The day they murmured for me (and helped me heal)

I love birds.

And my favourite, as my family could attest, is the Starling.

I love its neat and powerful shape, its speed and agility and collective art in the sky. I love its gold flecks peppered like strawberry pips into its sleek black feathers which turn iridescent like oil in the light.

Each summer I feel privileged to watch as a group of around 300 starlings choose to gather on the roofs of mine and my neighbours houses at sunset. But this morning (19 August 2016), I had the most incredible experience.

At 5:30am I got up and decided to go for a run. I set off for my normal route up the riverbank across from my house in Shoreham-by-sea and across the river to Shoreham airport.

The air was warm, the clouds pregnant with impending rain and the east was ablaze with the orange of the rising sun.

As I turned towards the old toll bridge I passed the temporary memorial for the Shoreham air disaster. It is now a year almost to the day since this terrible tragedy unfolded in our beautiful town. As I ran, my thoughts turned to those whose lives ended on that glorious summer day. To the trauma felt by those directly affected, to those whose memories are etched by the images alone and to the whole town whose mourning was represented by incredible tributes of flowers and candlelit bridges. To my own personal trauma of watching events unfold with my wife and two young children and the proximity of this tragedy to my house and to my heart which time has barely healed.

As I reached the toll bridge this morning and the firm beat of concrete turned to a hollow thud of wood, I noticed something strange ahead. The brow of the bridge was black and moving like a heat mirage. Still bleary from sleep I stopped and blinked heavily.

In front of me, incredibly, was a carpet of starlings spanning the entire width of the bulbous middle of the bridge and at least 20 meters of its length. There must have been 500 of these beautiful birds, chattering in shrill conversation and fluttering in waves from the ground to the side beams of the bridge.

There was no one else around. Just me, two grey herons on either flank of the bridge and a sea of starlings in front of me. It was beautiful. And the poignancy of the moment, of my thoughts of 1 year ago and of the place instantly struck me.

The starlings were blocking my running route and not wanting to scare them I just stood there. Knowing that route, I knew that in a minute or two someone else would come and cycle through the birds dispersing them. So I decided if anyone is going to disperse them it will be me, but very slowly.

I started to inch my way towards the birds. As I did so, the front edge of the group started to flutter out to the side beams as if I had fanned them. I continued forwards and the nearest starlings continued to part as I moved, their rapid wing beats like the sound of your hand running down a garden fence.

The sounds of their chattering was intense as I reached a narrow point where I was now surrounded by starlings. A moving mass of black and gold, rippling and wafting around me. I stopped momentarily to savour the moment. How few people I thought, had ever stood in a mass of starlings like this?

When I moved once more the birds exploded upwards creating a sound like a clap of thunder and gave me the brief sensation of falling as the mass of black birds who were previously the ground, rushed upwards.

Together, in spectacular unison the birds twisted and swirled like a tornado around my head. Rising then falling then turning like smoke in a breeze, the birds performed their murmuration above me for about 30 seconds as I stood in awe at this amazing spectacle. Then they all turned as one, flew south and dropped like a stone into a tree on the river bank near my house.

I don’t know quite why, but as they flew around me and then away, I said thank you.

Since that terrible day 1 year ago we have all had to process the emotions and memories in our own ways. For those who lost their loved ones there still remains no way of coming to terms with or finding closure on the events of that day. I hope soon there will be news which helps to ease the pain.

For me, time had buried the anguish, but the memory and the anger will always be there, every time I look out of my window, every time I drive on the A27, every time I see a plane, every time I walk on the river Adur or help my daughter to ride her bike.

So closure for me, may never come. But today, on this bridge, with those starlings, was a moment of pure serendipity and pure wonder. And inexplicably, it has helped.

I’ll take that, I said to myself. That was for me.

And when I got home, I decided I was going to write about it, so that it is also for everyone else who lives in this beautiful town and whose lives were affected by those terrible moments.

This is a wonderful town with wonderful people and we will heal. Today, the day the starlings murmured for me, is a moment on that journey.

This piece was originally posted on the Shoreham-by-sea community Facebook page, to mark the 1 year anniversary of the Shoreham airshow tragedy.