Niall Ashdown - Birdman and Birdboy

 

 

When I was eight years old, I was in a primary school classroom drawing. I didn't know what I was drawing. And then, when I'd finished my drawing, I realized what I'd drawn was a bird, and it was probably a robin. And from that moment on, I realized that the most important thing in the world was birds. 

 

Birds were brilliant. They still are. Birds can sing and fly. Think of anything else that can do both those things. [audience laughter] Don't think too hard. It's not the point of the story. [audience laughter] They can also dance, and dive and swim. They are just brilliant. The good thing about this was that my dad agreed with me. And so, we instantly struck up this common interest/obsession with birds. 

 

If we had summer holidays, the usual criteria didn't apply to our summer holidays as to its relative success or failure. We didn't judge it by the weather. For example, it was always in Scotland, so there was no point in judging it by the weather anyway or the landscape, which, of course, is beautiful in Scotland. We didn't judge it by that. No, we judged it by how many new birds we saw during that trip. There was one year when we saw nine. Nine. That was the best holiday ever. [audience laughter] Better than anybody else's holiday here that you've ever had. It was fantastic. 

 

And so, a lot of my childhood memories are sort of pivot around bird related experiences. If I could choose one, I would choose the time we stopped our camper van in a lay-by. If there's anybody American here, it's like a little bit of a road off a main road. There was a big patch of grass there. We got out of the van. We started to get mobbed by a pair of lapwings. Now, lapwings are like-- Anybody know what a lapwing is? One person. [audience laughter] There's so much work to do. [audience laughter] 

 

A lapwing is like a small plover, about the size of a crow, and it's also known as a peewit because of the noise it makes, which is peewit. It was a bit close to the mic. Sorry about that. [audience laughter] And so, they mob you if you get near their nest. And so, I'm getting mobbed and my dad's getting mobbed, and we get into the camper van or we used to call it a caravette back then. I realize caravette sounds like some awful trendy marketing solutions firm, but it was actually what we called a camper van back then. We got inside and then we got ready for bed, because we were staying overnight in our camper van in the layby. 

 

And then, my dad, about dusk, got out the van again and walked back across the grass. He came back quite excited, quite agitated. He said, “I found the nest. There's five eggs in it.” And I was like, “Brilliant. Brillant. Let's go, let's go. Lets go, dad.” He said, “No. We have already disturbed the birds enough. We must leave them. You are in your pajamas. It is bedtime.” [audience laughter] So, I thought that is so unfair. I lay in bed in my sleeping bag, just railing against the injustice of this pointless, spiteful decision. [audience laughter] 

 

I woke up in the morning after a very sulky night's sleep. I was actually woken up. It was about quarter to six, way too early, by a rough hand shaking my shoulder. And then, two big hands picked me up, shook off my sleeping bag and dropped me into a pair of Wellington boots, threw a coat on me, still had my pajamas on. We walked out across the dew soaked, tussocky grass back towards the nest. When we got to the brink of the nest, the eggs had gone and had been replaced by five little downy brown chicks. Beautiful, little baby birds. They'd hatched in the night. 

 

When I romanticize it in my head, I think there's still little bits of dried yolk on their fur. [audience laughter] Just before we get too close, they start to lift up on really long legs, their outsized legs and totter off over the tussocky grass, a bit like drunk women on stilettos, [audience laughter] or if that offends you, drunk men on stilettos, drunk people on stilettos. But it was wonderful. It was the most exultant moment of my young life. It was just heaven. 

 

Cut to about 41 years later, give or take a month, and I'm holding that self, same hand, and I'm in an ambulance. My dad is on his back, and he's frailer and he's paler, and he looks like he's dying. I think he is dying. His breath is shallow, his feet have swollen up in a grotesque way. He might have pneumonia. His kidneys are just not working. He hasn't been able to hear for years. 

 

I'm holding his hand, and I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, well, if this is it, then this is it. He keeps telling us he's had a good life. He doesn't need any more life. Is there nothing else to achieve particularly. If this is it, it will be fine. There's no need to grieve. Just let him go, because there are lots of losses you suffer as a child with your parent. There are little losses, little moments of grief during your life when he can't put you on his shoulders anymore, that's a loss. 

 

When he drops you off at university, in my case, university, and waves goodbye and you're standing there on your own two feet, on your own, that's a loss. When you're going for a walk, looking for birds, and you turn around and your dad, far from being 50 yards in front of you, is 100 yards behind you and he looks old, that's a loss. And this is a loss too, this strange distortion of my father lying in an ambulance. The other thing I think, is that if he is going to die, given my work schedule at the moment, [audience laughter] it would be really good if it was around now, [audience laughter] because I've got to go back to finish off my theatre tour. I'm doing a theatre tour in Houston, Texas. I've got to fly back there. 

