Fireweed* - Shudder

By Sandra Gibson - December 2014

This morning I watched a rat walking along my garden wall. First it walked one way, then the other way. I watched it as it negotiated the grey coping stones and passed through and beneath bare and evergreen branches. It was so purposeful. Not a large rat but a rat nevertheless and I felt unreasonable about it. I didn’t want it close to me and I wondered about its relatives. I have the same irrational fear of rats that some people have of spiders. There’s no point telling me what good mothers they are - I feel cold just writing about them. There’s no point saying that squirrels are just rats with fluffy tails and “you like them, don’t you?” because I’m afraid that being rational with me is a waste of time when it comes to rats. I am too busy shuddering to follow the reasoning.

I can trace my aversion back to my childhood. I was five years old and a large black rat was crossing a quiet road, slowly, in sunlight. It was probably dying but I didn’t know that then. There was this big, black, bedraggled, thin-tailed creature that was not a cat and I shuddered at the sight of it. I can see it now and shudder still. If someone comes on the radio to tell me how close rats are to me right now, I switch it off. And shudder.

But why was my first reaction aversion? Why not curiosity or compassion? Or indifference? Had I subconsciously absorbed a general revulsion to this creature? It certainly has a bad boy reputation: living in sewers, carrying bubonic plague, not being cute; multiplying … rats have always been regarded as vermin in need of control; on the edge of running out of control. If that happens the scale of my shuddering will cause an earthquake.

A friend who has lived in the country most of his life recalled a childhood practice. Not for him the paper round or the running of errands for old ladies; he became a bounty hunter of rats. He used to kill them (don’t ask me how because I couldn’t bear to know), place the tails in a tin and take them to the local council offices. They paid by the tail but didn’t open the tin to check; they relied on his honesty. So would I, brother. So would I, sister. So would I, yes sir. Just don’t open Pandora’s Tin because you can be pretty sure the Pied Piper will come out, followed by all the rats in the world: those harbouring the fleas that brought the Black Death; those made infamous in Nazi propaganda justifying persecution and genocide; those Orwellian rats that Winston was threatened with in Room 101; those liberated from cages in labs; those destined for high dining in King Rat.

I have tried to change my attitude to rats; I really have, because it gives me such aggravation to feel like this. The most helpful piece of information is that rats, like humans and horses, became hysterical with fear during the shuddering battles on the Western Front.

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*Also known as Rose Bay Willow Herb, the prolific wild flower called Fireweed, five feet tall with spikes of magenta flowers, cheers the hearts of those whose cityscape has become a bomb site or whose buildings have been cleared by machine. The dormant seeds spring to life after destructive events such as forest or man-made fires, hence the name, Fireweed. This occasional column will celebrate the persistence of wildlife in urban conditions.

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