Alison McClintock remembers visits to a special bench outside her Grandmother’s house
Every summer as child I was packed off for a few weeks to Grandma’s. She lived in a weaver’s cottage just over a humpback bridge. Less than 20 miles from the town where I lived, to six-year-old me it may as well have been the other side of the world.
Her TV showed programmes in black and white and was only switched on at the weekends for the wrestling and Songs of Praise. She didn’t have a car and there was no bus route. And apart from finding out what one flavour of crisps the local village shop was selling that week, the main source of entertainment was sitting on the bench outside the front of her house.
Sometimes we’d sit with a bucket of freshly-picked peas and broad beans between us, shelling them into a saucepan for supper. Most of the time we’d just watch the world go by, taking it in, on our own terms. Local farmers with tractors full of hay would offer a nod of acknowledgement as they bounced over the bridge. People would pass by on their evening constitutional, comment on the weather, maybe or maybe not say hello. Others would share news, alerting Grandma to recent deaths and births and marriages way before the parish magazine ever made it through the letterbox.
There was nothing special about that bench, but just by being there, and giving ourselves permission to pause and look out at the world, the world came to us.
You probably pass by a bench or two every day, and if you don’t need it you won’t notice it; just an obstacle to skirt round, part of life’s furniture. But that ordinariness makes them extraordinary. Take a seat and see what happens. No minor miracles or feats of wonder, just the enjoyable everyday happening around you.
You don’t need any special skills to be good at sitting on a bench. There’s no age restriction or dress code. You can just sit where you’re at. Be yourself, by yourself for as long or as little as you want. Benches allow you to be sociable on your own terms. Unlike picnic tables, there’s no need to make eye contact on a bench. And you don’t have to ask permission to join someone already sitting on one because there’s enough personal space for each of you, to sit with your thoughts.
Who needs social media when you can say hello to passing dog walkers? Why spend time unravelling the narratives of a weekly soap when you can watch the flickering embers of a teen romance, or the drama of gulls squabbling over their potential pickings? All of this comes without the need for screen or licence fee, in high definition and glorious technicolour, played out in real time, in real life.
And benches are not just a chance to see stories, they can be the story, with captions that give strangers a glimpse of a life well lived and that allow those that chose the dedication to access a bank of days spent with a loved one no longer present but whose presence is felt and remembered in that place. Along sea fronts, in shaded parks, on rolling hills around the country you’ll find benches etched with humour, longing, sadness and love.
The above is taken from our feature ‘Benchmark’ by Alison McClintock, originally published in issue 110 of The Simple Things. If you’re an admirer of a good bench yourself, you may like to turn to page 110 of our June issue, where Lottie Storey has collated a few beautiful benches for our My Space feature, which this month visits benches in gardens. The one pictured here belongs to Imogen Woodage, @elm_terrace_interior. And if your garden is lacking in the bench department, turn to page 74 where we have a weekend project on making your very own bench.
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