SITEZINE: HOLY ISLAND'S E-MAIL MAGAZINE - March 2024

Dear Reader,

Lindisfarne Priory - by night
From: Allison Cullen

If you visited over the past few weeks, you may have noticed an elongated spike in visitor numbers. Apparently, schools in various areas choose different times for 'half-term' (mid-term) holidays. A heartfelt thank you to my elder daughter who visited from the south and captured this picture of a moonlit 'Lindisfarne Priory.'

And how privileged were you if you were here this week as the Pale Bellied Brent began to gather in Jimmy's field. As I write this evening, several thousand had joined as the flock moved across into Brigham's larger field. Excitement certainly felt in the air with the prospect of imminent departure. Have a safe flight! We look forward to your end-of-year return.

Caution: Those planning to visit us will find several potholes that have developed into suspension-threatening, huge gashes in the tarmac surface—particularly when the sturdy salt marsh prevents rain and seawater from draining as the tide ebbs away.

And our usual reminder.... Always check the safe causeway crossing times. In the event that help becomes necessary, please phone 999.

Thank you so much to our authors who took the time to share their monthly reports with us. Furthermore, a warm welcome to Anna Raine whose article indicates how local residents can obtain practical help for the disabilities that more often come to most of us as we age. 'Old age often does not come alone'...

As Charlie Chester used to say (which really does show my age) - keep smiling! Northern Cross and Pilgrims (of all denominations) coming to worship with us at Easter and keep our island sacred: WELCOME!

We do hope you enjoy our March newsletter and look forward to getting in touch again in April.

God Bless,

Geoff Porter
editor@lindisfarne.org.uk
www.lindisfarne.org.uk/ezine
 

I've been in contact with Anne Robinson, a Health and Wellbeing manager to get some resources together for anyone who would like help with their physical strength and flexibility, and also to help reduce the likelihood of falls.

I've now got some free DVDs that are short demonstrations of chair exercises that are very manageable. These are designed to increase overall flexibility, and build up strength when used over a period of weeks. They can also improve balance.

If there were a few folk who wanted to try them we could organise something in the village hall. Otherwise, ask me and I'll give you one for your own personal use to try at home.

There is also a self-referral contact number for anyone who has had a fall or is feeling unsteady. Ring 01670536400 and the referral coordinator will take details and can forward them to the physiotherapy team who would then be in touch with you.

Thanks, Anna

Our half term holiday week has flown over! We were all ready for a break after such a busy half term. Our visit to Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh was a big success. The museum is excellent and took the children through a journey about geology, travelling back in time to the Big Bang and then back to present day looking at the Earth and its life in different biomes. It was a very interactive and fun tour, with lots to touch and manipulate as well as moving floors, 3D films and we got to touch a real life iceberg! The older children also enjoyed a workshop about recycling plastic to protect our planet and the younger children took part in a lively Arctic Storytelling session.

The theme of protecting our environment will continue next week as it is International Polar Bear day. This will be our STEM (science, technology, engineering & maths) day for this term. At Christmas, we adopted a polar bear called Blizzberg and we have been keeping a watch on his movements through a live tracking system. The bear is in Hudson Bay, Canada. During this special day we'll be creating news reports about 'our' polar bear, making films on habitats, conservation and the environment as well as using our GPS tracker for 'Blizzberg' for practical maths and distance mapping activities.

The conservation theme continues in National Science Week in March. We will be joining live online lessons where we'll be learning about the importance of insects in the environment. We will have extra science sessions through this week with a focus on conservation and environmental change around the world - and what we can all do to help. The children are passionate about this and are always interested in ways we can make even small changes in our lives to look after our planet.

Finally, bringing all of our work on the environment together in a practical way, we are looking forward to working with Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve (LNNR). We will be on Holy Island working on marine pollution and the issues around plastic and the environment. As part of Greenpeace's Big Plastic Count, we'll be taking part in a beach clean which is a good, practical way that the children can 'do something' to help the environment. We'll be working with LNNR again in May where they will meet us at Lowick School to teach the children about pollinators - they are going to set up some moth traps - that will be a very interesting investigation!

