Chris Packham QUOTES

1 " The day we were all allowed to bring our pets into the classroom was going to be special. It was a nice sunny morning and Batty my black mouse had been spruced up for the occasion. He was in his new second-hand plastic cage, it was mustard coloured, had the mandatory wheel and sleeping chamber but had previously been a torture chamber for my cousin's late hamster. Despite my best efforts to revitalise it the wire remained rusty in places but at least it was more secure than the wooden enclosure my father had made... and Batty had instantly, and repeatedly, chewed his way out of.
Sadly the species list for the class was a meagre four: rabbit, hamster, guinea pig and... one domesticated house mouse, Batty. They all ignored him, they cooed over the 'bunnies' and those chubby-fat tailless things whose eyes bulged when you squeezed them a bit, and queued to offer carrot and cabbage to those cow-licked multicoloured freaks with scratchy claws, but not one of the kids wanted to see, let alone hold, my mouse.
By mid-afternoon the teacher finally caught sight of the lonely boy whispering into his mouse cage in the corner and gingerly agreed to let the rodent walk onto her hand in front of the class. Batty promptly pissed and then pooed three perfect wet little pellets, the classroom erupted with a huge collective 'urrgh' and then a frenzy of giggling, she practically threw him back in his cage and then made a big deal about washing her hands. With soap. Then we were all meant to wash our hands, with soap, but I didn't and no one noticed. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

2 " It was a pity he couldn't do an O level in beetle smell. Or rat identification, or birdsong. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

3 " Without the restless insects the place seemed stunned, stupefied, shocked by the ballet of gossamer violence, the wonder of plain and simple things drawn together to conjure such beauty, transforming that bubble of urban air into a theatre where an astonishing performance was fleetingly played to an awed audience of one, the memory of which would sparkle for a lifetime. And he knew it then, in that moment of dead happiness, what a gift, what a thing he had seen, what a treasure he held. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

4 " Back then I thought they were too cowardly to think deeply about themselves and their world...but now I know they had no more choice than I did, we’re just wired differently, different parts of our brain are a bit more developed than the others "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

5 " The towering cloud unfurled its edge, shoved the sun’s face away and spewed a vile violet light that curdled all colour. The grass greyed, all the dandelions dimmed and bleached, the scarlet lining of his coat rotted to mildew, his hands grew pallid, washed old and deathly, and he felt the cold steal up his legs and swallow him. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

6 " As he listened his knew those beautiful notes would hit the classroom windows and fall unheard on the paving below, to be trodden into crisp packets and the sticky stuff from Wagon Wheels, the chocolate chipped from Curly Wurlys, and get blown into the concrete corner drain with that gutted tennis ball that lived there. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

7 " Birdsong... he’d tease apart its subtleties and nuances "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

8 " I’d rather give more to and get more back from one or two people...in regard to a single subject "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

9 " Success is not something that can ever be reached because things can always be better "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

10 " An angry wren moused through a thatch of sedges in quick nips and whirred off to the split stump of a giant willow where it twitched for a moment, round and brown, hungry, likely doomed. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

11 " A silky mist was rising from the marbled surface of the stream, stirred by the sun, which was dropping sequins into all its dimples and gilding the surface with lemon. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir

12 " Immediately nothing of this instant is tangible, there’s so little to recall that he imagines that he imagined it. It’s more of a feeling than anything real- just a fleeting sense that some pulse of life has singed the air. He felt for some fraction of a second a bird fly through him and in that moment he learns more of that bird than he’ll ever learn in a lifetime of loving it. "

― Chris Packham , Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir