Post Industrial Sky
July 24, 2009 by Bird
Filed under Blog, Skywatch Friday, Summer, Wild London
In honour of Skywatch Friday, this week I’m going to celebrate the huge and beautiful skies over Tottenham Marshes. This is one of the few places in my neighbourhood where you can gulp down a view of vast and uninterrupted sunset – or perfect blue, or racing cloud. But those skies are also wonderful viewed through a fabulous collaborative latticework of human and natural making.
I suspect I may be unusual in my love of the pylons, gasometers and other industrial paraphernalia 
that frame the marshes on every side but their sculptural forms are wonderful against a vivid summer sky, and if they are good enough perching places for Little Owls, then who am I to argue? On a hot early summers day the brilliant rust red of the gasometer, the pinkish orange of these Water Dock seeds and the vivid green of vigorous new grass just pop and sizzle against the sky. I defy you to find brighter colours anywhere – and how lovely! There are no colour clashes in nature and yet this beauty is haphazard, undesigned, random. On a stormy day like today rain laden clouds glower over emerald and lemon fields, shafts of sunlight rippling across the grasses and sedges, making their colours ripple and dance. In a built up city like this where you can often see no further than the next street and the sky is almost completely closed to you, this flat, open expanse can make your senses reel.
As I began to write this a police helicopter was and is still clattering overhead, reminding me of a strange sky related incident that happened to me on Tottenham Marshes. I was cycling home late across the marshes one summer night, the knockout smell of haymeadow tickling my nostrils, the hot damp air singing with crickets. A police helicopter passed overhead – we paid no attention to it, they are common enough hereabouts. But with a dramatic flash the long yellow grass lit up like daylight around us – we’d been picked up in the helicopters spotlight! We couldn’t quite believe that it was actually following us and tried a sudden change of direction to relieve our paranoia – and the spotlight, after a moment of swinging wildly from side to side found us again and stuck to us, the helicopter swooping much closer in. I briefly considered stopping and waving at them but we felt unsure how they would react, so weird as it seems we just carried on, pretending not to have noticed the dazzling spotlight, apocalyptic noise and flying police who were in hot pursuit, plainly convinced that we’d been up to something terrible. The marshes looked incredibly dramatic lit up in the crisscrossing spotlight as it flickered over pylons, lighting gantries, tall vegetation and gasometers, throwing huge, lurid terrifying shadows. The sky was a light polluted, deep velvety almost-orange hue and the whole place looked like a scene from War of the Worlds. So what happened? Well, after hovering over us for a good five minutes it seems the cops realised that it was all a case of mistaken identity, the ‘copter did an abrupt 180 and sped off towards the industrial estate, which the real miscreants no doubt escaped from half an hour before.
For more beautiful and fascinating images of the sky around the world, visit Skywatch Friday!
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Great pictures and a great little story! But oh, what a sensual post! Lovely writing today- my senses are almost reeling just reading about it. I can almost smell it! And war of the worlds- I’m there with you, cycling across the science fiction landscape under strange and orange-y sky. Seeds of a story, there.
Kit it was such a dramatic incident that all the detail is still there for me, which may be why it comes across so vividly
And you are right – that could be a chase scene in a story couldn’t it? Hmmm…cogs whirr in back of brain…
You know, i’ve got a bit of a crush on man made structures as well, and see them in some ways, as being just as organic as things that grow in the earth. There’s nothing here that is made of things that are not of the earth. Its just not possible.
So yeah, I love your juxtaposition of the beauty of nature and the wild craziness of concrete and metal. Works for me.
Excellent Svasti, I knew I couldn’t be alone! To me these things look like sculptures. I mean pretty brutal sculptures but still… And you are right about everything coming from earth, though I have to admit that ruined or obsolete manmade structures are my favourite, probably because on the whole their harmful days are done. I guess the man made thing I cannot stand is actually horizontal, ie acres of barren tarmac. And perhaps golf courses Yes, definitely golf courses.
What an exciting tale!
Your post-industial skies tell an interesting tale also of interaction between humans and nature.
Hi Goo, the marshy landscape around East London is fascinating for it’s human/nature interaction – it’s never been possible to develop it, though use had been made of the fringes. That makes it a very interesting place!
Excellent sky watch images, and wow the story. It is probably not the best thing to wave at them, especially when you looked suspicious. Thanks for sharing. Anna
Anna, I do think we did the right thing. I have no idea what the police would have done had they continued to think we were the bad guys… my guess is send a patrol car to intercept us as we came out on to the road, but it would have been completely possible for them to land on the marshes had they seen fit! I also wondered if they had a loud hailer on board to shout instructions at you… but it would have to be VERY loud over the sound of the copter!
Do you know that you are the ONLY person that can photograph man made structures and make them appear as ‘fine art’. I’m serious, I’ve seen you do this time and time again. And I’m not a fan of man made structures, but you have made me re-frame whatever I see and that is a gift. Over the year plus that I’ve known you something I’ve learned about you is that you ALWAYS see beauty no matter WHERE you are. I strongly relate to that and find it one of your greatest character traits and most beautiful gifts that you give the world. —Your story here is very wild. Made me vividly remember War of the Worlds. But it also made me chuckle at the thought of them going after a woman with a blog titled “The Birds in the Meadow” and who make dainty beautiful jewelry. That just makes me laugh out loud. You are just an interesting and delightfully refreshing human being. Hugs, Robin
Robin, I couldn’t live in the city if I didn’t see things the way I do
Even when I can’t find things beautiful I often find things interesting, so to be honest I think curiosity is my real secret 
But thank you thank you thank you, I aim to encourage people to really look with fresh eyes so if I’ve succeeded here, then I am truly happy.
Hey Bird on the end it matters that nothing bad happen. Glad it all worked out, so you had to do something right – right? lol. Thanks for your response. Anna
That’s ok Anna, thanks for stopping by again