Heather Stiansen
Our website: www.lowickholyislandschools.org.uk

Chiffchaffs - the sound of early spring

One of the first birds I eagerly await on our island in early spring is a species which sings its own name.

Among our summer visitors, mostly wintering in Africa, Chiffchaffs are nearly always the first migrants to pass through and to let us know they immediately advertise their presence by singing in the trees around the village and lonnens.

The very simple and repeated two-tone song of "chiff chaff, chiff chaff, chiff chaff" is unmistakable and if I haven't heard it by mid-March then I've probably haven't really been trying.

Chiffchaffs are small and slim and come in tones of pale yellowish green with buffish white under-parts. They have a pale eye-stripe and dark bill and legs. Like most small warblers they're never still, constantly flicking through the foliage to feed, often singing while doing so.

Chiffchaffs are mainly woodland breeders so don't nest on the island but they are always an obvious and vocal visitor as they migrate northwards for breeding areas in Scotland and further on in Scandinavia and northern Europe.

A Chiffchaff caught in typical pose. Mike S. Hodgson

Chiffchaffs winter in North Africa and around the Mediterranean although a very small number remain in Britain toughing it out in gardens and other sheltered areas. They are quick to take advantage of the food we put out in winter with most sightings coming from bird-watchers keeping a close eye on their gardens.

Although relying heavily on insects and their larvae during summer they are able to easily switch to other fare. There are many records of them being attracted to seed, balls of fat and fallen fruit in our gardens.

Having less distance to travel to breeding areas than many other small migrants probably gives Chiffchaffs the distinct advantage of a much shorter and less hazardous migration. Unlike most of our other small summer visitors it also means they avoid crossing the very dangerous barrier presented by the Sahara and the much drier conditions increasingly blighting areas further southwards.

The result is that Chiffchaffs are currently doing very nicely, thank you. Their population has greatly expanded and survey work shows that new areas are being colonised.

This is in direct contrast to most of our summer visitors such as other warblers, flycatchers, Swallows, House and Sand martins, Swifts and Cuckoos whose numbers are all on a downward curve, probably as a result of climate change.

Chiffchaffs nest in low vegetation just off the ground. The only indication of attempted breeding on the island was a few years ago when I watched a bird building a nest in a nettle bed in the Straight Lonnen. However, repeated checks showed that nothing further occurred, the birds probably having moved on to a more traditional woodland site elsewhere.

The regional expansion of chiffchaffs has been very impressive. During the 1990s the Northumberland & Tyneside Bird Club surveyed all 1,440 two-kilometre squares (tetrads) in the county and found Chiffchaffs breeding in 248 of them, 18% of the total. Two decades later a repeat survey showed that they were breeding in 884 squares, 63% of the county, a remarkable increase by any standards.

That's the scientific stuff but there's more. An old birding friend who emigrated to Australia 40 years ago came to see me recently on his first visit home. He'd made nostalgic visits to his favourite old birding spots, mainly in north Northumberland and the Cheviot valleys, as well as catching up with old rugby team-mates for other entertainment.

He was immediately struck by the sheer numbers of singing Chiffchaffs compared with the situation he remembered it from his younger days. That might be totally unscientific but nevertheless it's very telling.

For me it's a change to be writing about a success story during an era when there is so much gloom about our wildlife. I'd like to do it more often!

The castle opens a week on Friday as I type, and once again the winter has disappeared behind me. It is sometimes easy to dwell on the jobs that didn't get done but that is always to ignore those that did and, as with every winter, we always get more done than we think.

I have already updated you on the painting and decorating work which is the last final cross-my-heart bit of the major restoration project (2016-18) that I will be able to bang on about. Our wonderful painter (and decorator) has notched off another three large spaces including the East Bedroom, which is to be open this year for the first time since 2019 - if you discount the couple of weeks it had in February 2020 before you-know-what happened.

