I’ve always had a thing for benches, so much so that they feature in three of my four all-time happy places. Benches to rest on. Benches to think, write, and dream. Benches to sit and talk with friends. Benches with a view. Benches with memories. This evocative photo by Huy Phan inspired me to explore the role benches have played, and continue to play, in my life.
To Sit With Friends
There are two wooden benches in the middle of the village of Great Musgrave in Cumbria. I’ve shared many calls there with Fran on my evening walks from the holiday cottage I used to visit almost every year. A little further on, down a narrow avenue of horsechestnut trees, another of my favourite benches sits in a field outside St Theobald’s Church beside the River Eden. Another happy place bench is in the beer garden of The Wateredge Inn, in Ambleside.
From my table, less than twenty feet from the waves lapping against the pebbles of the shore, I have a perfect view south along the lake. It’s early evening and the last few ferries of the day ply their trade from the Ambleside jetty to Bowness and beyond. It’s simply, breathtakingly, beautiful. On the table is a pint of beer, my beloved brown passport-size Traveler’s Notebook, fountain pen, phone stand, and journal. On my head, my Bluetooth headset, anticipating a call. Fran and a few other close friends have shared moments with me there.
Dismantled in 2022 to make way for an unspectacularly banal office complex, former music and social venue STACK Newcastle holds a special place in my heart.
I have great memories of sitting by the roaring open fire in the Tipi Bar or at the benches in the main area, catching up with my journal, capturing ideas for future blog posts, or waiting for friends. As well as local friends, I’ve shared time at Stack with Fran and others through photos, chat, and video calls.
Other benches come to mind. Beside the River Wansbeck in Morpeth, where Aimee I had a picnic a few years ago before cracking each other up (“Know what I mean?” “I thought I did!”) and climbing Ha’ Hill to look down over the town. The blue painted bench at Beaulieu in Hampshire where I sat with Fran on the first, and so far only, occasion we’ve met in person. The ocean view bench she shared with me many times when she lived on Peaks Island in Maine. More recently, we had a video call together on a bench in the grounds of Fran’s former school in New Jersey. We shared the events of the day, stories from her past, and the local wildlife. “Marty, look! A bunny, a robin — and a deer!”
My favourite bench of all, though, sits at the intersection of Fawdon Walk and Brunton Lane, less than ten minutes’ walk from my home. It’s not the most comfortable or delightful to look at. It doesn’t have the best view. It’s nevertheless witnessed a great deal of my life and a few of its most significant moments over the past few years. I’ve spent hours on that bench talking with Fran and other friends, sharing the highs and lows of our lives no matter what was going on at the time. This was never more valuable than during covid lockdown when local walks were my sole escape from the disruption and uncertainty playing out in the world. I remember the chat and voice messages I exchanged with one friend a few years ago, discussing our respective blogs and podcasts. (Hi Liz!) Most of all, I treasure the selfies taken with my friend Louise when she came to visit. Lou, I adored your excitement at finally seeing the bench of which you’d heard so much! Hopefully, it won’t be too long until we’re sitting there together again.
Solitude and Contemplation
There’s more to benches than sharing time and conversation, however. They can be a place to be quiet, with and within yourself. I almost always have my diary with me on my walks, and keep my eyes open for somewhere to sit and catch up with the events of my day. During lockdown, I’d go out two or three times a day if the weather permitted. I start every diary entry with the date, time, and where I’m writing. There are literally hundreds of entries through 2020 and 2021 that begin with the words “Fawdon Walk bench.”
Another great location to sit and think is the white metal bench beside the lake at Kirkharle in Northumberland. Originally designed by English landscape gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who was born at Kirkharle in 1716, the lake was created in 2010 after his plans were discovered. Continuing the benches-beside-water theme, I wrote a piece for Mental Health Awareness Week 2018 sitting on a bench at Tynemouth.
Today — Saturday, May 19, 2018 — is the day of the Royal Wedding. I wish Harry and Meghan well in their life together but I brought myself out to the coast to avoid the media, and social media, onslaught. It’s just not something I feel a part of. Here at Tynemouth there is calm and space and air and sky and sea. And a bench where I can sit and write.
That was a time of excitement, motivation, and change, with new opportunities and projects opening up for me. Sitting there with my Midori Traveler’s notebook on my lap, I explored how I was feeling. Of two fundraising events I’d attended that week, I wrote: “[they] were a lot of fun and raised much needed funds for local mental health projects. They meant a lot to me on a personal level too. I came away with a stronger sense of belonging than ever before: of belonging to a local community of people who accept me, who are genuine and open, and passionate about making a difference. Borrowing words from Fran, I feel I have found my tribe. And that’s a powerful thing.”
