Sunday at DissCover
Posted on 4th May 2026
Sunday at DissCover opened with Matt Gaw, wondering why we shy away from the elements rather than lean into them. Gaw spoke of the negative ions produced by rain, the euphoria produced by wind, and hailstones the size of golf balls. But, more ominously, how climate change has transformed our previously benign weather into something altogether more ferocious.
In his one-man talk, Simon Barnes rattled through the history of flight, giving awards ranging from “having a try” to the flying squirrel, to the “greatest all-time flier”, won by the swift that can spend two years on the wing. In a talk that included evidence that bees can fly, pterosaurs had wingspans of 36 feet, and a peregrine falcon dives on its prey at 240 mph, Barnes managed to combine humour, empathy for nature, and a fascinating eye for detail.
James Canton’s illustrated discussion was largely a mandate for “renaturing”, a term coined to distinguish it from rewilding, which he coherently dismissed being of use on anything other than country estates. He still advocated more modest aims for the domestic garden, as well as the need sometimes simply to sit still, as he does under the branches of an ancient oak.
The abiding impression of Ian Collins’s discussion with Robert Ashton was his huge affection for Ronald Blythe. Collins discreetly pieced together Blythe’s biography from fragmentary source documents and conversations. We learned Blythe was a gunner, then a gravedigger, and then a librarian, living on his wits and good looks, but always in the shadow of the workhouse.
Tor Falcon’s Sugar Beet Moon, backed by a constantly changing montage of the work produced during her nightly vigils, captivated the Corn Hall with a mesmerising reading from her book that spoke of hares, moorhens, tawny owls and bats as twilight gave way to darkness, only for the moon to rise unpredictably in various guises. This was a genuine and surprising highlight of the day.
That said, a day focused on East Anglian nature writing could only close in one way – with Richard Mabey in uncompromising form. Reminded of his first major work, Nature Cures, this surprisingly introspective session found Mabey resolute that nature isn’t there to make us feel better. Whatever cured him of his depression, his reputation nonetheless grew, producing some of the most assured works of the genre. There can have been no better way to close the first edition of DissCover.