Giving memories a home.

It’s not every day that I get hugged by a police officer.

In fact, I can honestly say, it’s never happened before - unless you include Simon Randall who joined up after working Saturdays with me at a shoe shop in Huddersfield.

Nor is it just-another-day-at-the-office when someone whose name I don’t know hugs me even tighter than the police officer and whispers in my ear, ‘God Bless, you. Really’.

So last Thursday and Friday were possibly the strangest but the most heart-warming working days of my life.

And it was all down to cowslips. (Though to be fair, betony, wild marjoram and scabious played their part too.)  

Here’s how it came about.

Faced with the task of planting over 3,000 wildflowers in the meadow behind the visitor centre, we decided we needed a hand to get them in the ground quickly.   After enlisting the help of our local primary school and then our local Wildlife Explorer Group, it made sense to ask our visitors.  

But rather than just planting a flower, it seemed nicer to offer them the chance to plant one for someone else; someone special to them.  So for two days last week, that’s exactly what I did.

The response was incredible.   So much so, that I wanted to share some of the stories that our visitors shared with me and let you know how important this small act was to so many people.  

I’ll start with the soon-to-be parents who planted a flower for their ‘bump’. Dad made a promise to bring their first born back to see his or her flower.

At the other end of the spectrum there were two ladies, both Mums, who lost children before their time.

Then there was the Spanish visitor who came on holiday with his friends, leaving his wife at home. He photographed the flower he planted to show he was still thinking about her while he was away.

And the children who couldn’t decide how to spell the name they used instead of Grandpa which they couldn’t pronounce propertly, finally settling on Bampa.

The ex-RAF Bempton boys, who had just erected a memorial bench on the reserve, planted flowers for their old pals.

There was the daughter whose Dad brought her to nearby Bridlington every year when she was little. He’d wanted to retire here but her Mum wouldn’t. By planting him a flower and giving him a little bit of Bempton she felt she’d gone some way to granting his wish.

A lovely young girl from Holland planted a flower for her best friend who recently died from cancer and whom she thought about lots.

When we mentioned what we were doing on Facebook, the young wife of someone serving abroad in the Army asked us to plant a flower for her husband and take a photo so she could send it him.

And man who’d lost his brother at the age of four asked us to plant a flower for the sibling he’d never forgotten.

There was plenty of laughter amongst the sadness too.   Recalling his parents, a man told me his Dad was a fast walker so his Mum was always a few steps behind him.   She died a couple of years after her husband so the family joked she was still those few steps behind.

And I couldn’t miss out Eileen and Ken.

They wanted to plant a flower for Spencer. When I asked who Spencer was, Eileen put the brake on her zimmer-frame-on-wheels, lifted up the seat and took out a carefully knotted plastic bag. Inside was a little teddy bear bearing the label ‘Spencer’. He’d been given to them on their 50^th wedding anniversary by their son and daughter-in-law. He also came with a sizeable quantity of cash which they were to use to fill up the car and get out and about, bringing back a photo of Spencer from wherever they went.

Finally, on Facebook again, we got this response after planting for someone’s Mum:

“Thank you for such an amazing idea and for the wonderful work you do. We are both very proud members of the RSPB”.

Needless to say, we'll be taking extra care of the seedlings we planted.  Because the meadow hasn't just given nature a better home, it's now home to some very precious memories too.