Rachel Dixon’s piece about “dusking” (‘All you need is a chair and a view’: could daily ‘dusking’ make us healthier and happier?, 1 March) gave a lovely name to something I having been doing all my life, beginning as a child in the company of my Nanna, in a gas-lit kitchen in Wembley in the 1940s, with no view to speak of – just a back yard. I can see Nanna clearly, sitting on a chair wedged between the dresser and a table, the gas mantle yet to be lit by a taper that stood in a clay pot on top of the range. “Let the night take you and you will sleep all the better for it,” she used to say.
And I was always a night-long sleeper – still am as I approach my 82nd birthday. Now the view is a back garden in Beeston; I sit and watch, as the night draws in, in an Ikea chair bought for £9 in 1996, and warm thanks to central heating. If only my Nanna had known such comforts. She died when I was 15, a year after we got electric light, and I had been at work six months, never having the chance to look after her come the time, as I would have done.
For 35 years, my wife and I watched night draw in across Lenton Recreation Ground in Nottingham, from the front room of our Victorian house. Neighbours would pass by, peering in as they did, some waving. Never has an article in the Guardian conjured up so many memories.
Robert Howard
Beeston, Nottingham
Rachel Dixon’s article about “dusking” really resonated with me as I read it the morning after standing at dusk on one of the bridges that span the River Clyde. I’d been on a mission to spot the planetary parade (only partially successful!) but I thoroughly enjoyed the unexpected peace and beauty of the river, with the moon reflected on the water and the sky rich with purple and gold clouds.
True, there were artificial lights but somehow the sight of the softly illuminated Squinty bridge and the outline of the Finnieston crane in the gloaming only added to the almost spine-tingling quality of stillness.
Mary Fitzpatrick
Glasgow
I was interested to read about a “dusking” event but this is a phenomenon that needs no introduction. Folklorist and performance artist Lucy Wright introduced the idea of dusking on 31 October some years ago. It is intended as a balance to the morris dancing and dawn observances on 1 May. Like the Dutch version, it is also about marking changes in time and seasons and being in a place at a numinous moment. While your correspondent might have attended a lovely event, it wasn’t the first example of dusking in the UK.
Martin Brown
Chippenham, Wiltshire
Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
