Underwater sounds

We are all familiar with birdsong, the chirruping of cicadas and grasshoppers, and the high-pitched sonar of bats (at, least, we are when very young, before the need for bat detectors that allow us to hear them when our hearing is less acute). There are other noises we all recognise in our terrestrial world, too, like the sound of the wind blowing through trees, the buzzing of insect flight, or the calls of foxes and other mammals.

Much less familiar are sounds from under water, although there are many recordings of the calls of whales that allow communication over large distances. We find whale “songs” haunting and there are hours of these on the internet. But what of sounds from ponds and other small water bodies? There’s the croaking of frogs at some times of year, although that is really part of the terrestrial realm, since the sound is transmitted through the air. Unknown to most of us, ponds are quite noisy, as I discovered in a wonderful radio programme about “ghost ponds” broadcast on the BBC [1].

In Norfolk, pits were dug to extract marl that was applied to fields as a fertiliser and soil improver, being relatively rich in calcium. The excavated pits filled with water to form ponds and almost every field had one, although they became neglected, or filled in over time, as agricultural practices changed – thus the ghosts referred to in the programme. A project to rehabilitate and research marl ponds has been supervised by Professor Carl Sayer of UCL [2, and see above] and he explained in the BBC broadcast that cleaned-out marl ponds form wonderful habitats for freshwater and amphibious animals, and for aquatic plants. It was such a joy to listen to Carl as he explained the project with his expertise and characteristic enthusiasm.

I already knew about the project from an earlier visit to Norfolk [3], but was surprised that the BBC programme started with commentary from Jack Greenhalgh of Bristol University, who described the sounds made by organisms living in the marl ponds, with soundtracks made using hydrophones. Intrigued, I looked up one of Jack’s websites that has recordings from a wide range of marine and freshwater habitats [4]. It came as no surprise that water bugs make a lot of noise, as the adults are able to fly and calls in the terrestrial world work even better underwater. More of a surprise was the sound of a coral reef and that of plants respiring.

It all added to the fascination of the story that Carl told and reminded me of why I can become so absorbed by natural history. So much of our lives is dedicated to anthropocentricity and it is humbling to discover new things about the natural world and realise how little we know. 

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nlzk

[2] https://ghostponds.wordpress.com/

[3] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2013/06/watching-azure-damsels.html

[4] https://soundcloud.com/wildaudiojack

 

Nicknames for schoolmasters

In Summoned by Bells, John Betjeman describes his time at the Dragon School in Oxford. Charles Cotterill Lynam was the Headmaster, known to the boys as “Skipper”, and this is what Betjeman wrote about another master, Gerald Haynes [1]:

Much do I owe this formidable man

(Harrow and Keble): from his shambling height

Over his spectacles he nodded down.

We called him “Tortoise”. From his lower lip

Invariably hung a cigarette.

A gym-shoe in his hand, he stood about

Waiting for misdemeanours – 

Nicknames for masters were common in Betjeman’s day - although just among the pupils one presumes - and it was the same in my secondary school. Coming through the State system, I moved from Oldway Primary to Torquay Boys’ Grammar, as I described in Walking with Gosse [2]:

The atmosphere at TBGS was formal and all the familiarity, inclusiveness and enjoyment of learning at Oldway Primary were behind me. Masters wore gowns, were mostly rather severe, and learning was now a serious matter. I had embarked on the grim business of growing up.

Each subject was taught by a different master and was governed by a syllabus, as we needed to know various facts and principles for national examinations. There was some rote learning, but also problem solving, and insights into topics about which I knew very little...

It was quite a change. Our teachers at Oldway Primary were all women, with the exception of Mr Mitchell who had a BSc degree, something that elevated him to a very high level in our minds, as none of the other teachers had a University qualification. At TBGS, there were no mistresses and all the masters had degrees, or their equivalent. As mentioned in the quote, they all wore gowns (except the PE staff), with some, including the Headmaster, taking great pride in keeping their gowns in immaculate order. Others appeared to take the opposite approach and preferred a ragged and faded version, often having streaks of chalk dust embedded into the stuff fabric.