The room is to be dressed as Edward Hudson's bedroom, mainly so visitors get a lot more of his character than had previously been on display. The room will be part bedroom, part office so we get to see Hudson relaxing in his coastal idyll, but also fretting about how the next issue of Country Life might look. This will mean that the three main characters in the castle story at the moment - Hudson, Madame Suggia, and Lytton Strachey - all have bedrooms on show. One character without a bedroom on display is poor old Ned Lutyens, the architect. He though is far too busy in three other rooms in the castle showing how his restoration project (1903-06 and 1912) is getting on. To my knowledge this is the first time we have properly told Lutyens's story in the castle, so that is going to be fun. This has involved archival material including drawings by the man himself which haven't been seen in public before. We have also had a good time gathering Lutyens's pocket litter for which he was well-known, mainly involving his incessant smoking of tobacco pipes.

Elsewhere in the building the artist and composer Liz Gre has installed a sound and light piece in the Upper Gallery as this year's contemporary art commission. It is a very immersive experience and even a little bit interactive, but I'll not say anything more just now as I know some of you will be coming to see/hear the piece in the next few weeks.

I'm going to keep this short as I have more hoovering to do and various other bits and bobs to get the old place ready for what will be my seventeenth season here (!)

Best wishes

Nick Lewis - Collections and House Officer
Lindisfarne Castle
nick.lewis @ nationaltrust.org.uk 
07918 335 471 / 01289 389903

awaited

Sophie Howard - Site Manager
Lindisfarne Priory

Brent Geese - preparing for migration
in 'Jimmy's Field' opposite the car park - Editor.

It's March and as the dark nights get shorter and the geese slowly depart, beginning their long migrations back to their breeding grounds in the high Arctic, new life is already beginning to stir on the Reserve. Some early flowering plants are beginning to come into bloom such as Primroses and the odd Skylark can now be heard singing as some of the males are already keen to start establishing territory. The next two months are real transitory months on the Reserve where you can see Snow Buntings that breed in Scandinavia and very small numbers in the high elevations of Scotland to the first Sandwich Terns arriving back from Senegal and The Gambia.

We are now beginning to head into the beginning of the Shorebird breeding season. Activity will start increasing throughout March as Ringed Plovers begin to set up territories along the beaches of the Reserve. It will be a little while before the Tern arrive back with Little, Arctic and Common Terns arriving in early May. We will be bringing you updates throughout the summer.

Last month we hosted the Northumberland Fire Service, Coastguard and Mountain rescue to carry out a wildfire demonstration (flags were substituted for fire) as to how each organisation would respond in the event of an emergency. It was a really useful exercise and unfortunately one that is increasingly necessary with a spate of wildfires in the coastal dunes of the Northumberland. In 2022 Lindisfarne NNR experienced 2 wildfires on the Links. Last summer Ross Links caught fire and over Christmas there was a large fire near Alnmouth showing that these fires are possible at any time of the year. Sadly, the most likely reason for the cause of these fires are human, whether that be disposable BBQ's, discarded cigarettes and even glass litter causing an ignition source through sunlight. Dry conditions during the last couple of springs and summers have heightened the fire risk and with climate change predictions showing that this may be the norm it is important to be very vigilant in the dunes. The Reserve has bylaws which prohibit any fires, BBQ's or any appliance that is capable of causing a fire. This applies everywhere across the Reserve throughout the year, including the beaches. It is important to remember that embers can travel very far in the wind and cause fires a long way from the ignition source.

Events-Throughout-the-Year

The end of February kicked off the first of our events of 2024 celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Reserve. There will be a wide range of events throughout the year showcasing the fantastic array of wildlife and habitats that the Reserve holds. There will also be three festivals - Shorebird Awareness festival, Summer festival and a Goose Festival. These events are to celebrate and educate visitors about the amazing but fragile habitats that Lindisfarne NNR supports and how we can all help to ensure that the National Nature Reserve remains the special place it is for generations to come. The full events leaflet can be found in Chare Ends Car park or can be downloaded from our Blogspot website below.

Andy Denton - Reserve Manager
Lindisfarne & Newham NNRs
LindisfarneNNR Blogspot

60th anniversary of the designation of the Reserve

What have pigeon droppings got to do with the dawn of light and the origin of our Universe?

