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Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Greville, Caroline (2017) The Year of the Badger. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR http://kar.kent.ac.uk/69099/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD in Text, Practice as Research The Year of the Badger by Caroline Greville Accompanying critical text: The distance between animal and writer in a selection of memoirs from J. A. Baker to Charles Foster University of Kent 2017 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Scarlett Thomas, my supervisor – for her faith that a passion could grow into a full-length narrative, and for her encouragement along the way. She asked all the right questions, never telling me how the book should be written, allowing me to reach my conclusions in the best possible manner. Thanks also to Dr. Alex Preston and Professor Sarah Moss, my examiners. It was a privilege to have input from such insightful readers. Heartfelt thanks also to my family who have supported and loved me through the long PhD process, and have permitted me to write so much about them (you did once, I promise). I do hope you like the end result. Thank you, too, to the East Kent Badger Group, for all the opportunities you have given me that have found their way into the narrative. And to the badgers, for showing up. I owe you. 1 Summer Chapter One We’re in a field at dusk, the day stilling around us as we look into a small patch of woodland, hoping we’ll see the badgers come out. We is Maddy, my twelve-year-old, and me. I wonder how we must look to an outsider – like a mum and daughter who’ve had a fall out, who are not talking, or perhaps you might think we’ve lost our way. You may choose to join us when you realize what we are doing, but much of nature is packing up for the night: the wood sorrel are folding their shamrock-like leaves into protective little shelters, and the birds have stopped singing, except for a lone blackbird. His alarm call tells me he’d like to reclaim his territory, and asks if we would mind taking ourselves home so he can settle for the night. It’s turning cold, and although it’s May now we’re glad of our winter coats. Maddy has chosen an old one of her sister’s, and is rustling in the pocket for peanuts that might tempt the badgers out. It’s too late for that, we should have scattered them hours ago so our scent could wear off a little. ‘Let’s try further along,’ I say to her. Although they are born in February, it is usually April or May by the time the badger cubs first come out of their setts. We’ve been watching these new ones for about a month. I wonder if their boldness is already starting to waver. Till now they’ve shown none of the reticence of their parents, often coming close to us to get a better look. We take the path into a sheltered area of woodland and sit down on a log, side by side. It feels a more intimate space in here than it did just three weeks ago. Red campion has grown tall, and most of the lords-and-ladies are lost among waist- high glossy greens and pinks. The smell of wild garlic is strong tonight. Badgers are known to take it down into their holes to keep fleas at bay. 2 This is becoming something of a habit of ours, and is our favourite place to wait for them. We have tried sitting near the badger holes in a graveyard just a quarter of a mile from home. I like to think modern day fears about the perils of such places are overblown, the real danger being to stay within our own four walls and process the world through a screen. Yet a small part of me objects to loitering in a graveyard after dark. It’s not a fear – just a feeling that it is perhaps inappropriate. What if someone walks past? We’d freak them for sure. There is a slight anxiety that we may be seen, wherever we wait. I understand Robert Frost’s embarrassment when he writes of his night wanderings, “I have passed by the watchman on his beat /And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.”i At least in the woods the badgers are often out before nightfall this time of year. There are fewer noises for them to fear – back in the village a road passes within metres of their graveyard holes. We started coming here as soon as I discovered the badger sett. I was out in the woods on a February day when I spotted some scorched tree stumps, and as I crouched down to look saw a hole at the base of each one. There was graffiti on a tree and cans and broken glass scattered around the place, in amongst a deep layer of beech leaves. ‘The teenage wood,’ I labelled it in my mind. I searched the internet when I was home – I needed to see pictures to clarify everything – But was this a badger sett? Weren’t they protected? What should I do? My internet searches told me that I was most probably right – the holes were at least ten inches wide, a group of them close together, which were more than likely connected. I came across the East Kent Badger Group and made contact. I collected the rubbish the next day, and started to watch the sett. Nothing is happening tonight and I give Maddy a nudge. As we step over the fallen tree and out of the wood we realize how dark it is. Then there is a noise. Screeching interspersed with keckering. We climb over a fence, and at that moment find two badger cubs skidding to a halt at 3 our feet, like kids who find their bike brakes aren’t all they’d hoped. I grab Maddy’s hand and push her in front of me, out of their way as much as she possibly can be, but they’ve already turned and have run into the woods. I don’t tell her of my brief feeling of panic and wonder how she’s feeling. We pause to absorb the shock when they’re back again, running at us just as fast as the first time. They look like small remote control toys stuck on fast-forward, something has gone wrong with the wiring and they really can’t stop. That static-hair look doesn’t help matters, but they are still endearing and we’re not scared, I decide, just overwhelmed. ‘I counted at least four of them,’ Maddy tells me on the way home. I’m not so sure, but it did feel like a small mob. ‘Don’t you think it was the same ones, coming back to check on us?’ Maddy doesn’t answer, she’s looking over her shoulder and back across the field. ‘I didn’t expect that to happen,’ she says after a minute or two. ‘Wait till I tell the others, they’re going to be so jealous.’ She pauses. ‘But perhaps they won’t. It sounds a bit freaky.’ I remind her that they are harmless creatures, that they really wouldn’t attack us. It’s as much for my benefit as hers, I’m repeating the badger group advice that’s easy enough to accept when you’re sitting on a sofa at home. I’m determined that she won’t feel frightened in the woods. She’s such a shy girl, but out here there’s an edge to her that’s slightly different. It’s where she forgets herself and her eyes shine brightest. ‘It could happen though, couldn’t it?’ ‘You know, it would need to feel cornered by a very real threat. These ones had plenty of space to turn and run, though it took them a moment to realize.’ I want to get to know these badgers better – or any badgers that I can. I feel as if I’ve rediscovered a piece of my past that had been lying dormant for a while. I saw a dead badger on 4 the side of the road last winter and complained to a friend that’s the only way I see them these days. That as a child I had watched them from a holiday cottage window and been captivated, that the fascination continued for years, but there seemed no way of recapturing the experience.

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