Below is an exclusive extract from Birmingham author John Dalton’s new book, Urban Nature Notebook. Dalton is the author of two novels, The City Trap and The Concrete Sea, both published by Tindal Street Press (copies available to buy here). His new book is a collection of short accounts of the author’s encounters with urban nature as he travels around the city. Dalton is currently seeking a suitable publisher – anyone interested should email kieranconnell@fastmail.co.uk.
John Dalton © 2010. All Rights Reserved.
A FATAL SKY
Saturday, hot and humid, high-pressure weather has been around a few days now, the sky pregnant with heavy, voluminous clouds. The day before had seen thunder, lightning and torrential rain, but Saturday was better, the sun beamed down through the sultry air and the clouds seemed more distant. Until the afternoon that is, when the humidity began to build again and the sky became overcast. I thought I’d hoof it over to the allotments and pick my strawberries. One day’s downpour they could take, but another and I worried they could start to rot or become victim to a slug invasion. By the time I get up there on the site, the weather is beginning to turn bad. There are rumbles of thunder, menacing cumulus clouds are towering in the east and I feel spits of rain. I get to my strawberries and start to pick, conscious of the thunder and aware I’m crouching next to a tree. My concern increases when I see a vicious stab of lightning from cloud to ground in the direction of Small Heath. The following thunder is distinctively loud. I fill my punnets to the full and replace the netting, noticing the light has an eerie yellowness and realizing everyone else on the allotments has gone. I rush home but, in the end, the storm does not come, no overhead cacophony or incessant downpour. All that happened somewhere else, Small Heath in fact and it had terrible consequences. There are reasons why you might be out in thundery weather. I had one and so did the youth in Small Heath Park. It was the weekend. It was hot and sunny. It was a time for a game of cricket. Cricket was good, especially with world cup success for Pakistan. No doubt the youth’s game had some of that, the magisterial posturing of Afridi, until heavy cloud settled overhead, thunder rumbled and the rain came lashing down. Within the expanses of the park there would be little choice but to shelter under a tree. And so, several miles away at the same time, I saw the fatal lightning flash, the one that struck the tree where six youth sheltered. The shock was intense, the burns were bad, Mohammed Junaid Hussain, 17, took a direct hit and didn’t make it.
In Birmingham 
If you like this you should see the rest of the book: meetings with bluetits on buses and hedgehogs in the back garden; and all sorts of observations that will open the eyes of any city-dweller to the wildlife that is living all round them on the streets and in the spaces between.