 

Actually, I know that sounds callous, but I've been working with these people for about four or five months. During that time, they have seen me through my 50th birthday in Brooklyn, got me very, very drunk, paid for me to go and see LeBron James play basketball. One of the greatest experiences of my life as well. And then, I got very, very poorly myself. My stomach was very, very bad, and they helped me through that and I never missed a show. They have looked after me and I owe them. The last month of this tour, I owe them Houston.

 

So, we get to the hospital. Somehow my dad gets into a bed on the ward, and then the next day he's a bit brighter, actually. He's perked up a bit, and then he's not well. He's not going to get better, I don't think, but he's perkier. And then that continues for a few more days. It gets to the point where I hear from my brothers and sisters that my dad has decreed that in no circumstances must I stay here. I must go to Houston and finish the tour. So, I get to the point where I have to go, I have to get on a train. So, I go and see him for what might be the last time. I try to think of something profound to say or something useful to say. 

 

So, as any Englishman would do, I end up sitting there saying nothing and listening to the birds that are singing outside. There's blackbirds and there's a robin, There's a pied wagtail flittering around. They like car parks, so inevitably they're there. And there's also pigeons. A few pigeons cooing around. I hate pigeons, actually. 

 

When I say I love all birds, I don't love all birds. I hate pigeons. I have a visceral contempt for pigeons. I think they're the [beep] bird ever invented. [audience laughter] They're tiny little pinheads, and they're bloody everywhere. It doesn't matter where you go in the world, there's always pigeons. And they fly quite impressively, so they always look like they might be something more interesting. Ooh, that could be a hawk. No, it's another effing pigeon. It's another pigeon. I don't like pigeons. 

 

So, anyway, I lean forward because I have to go. I lean forward and my dad, who, as I've said, is hard of hearing and wouldn't have heard the blackbird or the robin or anything like that. I lean forward to him and I say, I love you. And he says, “What?” And I say, I love you. And I stand up, kiss him on the cheek and I walk out the hospital ward. And just as I'm leaving, I hear my dad say in a loud voice, “I know you do.” So, I get on the train, and I get on a plane, and I'm in Houston and I'm doing my show. 

 

Probably two and a half weeks later, at about half past 08:00 in the morning, I get a phone call and it's my wife. And my wife says, “Hello, darling, how are you?” I say, I'm fine. How are you? She says, “Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. How was the show?” Oh, it's great. Yeah. Yes, good. It's going very well. Thanks. “Good. Well, your dad passed,” and then the line goes dead on the word past. And I'm thinking, oh, no. Oh no. It's got to be passed away. 

 

So, I'm waiting for the phone to ring. But it takes a bit of a while for the phone to ring again. I'm thinking, well, it doesn't have to be away. It could be past wind. [audience laughter] It could be past muster in a series of difficult physical tests. [audience laughter] It could be past caring. The phone rings again, and it's my wife. She says, “What happened?” I said, I don't know. The line went dead. She said, “Well, your dad passed away this morning,” Okay. So, it's a strange thing when your eyes absolutely fill with tears in an instant, but that's what happened. I listened to the rest of the story, and I heard the fact that my mum was with him and she read a beautiful poem to him as he passed away by W.B. Yeats, and I thought, that's good. That's a good way to go.

 

I went out into the lounge in our apartment in Houston, and I felt, in a strange way, as close to my dad as I ever felt and easily as far away from my family as I'd ever felt. I looked out the window. Before I could do that, Stu, one of my colleagues came out of his room and said, “All right, mate.” And I said, he's gone. And held me and let me cry a lot more, which I did a lot, very hard for about 30 seconds and then stopped. And then, I looked out this window. And by the window, that's overlooking a busy Houston street, there is a telegraph wire. 

 

As I look out the window, a bird comes out the sky and lands on the telegraph wire, and it's a pigeon. [audience laughter] I look at the pigeon and the pigeon looks at me. He's quite a jaunty little chap. Looks at me as if to say, “All right, mate.” I look at him and I say, no, no. I'm sorry. If you think you are going to be the punctuation mark at the end of the story of my father's life and my relationship to him, if you think you are going to be the point where it comes full circle, if you think you are going to supply some congruency to the narrative arc of my life with my dad, then you are sadly mistaken, sir, because you are a pigeon [audience laughter] and my dad was an eagle. My dad was an owl. My dad was an eagle owl. [audience laughter] 

 

So, the pigeon looks at me and somewhat apologetically lifts off and flies away. And I watch it go. And so, I'm still waiting for the punctuation mark. That was about two years ago. Hasn't arrived yet. All I'm left with is a sense of absence that something's not there. But every so often, I get a sense that he is still around. The last time it happened was about a year ago, I was in a Cornish woodland in a clearing, sunshine dappling through the leaves, and this little wood was full of song, and wing, and my father was in every note and in every feather. Thank you.