Noises

Noises

The National Trust is currently in the process of creating an audio library of sounds from around the coast of Britain in recognition of the role played by sound (noise, some might say) in defining the places we inhabit. The phonic landscape informs our perception of place, helps shape our memories and contributes to the range of physical and personal dimensions of our environment: colour, light, form, emotion etc.

Here in the village there is one sound that persists, without variation, day and night. It is the white noise of the Gave de Lescun - the river flowing through the narrow gorge that cuts across the farmland between here and the mountains. By the time it reaches Lescun it has been fed by streams from four valleys.

Furthest North, with its source just below the Pic d’Anie (highest in the range), an unnamed watercourse tumbles across high pastures before rushing down like an over-excited child through the wild forest of La Seube. Below, it discovers the pastoral idyl of Sanchez, with its free-roaming cattle, its photogenic ponies and, in summer, carloads of picnicking tourists. With no time to introduce itself, it collides with the Risseau d’ Anaye which, for most of its existence, has flowed underground until it surprises everyone by bursting into daylight in the shape of a fifty metre waterfall.

To the South, the Landrosque, drawing water from the muddy Lac de Lhurs and the springs below the twin-peaked Billare joins forces with the Gave d’Ansabere. At the head of the latter are found the dolomitic limestone spires, the Aiguilles (needles) d’Ansabere, images of which are to be found in virtually every book about the Pyrenees. Les Dames d’Ansabere, as they are sometimes referred to, occupy a unique, though tragic, place in the history of Pyrenean alpinism.

The the Annes, the Labrenere and the Labardie coursing from three valleys still further South will supplement the Gave de Lescun before it reaches the Gave d’Aspe five hundred metres further down but here, looking over Lescun they are too far below to hear.

The flow that provides the whispering background to our lives is invisible to us. But, from our situation on the northern edge of the village, we look over the roofs to the wooded slopes on the far side of an open V and understand that, where the slope reverses, the river is there, always departing yet ever-present.

So, what do shepherds do in the winter? It has probably never crossed your mind. In the mountains, Spring and Summer are too busy for idle pleasures. The sheep must go to the ram and in late June, early July, the transhumance begins. Flocks of hundreds of beasts are driven up into the high pastures where they will stay for three months or so, taking advantage of grass that receives, at this time of year, more than its fair share of rain. Twice a day they are milked. There may be cows to milk as well. And then there is the cheese to make.

The major economic activities in the area are agriculture and tourism. With its production of cheese and lamb, highland farming is the main contributor. Sheep’s cheese commands the best premium.

Mixed cow and sheep’s a little less, but more than ordinary cow’s milk cheese.

It’s a hard life.

Thirty years ago, when I first came here, produce and supplies were transported to and from the mountains with mules and ponies. The men who farmed here had lungs like marathon runners and legs strung together with muscles of steel cable. Today it is still tough, but quad bikes help, and there are fewer beats of burden around. On the increase, however, are female shepherds, burgere.

These women, as with their male colleagues, are highly professional. Trained at agricultural colleges across the region, they know how to milk and understand the science cheese production but also how to detect and treat illnesses in the flock. They can wire up a solar panel and safely organs a water supply at their cabanes. They know how to guide in a helicopter and drive an HGV. And, of course, they know how to train and handle probably the most important creature in their business - the working dog. The breed of choice in this neck of the woods resembles a border

collie, but is skinnier. On steep, rough terrain they cover distances twenty times faster than even the fittest shepherd could manage. I once witnessed one such dog, controlled from a distance of 200 m, round up a band of twenty or so sheep. Its master, however, calculated that some of the ewes were missing. With a few whistles the dog raced back to recover and drive in the errant animals.

The life of a shepherd is one that suits a minority of farmers. You have to be happy with your own company. But, at some time during September, the flocks will jangle down from their alpine homes, a cacophony of barely resonant bells celebrating the end of summer, the end of the transhumance.

Many professional shepherds will find some other employment during the winter. Some will claim unemployment benefits. The paysan shepherd*, however, will have other tasks to occupy him.

Apart from attending to the sheep and other animals, there will be routine maintenance around the farm. One of these jobs will be the repair and construction of the bells that his animals wear around their stout necks. There are surpassingly big. Made of bronze with a wood or bone clapper, each one is different. So too the wooden collars, steamed and twisted from ash or hazel - every one unique. Unsurprisingly, each speaks with a different voice and, from our house, the sound of bells attached to the livestock that spend their time within earshot of the village, overlay the hushing of the river. Their collective notes do not disappoint. Just as random sounds in nature always somehow harmonise, so it is with the bells. They provide another layer of the sound track in perfect sympathy with the passage of the gave.

After one week of living here I have become aware of differences and similarities. From our house in Dorset we have an exceptional view of the church tower, especially during the winter when the ash and black poplars stand bare. Looking southeast from our house here the view is also dominated by a church tower - but this a square, stone-solid construction with an elegantly pointed slate roof that flattens its gradient at the eaves in order to shoot away snow.

As in our home village, it is a bell tower. Without clock face, it chimes the hours day and night just to make sure that light sleepers know when it is 3am. And, if you don’t catch the number of times it resounds, don’t worry, it will repeat them for you. In time, I suppose, we will get used to the sonorous tolling of the bells. In time, perhaps, they will sink into the background to be listened to or ignored. But there are some occasions when the bells offer no choice. Three times a day the they go in to overdrive and, unlike the slightly lugubrious tones of the hour chimes, the noise at these times, resembles that of a mad man attacking a frying pan with a golf club.

Historically, there are sound reasons for these campanological alarms. During a period when few inhabitants had clocks, and those who did would not carry them into the fields, the Church was happy to render service. At they same time it took the opportunity to structure life in a way that it considered morally and practically useful for its flock. Hence, the eight o’clock salvo would rouse even the the laziest, most reluctant or hard-of-hearing inhabitant from their beds in order to get them out and working in the fields. On Sunday, of course, the same onslaught would insist presence at Mass.

The noon battery announced that was time to return home to eat and, finally, the seven o’clock whoop-up shouted enough, enough - family life awaits!

For us, at the moment, in our house overlooking the church, the bells that bother us are the 3 and 4 am. With heads overcharged with the changes and new demands in our lives, we don’t sleep that well. And this morning, at 5am, a donkey was playing blues harmonica somewhere in the village.

Over and over again it repeated the first bar of a twelve-bar classic.

I quite liked it. *paysan - related to the English word peasant, it means someone who lives from the land. In French it is not derogatory.