I’ve been feeling angry, sad and frustrated. It’s about not realising how much a friend meant to me until she died.
When I heard the news of Mel Lamb’s death it was as if a spell had been broken around the fear I often felt around her. A fear I now realise was stopping me from lovingly challenging her lifestyle as I saw it. A life lived on the edge of the known world; a no holds barred, non stop warrior of the high moor, protecting the planet and all the people that came into her fierce, huge-hearted orbit. She never stopped, rarely rested and found it hard to put her needs first.
It took some years to realise how much Heathercombe was Mel and Mel was Heathercombe. They evolved together in a tangled web of activity, growth, change and wild, wild weather. Over the many years Mel was custodian of this of stunning site and the landscape it nestles in, she was incredibly focussed and dedicated. The success and profile of High Heathercombe today is largely born out of her passion and commitment. She rarely spoke of her evident achievements.
I often worried about Mel and her health. For me, as a recovering addict I could see that she struggled with her demons of tobacco and coffee and over working. We spoke about it often. In the final years of knowing her, I felt she was moving from a place of anxiety to deeper peace.
Her endless worry and grief was for the pain and loss she saw throughout the world. Heathercombe was an expression of the love and passion she felt as a protector of the landscape and all beings from all walks of life. So much of the healing that unfolded at Heathercombe over the years, for myself and the many we have worked with, leave us in debt to her generosity and vision. A vision that flowered into thousands of transformed lives over her time as manager of High Heathercombe. Made possible by the compassion and generosity of the Pike family who own the surrounding land and deeply support the work. I’m hoping and praying Mel’s legacy will live on.
In her typical, quiet way, Mel championed Write to Freedom from its first incarnation working with young men in the prison system right through to our current work with mixed gender, addiction recovery. I’m beginning to realise now, just how much she loved and championed what we do.
The last time we spoke was in June 2020 when she told me about her diagnoses. She sounded tired but strong. Determined at last, as Mary Oliver wrote, ‘to save the only life she could save.’ She had many beautiful people around her in her final days and died in her bed at dawn (read Dita’s beautiful piece on this below). I’d assumed Mel’s determination and stubbornness would mean she would be with us for many more years to come. It was a heart-breaking shock to hear how quickly she went. And it hit me at a deep level how much my experience of Heathercombe, the experience of all our participants and staff over so many years, are connected root and branch to the life force of Mel Lamb.
I find it hard to believe I won’t see her again in this life. But I choose to believe that she’s out there in the elements, the landscape and the abundant life of the high moor. I have faith and love in the legacy of her work, in the spirit of her being, her ferocious, mother bear love for all the souls who have stood on the Heathercombe veranda looking out across the stunning landscape. Who choose to believe, as Mel did, that change, healing and reconciliation are possible for all beings, in this world and the next.
Melanie Lamb. Born July 1965. Died 13th July 2020.
Caspar Walsh
Creative Director
Write to Freedom
This poem was written on the way to Mel’s blessing ceremony at Epona near Chagford. I wanted the landscape I had travelled through so many times to get to Heathercombe, to inspire the words.
Dawn Light – by Caspar Walsh
We drive steadily on
Bone Hill down to the left
Up ahead, Hound Tor
This road, so many years
Travelling
Through this landscape
Opening up, readying
To so much
Headed through the land you loved
So much
You beautiful, wild eyed witch
Of the high moor
Threshold guardian
Mother earth protector
At the end of this road
So many years and miles travelled
Years that softened your heart
But kept your claws, tiger sharp
For the work
The endless work
New ancestor of these hills
As you shine now
In the eyes of fox. vole
Buzzard and spider -
In the bright dawn light
As you move across
The land you loved
The land you love
Endless, beautiful
Soul guardian
Of the high moor
Rest.
Dita, Mel’s good friend and part of the volunteer team at Heathercombe, writes about her passing -
“The sun was just rising when our beloved Mel drew her last breath. The birdsong felt like a chorus, a tribute to that mighty and fierce and so tender woman. A green-and-gold moth, which had been perched above her head through the night, fluttered out into the glorious morning. The wind in the tall trees in front of her window felt respectfully quiet, like the wings of a caring goose tenderly closing over a dear goselin.
She looked so peaceful, as if submerging in the waters of a vast river that was to take her, not away from us, not really, but deeper into us. For she's part of my heart, all our hearts, and has now permanent residence there. The loving holding of Tarn, her words that have become a rich landscape in my memory, removed any fear. Her face, her soft small face became a home to a soft small smile in that space of such deep love. She could still see the first rays of sunlight coming through the window, she could still hear the birdsong.
I know this pain I feel all too well, I have been feeling it for months. But now it's got company, it has the immense relief of knowing that she's not in pain anymore.”