I discovered the answer listening to an excellent astronomy talk organised by telescopes-for-hire outfit iTelescope.net. These online events take place most Friday evenings and have a global audience… sometimes even including participants from Antarctica. Recordings of past lectures can found by searching YouTube for "Telescope Webinars".

This particular lecture was given by the engaging science communicator and astronomer Deanna Hooper from Helsinki University. Dr Hooper's topic was her own favourite area of research: the Cosmic Microwave Background or CMB. The CMB is literally an echo of the Big Bang and recent precise measurements of how it fractionally changes across the sky are revealing lots about the age and composition of the Universe.

The microwave "horn", with resident pigeons, that helped Penzias and Wilson win the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The CMB was discovered by accident in 1964 by two scientists working on a sensitive new radio telescope (see accompanying photo) at Bell Labs in New Jersey. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were troubled by a "hiss" that they detected regardless of where they pointed their antenna. This low-level microwave signal seemed to come from every part of the sky and was equally strong whether the astronomers measured it in the direction of our Milky Way galaxy or looking directly away.

Penzias and Wilson suspected a source of interference closer to home. So they climbed up inside the horn of their telescope to see if an explanation could be found inside. Ah ha! The aforementioned pigeon droppings were discovered and fingered as the possible culprit. But even after the guano was cleaned out, the mysterious hiss persisted.

The next step in the story is a case study of how science often advances. Down the road at Princeton University, a theoretical physicist called Robert Dicke was studying the Big Bang. This was the then-controversial theory that the Universe began in a single moment, expanding from an unimaginably small point of nothingness. Dicke's calculations predicted that there should be a vestige of primordial radiation left over from the Big Bang permeating all of space and still observable today. And that it turned out - rather than pigeon droppings - was exactly what Penzias and Wilson had observed.

In the subsequent fifty years, a series of ever-more-powerful radio telescopes have been built to study the Cosmic Background Radiation. The most recent of these is the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft launched in 2009. Take a look at the accompanying map showing miniscule variations in the temperature of the CMB across the whole sky. This is effectively a picture of the Universe when light first became distinct from matter "just" 380,000 years after the Big Bang. That is less than 3% of its present 13.8 billion year age.

This detailed map of the Cosmic Microwave Background, captured over several years by the Planck space telescope, is literally a picture of our Universe at an early stage in its life.

The detailed textures evident in Planck's map of the CMB are important. They represent slight variations in the density of matter that eventually led to stars and galaxies forming. Their specific characteristics precisely determine our scientific understanding of creation.

Max Whitby, thevisibleuniverse.com

What did rocks ever do for the Romans?

When I look back at the essays I've written before I quickly see that there are lots of recurring themes (ok repetition). I'm just waiting for the HIT Editors to call time and say I've reached the bottom of the geological barrel. But until they do here's another angle on a recurring theme - there is an archaeological twist. The theme - seeing rocks in everything! I always wonder if it's just geologists or scientists who have this obsession with linking their vocation with everything or does everyone do it....?

The archaeological twist - Romans. I'm doing research on a new book (yes another one) about how well the Romans understood the landscape of their northern frontier. That includes the way they chose the line for their Wall and ditches but also whether and how they used natural geological resources.

But before we go any further the answer to the question in the title of this piece is - an awful lot! Let's start with the most obvious. The Wall needed stone blocks and had to be bonded with clay and then lime mortar. Our local geology has loads of sandstone, limestone and boulder clay - big tick. How about a good dominant vantage point and foundation to build the Wall across the Solway - Tyne isthmus. Well nowhere better than the 30 metre cliff of the solid dolerite of the Whin Sill - another tick for the rocks.

To defend the Empire the Roman army needed weapons - that meant metal, which means resources of ore. Well handily the North Pennines and the Lake District have lots of iron, copper and lead deposits. They needed coal to smelt that - we're not short of that here and when coal is hard to dig we have plenty of peat too. Both of those will also fuel the underfloor heating (hypocaust) the Romans enjoyed, especially their bath houses and saunas. Thos bath houses had lightweight heat conducting arches made of tufa - a very young light and spongy limestone (aka Mother Shipton's Well).