Loneliness and Exclusion
Keywords for the image I chose to illustrate this post include senior, depression, mental health awareness, mental health, person, man, bench, adult, and alone. At first glance, I saw an old man sitting on a bench in the city, head down, excluded from — or at least on the outside of — everything going on around him. I marked my sixy-third birthday a few months ago. I wonder what people see when they pass me sitting on the bench at Fawdon Walk. I’m almost always alone. Head down, more often than not, on my phone or writing my diary. There’s a poem by M. W. Ketchel which addresses this directly.
Old Man On A Park Bench
The old man stops and exhales life,
sitting down on a park bench, if but for a moment to rest.
He ponders the decades, his many years of strife,
and his heart grows weary in his chest.
The elder reflects on his better years,
and happier times that have passed him by.
What remains now is loneliness, some tears,
and memories of a time when he might ask, why?
Age and wisdom, he looks across the park to watch the children play
and he smiles a private, sad, but tender smile.
Was it so long ago or only yesterday
He closes his eyes in the sun, and decides to stay awhile.
A far more sinister interpretation of the “old man on a bench” trope can be found in the decrepid character of Aqualung in Jethro Tull’s song of the same name.
Sitting on a park bench.
Eying little girls with bad intent.
Snot running down his nose.
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
According to the band’s lead singer Ian Anderson in a 1999 interview for Guitar World, “The idea came about from a photograph my wife at the time took of a tramp in London. I had feelings of guilt about the homeless, as well as fear and insecurity with people like that who seem a little scary.” He continued, “I suppose all of that was combined with a slightly romaticized picture of the person who is homeless but yet a free spirit, who either won’t or can’t join in society’s prescribed formats.”
There’s a milder, albeit still disturbing, echo of Aqualung in my unpublished short story “And Men Myrtles.” The principal character Bill Stokes is fifty-three years old, “perhaps a dozen fewer than he appeared to casual observance.” The tale opens in Oxford’s Wolvercote Cemetery where Bill is tending his wife’s grave. His world and life are overturned by events he’s incapable of understanding.
There was a bench along the path and he made his way towards it with shuffling steps. It was close — too close — to this strange party but he needed to sit down. And there was something else, something that might be curiosity but felt to William rather more like need. The arrival of these people into his world, the tall man and the girl with the raven hair, was a more than incidental event. He did not know what it meant but, good or bad, he needed to find out.
He’s more than aware how he must appear to others.
He felt himself being swept up into the darkness but he was afraid to open his eyes in case the crowd had noticed him sat there. In case she had noticed him sat there: an old man on a cemetery bench. Decrepit. Pathetic.
In many ways, it’s a tale of redemption, transformation, even hope. There’s a price to be paid, however, and it’s not paid by Bill alone.
Loneliness and exclusion remind me of Ronan Keating’s brilliant song When You Say Nothing At All from the soundtrack to the film Notting Hill. The video opens with Keating sat at one end of a park bench. As he sings about knowing what his lover means “without [her] saying a word” a woman joins him on the bench. The secret thoughts of visitors to the park are displayed as they go about their lives. The woman on the bench reveals a certain enigmatic claim to truth — “People think they know him, but they don’t.” — but there’s a hint of more. Disappointment, perhaps, or something darker. “What you see is never what you get.”
The video spotlights the disconnect between what we naively tell ourselves — that there’s no need for honest and difficult conversations because if we love someone we intuitively understand what’s going on — and the reality of people unable to express their genuine thoughts and feelings.
A Place to Rest
I don’t want to overplay the old man card, but at sixty-three I’m increasingly grateful for benches as somewhere to sit and rest. I recognise this can be frustrating for anyone out with me who may be younger, fitter, or simply less in need of a sit down every twenty minutes. I’m happy, nonetheless, to take the weight off my feet when someone went to the trouble of providing somewhere to do so.
Perhaps that’s what the man in Huy Phan’s photo is doing. Maybe he’s waiting for a friend to join him, minding the bags while his partner looks round the shops, pausing to consider what next to do with his day, or simply letting the world go by without him for a while. In the words of Jon Kabat-Zinn, “It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself.”
Less literally, being on the bench means sitting things out, watching from the sidelines as the action plays out in front of you. A number of years ago I was unable to support a friend who was going through a really rough time. I felt on the outside of things, although I respected the fact I wasn’t who they needed at that time. Louise reminded me that I was still on my friend’s team, I just wasn’t on the pitch at that moment. I was on the bench, waiting until I was called back onto the field. The analogy helped me greatly at the time, and has done so on many occasions since.
Over to You
Do you have a favourite bench? Do you enjoy sitting there with a friend, or taking a few moments for yourself? What would your ideal location be for a bench? Overlooking the ocean, perhaps, or some other scenic vantage point. Fran and I would love to hear from you, either in the comments below or via our contact page.
Photo by Huy Phan at Unsplash.
