to the advice offered him. Ken organized a weekly amount of spending money and was hopeful of sorting out a place at the Gravesend School of Art until he realized it had merged with the Medway College. Bernard had of course revealed the well-thumbed photographs of the Paddyfield Warbler and Ken quite sensibly believed he might benefit from a course in photography which would not only cater to his innate creativity but it had nothing directly to do with mathematics which was a bonus. Bernard was in agreement but cautious all the same because it sounded just a little like school in disguise and our mother was elated to be able to say that she had a son who would be attending College which was odd as she had shown little interest in Further Education for either of us previously. However, when the idea came to fruition and Bernard took the train to attend on a daily basis she was almost bursting with pride and told all and sundry that he went to a Proper College where the uniform was a cap and gown. In retrospect I think this odd idea must have filtered down via comic books from her youth featuring a mish mash amalgamation of Gem, Magnet and Greyfriars School. It also had something to do with the continuing censure and disapproval of her mother and sisters who voiced ongoing criticism of both Bernard’s criminal behaviour and her own less than ideal parenting that had probably facilitated it.

The completion of the photography course and the skills acquired ensured that he would undoubtedly be in a much better position to produce first class images of the Paddyfield Warbler should the situation ever again present itself. At some stage I remember pointing that or something very similar, out to him. He seemed immediately dejected at the thought and said that no matter how hard he had tried he was never able to persuade anyone in the ornithology world that he had actually seen the bird. He was repeatedly told that it did not appear in the area and he had definitely been mistaken.

Decades elapsed before an account appeared in a number of Bird Watching Journals concerning the fact that for the very first time a Paddyfield Warbler had been observed on the North Kent Marshes. An astonishing event! Great excitement was caused. Bernard said it might have been unusual but it certainly wasn’t the first time the bird had been seen. His had been the very first Paddyfield Warbler and in fact he had photographic evidence of that!