What about the essentials of life I can hear you saying, where's geology come into that? Easy - to make flour you need rock - ever think of the meaning of the idiom the daily grind? It took half a day for one soldier, using a stone quern, to mill enough flour for the eight men of his barrack room. And he is not going to be able to cook and eat it without copper alloy and ceramic pots (made of local clay) or metal knives and spoons. And before IKEA turned up those knives were kept sharp with whetstones, not replaced every couple of years (many of you reading this will be nodding now - yes I remember whetstones). Maybe our Roman soldier would like to add some salt to his pottage? That could have come from the brinefields of Cheshire - the surface product of (geological) rock salt. While we are on the subject of salt, did you know it's Latin name is sal and that is the origin of a soldier's (and your) salary and the expression worth your salt - they were often part paid with it.

On a more aesthetic plane, the Romans were fond of a bit of adornment - gold of course (not found here but in the middle of Wales. But they also liked intaglio rings with their semi-precious jaspers and carnelians. They may have been imported but you can find them in the Cheviots and in the pebbles along our rivers and beaches. I forgot jet - popular long before Queen Vic made it fashionable. The Romans thought it had magical properties, just like another stone 'lithomarge' (to geologists it has a much more prosaic name - kaolinite, the result of feldspar weathering). Lithomarge was not only mystical, it also had healing properties ....

We are touching on Roman spirituality now, rocks get into that too. The stone used to build and inscribe temples, tombstones and altars. They used stone and lead for coffins and occasionally even prepared their dead for burial with a coating of liquid gypsum (curious? - visit York Museum). And there is the power of water - groundwater (and thus geological!) such as springs and wells played a big part in their religions and beliefs. They worshipped their locations, were inspired to create gods and icons and placed their offerings in the water sources.

So I'm hoping I've persuaded you that the Romans depended a lot on rocks.

But that was 1900 years ago, we're not like that today are we? We've progressed since the Stone age, Bronze Age, Iron Age haven't we (notice we even define historic periods using geological descriptors?). We've certainly moved on since the Romans .... hmmmm .... maybe we are not so different .... those rocks may not be as obvious but they're still there.

Look around you now. The glass in your window was once sand. The plaster on your walls was once gypsum. The steel and aluminium in our cars were mined from metal ores. The tarmac surface of the road needed crushed rock. The battery and screen in our mobile phones need Rare Earth Elements (REE). The coal a few of us burn in the wood burner is still mined somewhere and even when it isn't, where do you think the materials in the solar panels come from or the heat in the ground source heat pump? If you're finding rocks in everything a bit indigestible don't take a tablet - there's probably calcium carbonate in that too, limestone is certainly in your toothpaste!

The bottom line - if we can't grow it we have to mine it - we just have to find ways of doing it a lot more sustainably.

New Guardian for The Community of Aidan and Hilda

Last month Faith and Scott Brennan and I drove from Holy Island through wet streets to the annual retreat of CAH members in vows at Scargill Centre, in the beautiful setting of the Yorkshire dales.

Scott was commissioned to be one of three UK guardians in place of Graham Booth, whom many remember with fondness from his days on Holy Island. Graham's wife, Dr. Ruth, also retired from her safeguarding role. They now focus on community-building on the Isle of Fetlar in the Shetland Isles, their House of Prayer there, and retreat leading in Norway and elsewhere, though Graham continues to have an interest in our Celtic Christian Library next to the Gospels Garden.

In my just-published book A Way of Life For The Third Millennium I write of guardians: 'In the Old Testament, the guards maintain the city as a safe space in which their inhabitants may flourish … Guardians are Loco-Parentis (stand-in parents) who ensure there is a supply of food and wisdom… Guardians are authentic and are willing to apologise when they get things wrong `. They need to cultivate "the gift of presence", to understand and lead themselves and their community, to practice mindfulness and use "we" more than "I" '.