In addition to learning all the master’s surnames, new boys also had to memorise their informal names and nicknames, passed down to each new year group. We felt they were our secret, although I’m sure they were known widely among the staff. Some masters were referred to by their first names (or what we thought were their first names), but there were many with nicknames. Some of these had obvious origins, others were more obscure. The following are some that I remember (surnames have been omitted out of courtesy), together with a list of the first names that we used among ourselves. In addressing masters, they were always “Sir”, of course:

First names:

Bill – mathematics master

Chas – mathematics master

Chris – physics master

Dave – chemistry master

Don – chemistry master

Fred [1] – English master

Fred [2] – geography master

Geoff – geography master

George – languages master

Graham – biology master

Harold – chemistry master

Ian – English master

Joe – actually John (headmaster)

Percy – deputy headmaster

Tony – biology master

 Nicknames: 

Bilko – mathematics master, whose surname unfortunately led to Sergeant  

        Bilko

Bum (or Jim) – PE master, but unknown origin

Charlie Drake – master who resembled the comedy hero of the time

Chick – languages master, but unknown origin

Growler – mathematics master with a bad case of “small man syndrome”

Hoppy – music master; abbreviation of surname

Mole – physics master who used this pronunciation when describing molecules

Moon (or Bert) – languages master with a round face

Neddy – history master, but unknown origin

Piggy – languages master of rather large dimensions

Ptolo – classics master; short for Ptolemy

Rip-Rap – history master, but unknown origin

Taff – PE master; from Wales

Zip – geography master, but unknown origin

So, using first names and nicknames was a way of softening the secondary school experience, as was the camaraderie of friends. There was bullying, but I was never bullied by other students, only by two masters. My policy was to keep out of trouble and I only had one whacking and one detention in my time at TBGS. As to learning, a lot was drummed into us and a few masters commanded respect for their wide knowledge and humanity.

As readers of Walking with Gosse [2] discover, mine was not a distinguished academic career and I was given no honours for achievement, no honours in sport and failed to become a prefect or sub-prefect (almost all my classmates managed to achieve this status). I went on to success, of course, and it was my love of natural history that sustained me though the secondary school years. I was much more in tune with the approach to learning we had at Oldway Primary and that is something that I maintained in my own teaching career (where I was awarded three teaching prizes and also acted as Director of Studies). I wonder if my students gave me a nickname, or if this was a practice confined to UK boys’ schools long ago?

[1] John Betjeman (1960) Summoned by Bells. London, John Murray.

[2] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book (available widely!).

Below are pictures of me at Oldway Primary and at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School

 

 

Which matters more to success - ambition or talent?

The FT Weekend Magazine has a regular feature called “Inventory”, in which questions are posed to a range of famous people from many walks of life. The questions are the same each week and one of them is:

                            Ambition or talent: which matters more to success?

When reading the responses, it is difficult not to be introspective and I have no idea how I would answer, should the question be put to me.

The starting point in providing an answer depends on the word “success”. As the people interviewed by the FT Weekend Magazine are well-known in their fields, they must have been successful. Many strive for success to make them famous, while others have little interest in fame. Of course, almost everyone likes recognition for their abilities and what they have achieved, whether in a career or on a personal level. So, is ambition or talent more important in achieving success?

For me, being an Emeritus Professor at UCL is a mark of success, but how was this achieved? It was certainly not a target and, indeed, my PhD research supervisor told me that he thought that I lacked ambition. He was right, in that I didn’t have goals, although I knew that I wanted to follow a career in natural history and the best way of doing so was to become a university teacher. That would allow me to carry out research on whatever fascinated me at the time and it would also enable me to pass on my enthusiasm for the natural world to students.

That’s where luck comes into it. Armed with good references about my work as a postgraduate demonstrator in practical classes and field courses, I was lucky enough to gain a 3-year teaching position at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, followed by a permanent post at Goldsmiths’ College, and then a transfer to UCL. Research progressed from a continuation of my rather dull PhD studies, through the inspiration provided by wonderful colleagues in the UK, Sweden and the USA, to a fascination with how all aquatic ecosystems work. That led to questions that I was quite incapable of answering and, as a result, I stopped practical research and started to write reviews that crossed conventional boundaries. That was valuable for teaching, but I remained a child-like natural historian at heart and it was the wonder of Nature – from chemicals up to large organisms – that drove my approach.

