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The story of the Ilala, named after the place in Zambia where Livingstone died, is an extraordinary example of shipbuilding ingenuity. She was built in Glasgow in 1949 but, because Lake Malawi (as it’s now called) is land-bound with no navigable river inlet, the boat had to be shipped in bits from Scotland to the shores of Mozambique. From there she was transported in 750 extremely heavy cases across the mountains to Monkey Bay, in a feat to rival that portrayed in Fitzcarraldo, where she was riveted together with rather more success than an Ikea bookcase. After 60 years of active service, she’s feeling her age, creaking and clanking as she makes her way around the lake.
It’s back to the boat then, as the captain gingerly operates the original windlass to drop anchor. (Oh, so that’s what the windlass is for, I realised in one of those weird flashes of perception that only radio can give, the aural instruction so much more evocative than merely seeing the word on the page.) ‘She’s not safe very much,’ he mutters, after explaining that she’s only got a single bottom. If she hits a rock she’ll fill with water. He’s worried that she’ll be phased out by the new IMO regulations, requiring vessels to have a protective double bottom. But he wants her to go on till she reaches her centenary. The Ilala is much more than a boat to Lake Malawi; she’s a community, which for half an hour of radio time we were allowed to join, as the engines turned over, the siren hooted and the Captain warned us through the intercom that we were about to set sail.
On Friday morning, we heard a very different soundscape on The Lake: scouring rain, sighing wind and screeching terns. Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is a huge stretch of inland water, the largest in the British Isles, so wide that you can’t see across to the other side. Legend has it that a village was buried beneath the waters when the lough was formed at the end of the Ice Age. A tolling bell can be heard by the fishermen who are out on the lough at first light — and the whispering voices of those who were drowned.
The Lake was made by that superb team of natural history broadcasters, Chris Watson (joined this time by sound recordist Tom Lawrence) and producer Sarah Blunt, so we heard not so much from the human life on and around the lough as its wildlife, following the seasons from spring through to frostbound winter. The warblers, buntings and great crested grebes competed with the sound of rushing water across the pebbled shore and the brittle tinkling of ice-covered leaves blowing in the wind.
Vast swarms of midges rise up from the surface of the inland lough on hot days in summer, having spent a year preparing for this moment of flight by feeding off the algae on the bottom. The swarms are so dense that people have been known to call the fire brigade thinking they’re plumes of smoke. We were assured they’re no bother to humans as they’re not biting midges, and that we should welcome them as it’s the midges that bring the buntings and warblers to the lough. But I can’t say I’m convinced, having experienced the ravages of a Highland summer. I almost feel I’ve been there anyway.
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