Ray Simpson
Revd. Ray Simpson - Books, blogs, info: www.raysimpson.org
Founding Guardian, The international Community of Aidan and Hilda
http://www.raysimpson.org/

Kate in the Library

Like many of you, I guess, Marygate House lost the opportunity to celebrate its 'significant birthday' because of the COVID lockdown. At Easter 2020, the retreat centre was 50 years old. I know that Don and Sam had been preparing 'birthday' celebrations so it must have been a great disappointment that they couldn't go ahead.

At the end of this month, then (as Easter falls on 31st March this year), Marygate House will be celebrating its 53rd birthday. And although birthday cards cheer us up in saying '53 years young' rather than 'old', there's no doubt the House is feeling its age at present.

Just before the pandemic put paid to so many of our plans and dreams, the Trustees of the House had obtained a grant to pay for an architect to assess its current state and draw up plans for a sustainable future. In October last year, the Trustees decided that the time was now right to take this forward.

So, exciting times for us! Thomas Stewart, whom some of you will know as he has done other work on the Island, has been to visit us three times; to hear our ideas, to assess the current state of the House and to take measurements and begin to formulate plans. It's early days yet, but we have great hopes. Chief amongst these is to offer better disabled access (we have no access at all which would properly count as 'disabled', which is rather shocking, really). We'll keep you posted as the consultation unfolds and we begin the Appeal for funding.

It was a great joy to receive a visit from the Rev. Kate Tristram, first Warden of Marygate House, just days before we reopened to visitors. She came to view the newly-refurbished library and, thankfully, liked it! The official photograph of her ordination, 30 years ago (which now hangs in the Hall at the base of the stairs), was taken in this Library so it was only right that Gary take a photo on this visit too.

Out in my garden yesterday, setting over-wintered plants into their flowering position (I am 'ever-optimistic'!), I was reminded of the vegetable patch we dug over last November and left dormant since then. The sun has had real warmth in it this last few weeks and although we will, of course, have more chilly weather to come, I'm keen to get those early cropping veg seeds planted. Which reminds me that, as Spring is on its way, so is Easter. Holy Week and Easter on Holy Island is, I know, an immensely spiritual experience and Marygate House is offering the opportunity to come to stay over these days, in order to experience it to the full. We still have a few places available so bookings remain open (marygatehouse.org.uk)

We are delighted to let you know that in the summer a new Minister will be joining us at the St Cuthbert's Centre for a period of just over three years.

In the middle of February Revd Kay Blackwell and her husband visited the island and following a day with Kay we were pleased to issue a call to St Cuthbert's and are delighted that she has accepted.

We will be able to share more with you in the coming months but in the meantime we ask you to pray for Kay and her husband, Andrew, along with the Management Group at St Cuthbert's as we all prepare for this next phase of our ministry on the island and for all the people we encounter there.

Ann Tunnard
St Cuthbert's management Group
Holy Island

Dear friends,

We are now in the season of Lent. A time of preparation as we walk with Jesus towards his death and resurrection at Easter. We will be having services throughout Holy Week and Easter weekend at St Mary's - please do come and join us. A special time of coming together in this most holiest of weeks. The dates are included in the magazine. There will be a family friendly time on Good Friday morning at 11am for all ages to come and help make the Easter Garden - with hot cross buns included (and an Easter egg hunt!)

The Church of England online services team were here last week to film us in and around St Mary's and the Priory for the services over the Easter weekend, accompanied by music from the very talented St Martin in the Fields Church, London, Emerging Voices Choir. These services will be available on Church online | The Church of England, each day from Maundy Thursday to Easter Day. They also sang a beautiful concert of sacred music while they were here.

March 10th is Mothering Sunday - a day of giving thanks for mothers, and all who care for us in whatever way. A day to celebrate acts of kindness to our neighbours, and our communities. We will be having a special service at St Marys at 1045am.

Then on March 17th, the Bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley will be coming to preach and preside at our service at 1045am. It will be lovely to welcome her to Holy Island. Do come and join us in welcoming her to the island.

So, I hope you have a good rest of this Lenten season, and when it comes, a very Happy Easter!

With every blessing

Sarah
www.stmarysholyisland.org

Much loved Revd Sam Quilty licensed as our Associate Priest