Having established that I had little ambition, did I have talent? The origins of my fascination with natural history have been described in “Walking with Gosse” [1], but talents are difficult to define. That makes answering the question posed even more problematic.

Moving further down the questions in the FT Weekend magazine “Inventory” comes:

                   If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would he/she think?

I can certainly say that I would have been amazed that I ended up in my present position. If you told the person in the photograph below that they would become a Professor at a World-renowned university, give talks in the National Gallery in London, write books and reviews, and be awarded a higher doctorate, they would certainly not have believed you. How did it all happen? It’s a question we all ask in advancing years. 

[1] Roger S. Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse, e-book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Gosse-Roger-S-Wotton-ebook/dp/B08HMCJS9J

 

 

 

 

"Walking with Gosse" as an e-book

 

The COVID-19 pandemic influences everything at present. When the lockdown was announced in the UK, I decided that I needed something to occupy my time, so pressed ahead with a re-write of Walking with Gosse, first published as a paperback in 2012.

Since 2012, I have continued my interest in the story of Henry and Edmund Gosse, so there was a chance to make a revision, and update, of the book and, as the paperback was rather difficult to get hold of, I decided that an e-book was the best way forward. I knew nothing about e-book publishing before setting out, other than that it was a means of making books easily accessible on mobile telephones, tablets and desktop computers, so I needed advice. This came from Dr Bob Carling, who has wide experience in publishing, and he took me through the stages needed to transform my MSWord files into the form acceptable to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other e-book publishers. As I am a technophobe, it would not have been possible to publish this new version of Walking with Gosse without Bob’s help and technical expertise, just as I could not have published the paperback without the help of Dr Susan England of Clio Publishing.

One of the advantages of an e-book is that it allows a “clickable” list of contents to allow readers to navigate through the text, although I very much hope that the book is read from cover to cover, as that was the way it was conceived. It is part autobiographical (Part 1), part biographical (Parts 2-5), and part commentary on our current approach to natural history, creation and religious conflicts (Part 6).

The list of contents of Walking with Gosse is given below (as an appetiser):

 

List of contents

 

Preface

Part 1

 Growing up at the seaside

 Being a Christian

Schools, parents, and an interest in natural history

 Leaving home for University

 

Part 2

 Henry Gosse, The Aquarium and looking through microscopes

Henry Gosse’s early life and the development of his interest in natural history

Henry Gosse becomes a professional natural historian and writer

The development of Henry Gosse’s religious beliefs

 

Henry Gosse’s own family

 

Henry Gosse as a teacher, lecturer and leader of field courses

 

Recognition as a scientist

 

Part 3

Omphalos

 Reactions to Omphalos and Henry’s need to incorporate his religious views into his writing

 

The Romance of Natural History

 Sea serpents

Extinction, animals that fall from the sky, and mermaids

 

Part 4

 

Father and Son

 

Early life in London

 

Moving to St Marychurch

 

Edmund becomes a Saint

 

Edmund’s baptism and the move to a new chapel

 

Tom Cringle’s Log, meeting Eliza, and the beginnings of independence

Edmund’s Epilogue in Father and Son

 

Part 5

 

Learning more about Edmund

 

Eliza Gosse’s view of Henry

 

William Pengelly – a deeply religious man who believed in “creation by evolution”

Henry Gosse and Charles Kingsley

 

A feeling of connection to Henry and Edmund

 

Part 6

 Henry Gosse and or contemporary world

 Henry Gosse and the negativity of religious faith

 Creation, evolution and the origin of life

 When believing in creation seems like an easy option 

Tackling the supernatural 

Dr Dryasdust and contemporary trends in Biology

 Being interested in teaching and lecturing

 Natural history and the media

 Epilogue

 

References

Acknowledgements

 

Appendix 1

 Henry’s scientific publications

 

Appendix 2

 Henry’s solely religious writing

 

A series of posts about Walking with Gosse will appear on my blog over the next few months. They will highlight some of the sections of the book and give what scriptwriters might call the backstory. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy the book.