Introducing Jill Wylie, animal lover

Jill Wylie – my mother – is a self-educated naturalist.  Raised in Kenya, she settled in the Eastern Highlands of the then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.  For forty years or more she looked after a patch of mountain and forest in the Bvumba range, rescuing and rehabilitating and protecting wildlife.  She wrote incessantly – letters, magazine articles, diaries, SPCA reports, poems, snatches of memoir, stories for children, advice for animal owners....  Three books have seen the light of day and are available: Call: Life with a Basenji; and two parallel sequels, Search (about Javelin, Call the Basenji’s  Doberman successor as search dog; available direct from me); and Wildwoods: The making of a wildlife sanctuary.

Jill and banded mongoose

In this blog, I’ll be airing some of the astonishing volume of published and unpublished pieces that Jill Wylie produced over a long and adventurous life: dog rescues, human rescues, animal rehabilitations, philosophical musings, lyrical impressions – pieces full of gentle humour, unpretentious poetry, sadness of loss and triumph of a life saved.  Above all, an indomitable love of the natural world and its inhabitants of every ilk.

The first piece, then, is short, light and characteristically delicate – written maybe thirty-five years ago, but an appropriately exuberant introduction to the new year. 

***************************************************************************************************

NEW YEAR’S DAWNING

The part of my brain that watches the time for me seems unable to accept the idea that a day begins in the middle of the night before.  Day is light and night is dark and no amount of complicated clockwork can alter the sensible simplicity of it.

            So the midnight celebrations of the New Year mean nothing to me.  While everyone else is singing Auld Lang Syne and congratulating each other on surviving this long, I am left out with the stars, or more likely asleep in bed.

            But when the dawn comes, then is the hour.  That first little bird yawns and clears his throat, and this is one morning I don’t mind hearing him.

            Suddenly he comes fully awake and sings out, “Wake up!  Wake up!   It’s here!  It’s here!” with such glad surprise you’d think he’s never seen dew before.

            The other birds tumble out of bed and begin shouting out their New Year resolutions at the top of their voices.  I usually keep mine secret but they never do.  They all talk at once and none listen so I suppose the effect is the same.

            This dawn is not like any other.  No dawn ever is.  Yesterday was last year.  Last night belonged to yesterday.  This is a brand new day, the very first of the very first month.  And here comes the New Year shouting up over the hill, flinging its rays, like arms, wide across the sky, to the world, to every living thing that cares.

            I would like to start the year like that – unscarred by yesterday, undaunted by tomorrow, fresh and keen as morning.

*****************************************************************************