THE SACRED COMBE For CLW who encouraged me to go and who welcomed me back THE SACRED COMBE A Search for Humanity’s Heartland Simon Barnes Illustrations by Pam Guhrs-Carr Contents 1 The Valley 2 A Hoopoe 3 Some Famous Elephants 4 The Leopard and Her Child 5 Riding Through the Glen 6 Some other Boyhood Identities 7 An Enchanted Combe 8 The Rift 9 Love Dawns 10 Pig in the Middle 11 Some African Animals that Can Kill You 12 A Walk 13 Some Turds 14 Edenever 15 A Patient Man 16 Ask Alice 17 A Brave Man 18 Mammals Sighted in North Luangwa National Park 19 Paradise within Paradise 20 Rio By the Sea-oh 21 Big Boy and Little Boy 22 Mchenja 23 Book-list 24 Some Bob Stories 25 Cross Lady 26 The Lion Dream 27 A Fool in Wales 28 That Near-death Thing 29 Bucket List Ideas 30 Lost Innocence 31 Walls of the Combe 32 Giraffe Crossing 33 Jill and Jewel 34 Delicate Savagery 35 Sensitive Types 36 Manhattan White 37 Secret Sacred Monsters 38 Some Famous British Big Cats 39 Being Prey 40 Nsefu 41 Morning 42 A Good Old Lovey-up 43 Lovely Leah 44 Doing the Knowledge 45 How We Destroyed Eden 46 The Sin of Pride 47 Ring a Dong Dillo 48 The Spotlight Kid 49 Wild Centaurettes 50 The Suicide Month 51 Climate of the Luangwa Valley 52 Tourism 53 Three Lists of Five 54 Uncle Monty’s Cat 55 Banished from Paradise 56 Nothing Wasted 57 Pretty Woman 58 Rain 59 A New Brain 60 Fight or Flight? 61 Crocodile Fears 62 Are there Werewolves Still for Tea? 63 Death and All That 64 Blood etc. 65 A Manly Tear 66 The Unenchanted Combe 67 Cranes of the World 68 Crowning Glory 69 All One 70 Wet, Wetter, Wettest 71 Giving Blood 72 My Family 73 A Tribute in a Tributary 74 Fear in the Air 75 The Emerald Season 76 Not-seeing Season 77 Caracal 78 Whydah Still and Whydah 79 The Eureka Bird 80 Listening to the Land 81 The Golden Age 82 A Sacred Combe in Redditch 83 A Cathedral 84 Vermin 85 The Curse of Specialness 86 Last Footprint 87 A Twitcher at Large 88 Combe Together 89 Cetti’s 90 First Day of Spring 91 The Great Comeback 92 Bugles in the Sky 93 The Fawn 94 Doggedness 95 The Old Hippy 96 A Banquet 97 Being Quite Wise 98 Phoenix on Speed 99 Fired with Joy 100 Pillars of Wisdom 101 Storm Acknowledgements 1 The Valley It was the moment when I noticed someone was eating my house that I knew I’d come home. It was my first night in the Valley: perfectly black, the air filled with swishing, ripping, munching. The house in question was a thatched hut a few yards from the river. There wasn’t much of a window; the place wasn’t designed for anything except sleep, but I got from my bed and peered through the insect-gauzed strip. There were about half a dozen of them, a cheery and sociable little group lightly snacking on my roof and on the trees that surrounded the hut. Their footsteps made no sound, in the eerie fashion of elephants: vast, bedroom- slippered feet. They were quite unafraid: happy, relaxed, comfortable. I wondered what would happen if I were to step out among them, perhaps to attempt a mystical communion with them, perhaps to run for my life. But I had no real thought of doing either. It was alarming, but it wasn’t frightening. An important distinction. Being about a foot from a group of animals that could tear both me and my hut apart was curiously soothing. There was a thrill of wonder in this - wasn’t I an adventurous devil to be in such a place and in such company? But that was only the superficial emotion. Behind it was a great soul-deep happiness: a profound sense of having arrived. If I could have been sent straight back home - right now, after just four hours in the Valley, back to Hadley Wood, in Hertfordshire, where I lived in those days, a couple of miles beyond the furthest reaches of the Northern Line - I would have been satisfied with the trip and I would have been changed forever. The adventures of the rest of my first trip to the Valley were all wonderful enough, but they were just confirmation of what I learned on that first elephant-haunted night. The world was no longer the same and nor was I. I had been in the magical valley: I had found the sacred combe; I had entered the secret garden. The great round wet loaves scattered around the hut when I rose at dawn were proof that it was not a dream. Or perhaps it was dream-dung. No matter. I had dreamed all my life of being in such a place; to be there at last, dung, ripped roof and all, blurred the distinction between dream and reality so completely as to