Under The Stars: A Journey into Light
By Matt Gaw (2020, Elliott & Thompson)
Walking in the Dark
Matt Gaw is a writer and naturalist whose fascination with darkness leads him to seek out experiences of being outside at night. In Under The Stars he is inspired to write by taking walks in the moonlight, camping under the stars and searching for dark places away from the intrusion of artificial light. This is one of two books that I read in advance of the 2023 International Dark Skies Week, 15th – 22nd April, the other being Beneath the Night by Stuart Clark.
He visits the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory in the Galloway Forest, which was the UK’s first Dark Sky Park. Mesmerised by the power of the telescopes being demonstrated and the clarity of the view, he finds himself almost overwhelmed. As much as he appreciated and learned from the flood of information and technical detail, he more naturally drifted away from the observatory, and away from the crowd of people, in order to find some alone-time under the darkest of dark skies. His appreciation veers towards the subjective wonder of nature: he rediscovers the infinite perspective of seeing one’s own insignificance beneath the blaze of the milky way.
Holding back the light
Later, after various nocturnal explorations and challenges, he takes his family to holiday on the Isle of Coll in the Hebrides, a “Dark Sky Community” who are proud of keeping the light pollution at bay and appreciative of the many visitors this attracts. Gaw is sometimes too pushy with his family, in wanting them to share his enthusiasm for dark skies and perfect starscapes, so that he is disappointed with his children’s initial lack of interest. But his insistence pays off, because they do venture out in the night and they do see and they do stare – almost unbelieving – at the spectacle of uncountable stars. They are always there, but for most people this common heritage is so obscured that they don’t even think about it, let alone realise that it is being compromised by our modern lifestyles. How many millions live in town and cities where they many never have seen the Milky Way, and perhaps never will?
The author thinks about other themes on the subject on the subject of light and dark. He considers how moonlight is thought of in folklore; of how starlight has provided pioneer sailors their navigation for thousands of years. He loses himself in dark forests and moors and beaches in order to see, hear and contemplate the creatures of the night. Above all, he laments the thoughtless, wasteful artificial lighting that continues to infest the skies. It not only impinges on star-gazing but (as we are informed from the dark sky campaign) disrupts the natural diurnal and seasonal cycles of animals and birds, as well as creating bad consequences for human health. This very readable book may be light on science, but it is rich in ideas. Matt Gaw writes with self-deprecating humour and a deep appreciation for nature. It reminds me that creating and protecting a Dark Sky area is not just about pleasing us astronomers, but it restores some balance to our relationship with nature. And with ourselves.
[This review was first published in New Zenith, the newsletter of Vectis Astronomical Society]
Elsewhere on the bookshelf
- Beneath the Night: How the stars have shaped the history of humankind by Stuart Clark (2020, Guardian Faber, 290 pp.) – a highly readable and thought-provoking history of science. Review coming soon!
- Reaching for the sky – Welcome (grandpops-bookshelf.co.uk) – a review of The Comet Sweeper: Caroline Hershel’s Astronomical Ambition by Claire Brock
- Fred amongst the Stars – Welcome (grandpops-bookshelf.co.uk) – a review of Fred Hoyles’ 1950 BBC lectures The Nature of the Universe
- Morsels of the Night Sky – Welcome (grandpops-bookshelf.co.uk) – a review of a different attempt to package the history of astronomy
Links
- Scottish Dark Sky Observatory – Go Stargazing – The Scottish Dark Sky Observatory was destroyed in a suspected arson attack in June 2021. A plan to rebuild, funded by East Ayrshire Council, was reported in the Autumn of 2022.
- Isle of Coll Dark-sky Community (visitcoll.co.uk)
- Coll (Scotland) – International Dark-Sky Association (darksky.org)
- The Isle of Wight’s bid to establish a Dark Sky Park has now been adopted by the IW Council, and is well advanced. It was reported by the press in 2021: Isle of Wight launches International Dark Skies Park bid – BBC News
Scottish families will know Katie Morag, the welly-clad little girl whose adventures on the fictional Hebridean island of Struay were on the national curriculum and turned into a TV series. The author, Mairi Hedderwick, lived on Coll, and as soon as the ferry approaches the tiny village of Arinagour you know where Struay was based on. When I visited Coll Hedderwick’s daughter ran a pottery by the new pier (which features in one of the stories), and one of her shaggy little island sheep stands on my bookcase.
Coll is wild and beautiful, and an unlikely place for plane-spotting. I borrowed our host’s dog one morning and sat on a beach, watching the trails of dozens of airliners arriving from across the Atlantic. The night skies were wonderful, and it was nice to meet Katie Morag.