Calling Melanie Brooks

… Respice Post Te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento Mori…

… Calling Melanie Brooks…

We have something that belongs to you, out here on the marsh…

In 1984, E. Parr gave you a Puffin Books edition of ‘Tarka the Otter’, by Henry Williamson.

Your book currently lives in Ebbsfleet Farmhouse, Jutes Lane in east Kent. These days, both the main building and the barn are occupied by Great Oaks Small School.

I’m the English teacher. That’s my classroom, up in the loft.

I found your book a while back. We’re used to finding bits of the past hereabouts. Ours is a secluded reach of the marsh; the past is noticed here.

But we’ll be leaving soon, and what’s lost shall remain so. Noise is coming. Progress like never before, we’re told. We ask after the fate of the lowlands, about Jutes Lane and thereabouts. The answer is always the same: ‘mitigation’, we’re told… Just not enough mitigation for us to stay.

So we’re on our way. Your book will come with us, a few miles south-west, still on marshland. I’ll put ‘Tarka…’ in the new building’s library, along with some other keepsakes from our soon-to-be ‘old’ school.

I almost hope you don’t reclaim him. Us marsh types are prone to looking behind us, and we value mementoes. It’s a tonic to pick your book up from time to time.

Still, the romantic in me hopes you can be reunited- and be just as you always were.

The view from Ebbsfleet Lane North, as it remains.