Action For Autism

From Lambananas to Blencathra

I have been neglecting to write recently. What with visiting family, taking short breaks in the nearby Lake District and having the builders in, there has been little enough time for keeping up with all the autism news, never mind commenting on it.

As Liverpool is this year’s European Capital of Culture we took a day out to visit our daughter there and see the sites. The Walker Art Gallery was a real gem and more than lives up to its claim to be “the national gallery of the north.” As a teacher I was especially delighted to see the work of local children, inspired by their visits to the gallery, being shown alongside the old masters. The Walker has gone one further with a gallery, Big Art for Little Artists, devoted to introducing young children to the world of fine art.

As we walked around the city we were delighted by a series of quirky sculptures known as lambananas, because… well they have the head of a lamb and the tail of a banana!

This one is outside the Walker Gallery. And this one is outside a building site!

 Even lunch was an artistic and architectural experience. We went to the Alma de Cuba, a bar and restaurant in the old “Polish Church” whose magnificent interior with original wood carvings and stained glass windows has been preserved in the conversion. And in the spirit of Cuba I drank my first ever mojito.

From City life with my daughter to the lonely dales of Lakeland with my son. This is Kentdale. It has no lake but there is a reservoir at the dalehead. We were never more than an hour’s walking away from civilization. But it was easy to imagine that we were on the edge of a great wilderness.

Not so wild was the country around Keswick and  Derwentwater that I visited with my wife. Here is the view of Catbells from outside the Theatre in the Lakes on the eastern shore of Derwentwater.

We had a glorious day of sunshine when we walked around the lake. Much of the land is owned by the National Trust who commissioned this Centenary Stone to commemorate a hundred years of National Trust activity in the Lake District in 1995.

The following day it rained and rained. But undeterred we set off for Bassenthwaite Lake. This is the only “lake” in the Lake District. All the others are either “meres” or “waters” (Windermere, Buttermere, Ullswater etc.) Our goal was to visit one of the very few nesting sites of Ospreys in England. 24 hour web cams protect against the egg-collectors who helped to drive these birds from our shores in the 19th century as well as providing a live show at the forestry commission visitors centre at Whinlatter. We chose to trek up the hill to the observation post in Dodd Wood. Despite the atrocious weather conditions we were rewarded with a view of an osprey fishing over the lake. And because of the weather conditions we had a bonus. When the weather is fine the pine cones open and the red squirrels are able to feed up in the trees. When it is cold and wet they are tempted down to the feeding posts lower down the fells. We saw one of these endangered creatures sitting on a tree stump only yards from where we were standing.

Back in Keswick we were looking forward to a performance of The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett at the aforementioned Theatre by the Lake. Bennett frequently writes about people on the edge of society or the edge of madness. This is the true story of an eccentric old woman, gripped by religious mania and unexpiated guilt. She is demanding, delusional, doubly incontinent and for 15 years she lived in squalor in an old van which she parked in the front garden of Bennett’s London home. He tells the tale of their relationship with gentle humour and searching honesty. It is a tribute to his art and to the skill of the actress, Pamela Buchner, that by the end of the play we are totally won over by a woman whom we would, in all probability, do our utmost to avoid, if we were to encounter her in real life.

Previously that afternoon I was tempted from the hotel where I was supposed to be writing a children’s story by the noise of the outdoor market in Keswick’s Main Street. There I found a first edition, reasonably priced and in good condition of  A Natural History of the Lake District. I could have had a first edition of Norman Nicholson’s Portait of the Lakes. But as I had already bought the second edition at a book shop round the corner I decided to leave it. I wish I’d bought it now.

Nicholson was Cumbrian born and a poet. So it jarred a little to hear him refer to one of the Skiddaw fells as Saddleback. The ordnance survey map cannot make up its mind, labeling it “Saddleback or Blencathra.”  And Saddleback is the common name, describing the saddle like depression above the ridge before you reach the summit. But Blencathra sounds so much better, even if its translation from the old Celtic tongue, “seat on a bare hillside” means much the same as Saddleback.

This brings me by a roundabout route  to thinking about autism. To paraphrase my old friend Larry Arnold, “whichever way you look at it, it’s still a mountain.” And no matter what you call it, it remains the same mountain. But for some people it will always be Saddleback. I prefer Blencathra. The language we use does affect our perception of things. It is the same with autism. Illness or condition? Disorder or Difference? Saddleback or Blencathra? Whichever way you look at it, it’s still autism.

August 17th, 2008 Posted by Mike | language, recreation | 3 comments