Eddie was doing a drama weekend in East Suffolk and I was going to see the show on Sunday afternoon. I saw this as an act of parental duty rather than a quest for dizzying pleasure… and I was completely wrong.

Cindy had stayed the night at the project, being more responsive to calls of duty. I found a message from her when I switched on my phone on Sunday morning. It was just a recording. I played it – and from the first note I gasped in delight. No! It couldn’t be! And yet it unquestionably was.

Later Cindy picked me up and we drove down. “Right over there. Far side of the car park.”

I went there and I listened, but no luck. So we went in and we watched the show and it was terrific, the cast glowing afterwards and any mean thoughts I may have had were now points of shame. But bugger the tea and cakes – I was back in the car-park.

Still nothing. Ah well. I should go back and be polite, shouldn’t I? Maybe later. Maybe – and then it began. A series of whistles, each one clear as gin, slowly rising in intensity. And then the rhythmic bits, sometimes written as “jug jug jug”. After that we were away, one soaring line followed another, melody, rhythm, drama, virtuoso skill and music for the sheer love of making music.

An analysis of the song of a single nightingale revealed that this one bird sang 250 phrases based on 600 different sound units. And oh my brothers, as Little Alex said in A Clockwork Orange, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh.

We hadn’t gone there to look for nightingales, and that made it all the better. We weren’t even in a nature reserve. This was just a bit of unkempt untidy countryside with an unruly bird that sang the great song of life as the cars began to drive away. Here, for once, was nature doing its stuff as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Eddie was great.

 

 

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