The Peregrine, J.A. Baker - A Hyperbolic Book Review

James Canton, the author of a few books I am yet to read and professor of wild writing at the University of Essex gave a talk yesterday on the Life, Works & Legacy of a man called J.A. Baker. A short-sighted & arthritic bird-watcher from Chelmsford –armed only with 10x50 binoculars and a bicycle- whom, as a result of his fervent aversion for the anthropocene, self-contempt and an apathy towards concurrent society, collated ten years' worth of diarised wanderings in the realm of the peregrine to form a novel of the most liquid and visceral prose one might ever hope to read.

I do not think John Alec Baker himself, dead or alive, would have attended such an event.

The Lakeside Theatre at the Colchester campus would have been too far for him to cycle and the subject matter too sycophantic and commercial for him to stomach. As you might imagine any literary great condemning a course on creative writing, he also would have hated the idea of a ‘wild writing’ masters degree. Nor, do I think, would he have agreed with the jessed tiercel the University had parading around the library. The talk was one of countless from the Burrows Lecture Series, an initiative established in 1966 after benefaction from Major J. H. Burrows. Champion and ambassador of Essex, as well as proprietor and editor of the Southend Standard publishing group, John Burrows gave charity on the basis all the lectures in his namesake remain both relevant to Essex and free of charge.

Although Mr Canton spoke clearly and concisely he did not speak for long enough, and thus, was unable to convey anything about the author I had not previously read for myself. A Q&A followed and despite my question going unanswered, three free doses of claret and a brief conversation with the speaker would appease my dejection.

Despite living in Baker’s proverbial backcountry for twenty years -a mile and half from the edge of the earth ‘where land and water lose themselves together’ and ‘the grey and white horizons are moored on rafts’- I had been oblivious to the presence of the peregrine until reading his book.

Spanning roughly 250 square miles of saltings and spliced woodland, from the Dengie coastline to Danbury Hill, Baker’s countryside excludes place names and ensures his imagery is as enigmatic as the bird he follows. Here, in big sky country ‘where the eye has forgotten perspective’, one might still find ‘unblemished solitude.’

From Marsh Farm I have seen birds in abundance. Owls of all sorts, ducks too, buzzards, merlin, marsh harriers, kestrel and sparrow hawk in number, even the odd club-footed curlew. Daily I watch starlings and waders dance with the horizon, cutting ribbon from the sky like airborne sardines- but not once have I seen a damned peregrine. Perhaps the pesticides are to blame, perhaps the haze and kush from my local mush have made my eyes unwittingly obtuse, maybe I have yet to match the falcon in guile or sleight, maybe I have not been looking hard enough. Unquestionably they have heckled me from a thousand feet.

In lieu I stop to ponder over the lay of the land, listening to a melange of marshland birdsong and the distant sound of a backdated chain harrow, pulling through cockleshells and roman tile. The heavy blue alluvial silt between home and the North Sea hosts thousands of birds and millions of insects, but it is also, unbeknownst to many, some of the most friable and fertile land for growing wheat in all the world. Proven by John Muirhead of Eastland Farm in 1980, who set a world tonnage record and claimed nearly ninety-two hundredweights an acre. Muirhead used modest amounts of fertiliser and even fewer pesticides, garnering such high yields by bursting the pan and allowing deeper penetration of the taproot. Not only is The Peregrine a masterpiece of literary escapism, beyond even ‘the hostile eyes of farms’, but it also shed light on avifaunal plight caused by DDT and other organochloride agrichemicals.

On such land now stand ten wind turbines, icons of rural vandalism and pure political sacrilege, overshadowing one of England’s oldest churches. Behind them disused pylons walk west, as barbs on the skyline from the pixelated pockmark of a de-commissioned power station.

Baker was greeted with public and critical acclaim for his eco-lament, winning the Duff Cooper prize in 1967 and landing himself amongst the literati of London - flying with the likes of Betjeman and Chaudhuri, if only for an evening. Although Robert Macfarlane’s review of The Peregrine is as comprehensive as they come, he likens Baker’s Essex-borne imagery to that of hypernature on acid, to ‘wheeling phantasmagoria’ and ‘unsteadying work of brain straining dissonances’, but the beauty of Baker’s prose stems from its truth and simplicity. The projectile and percussive powers of Baker’s open field poetics are the result of his accuracy as a writer. “Everything I describe took place while I was watching it, but I do not believe that honest observation is enough. The emotions and behaviour of the watcher are also facts, and they must be truthfully recorded.” The all-time weight of the book derives from the singularity and immediacy of Baker’s writing, as seen is as read. Spare all time between witnessing life and then describing it and no doubt you too will master the rules of ornithology and its fiction, but do not expect to follow Baker’s suit and take counsel with the Peregrines- for his words are as true as air to the wing beat.

Not only does the man stake claim to the land on which I live but he too has immortal rights to my name, so what am I left to do, but read, love and review his work.