Solstice sunrise

Not too long after the sunset of spring  we went to bed. We had an early start in the morning, even for someone who usually gets up at five fifteen. It seemed we’d hardly fallen asleep and we were up again looking at boiling skies that could have been painted by Van Gough, full of pink and purple. After the most perfunctory of washes (there would be time later for a shower) and a light breakfast my body didn’t feel it needed, we set off.

Four in the morning is an hour I’ve only ever seen when babies needed feeding or I was bound for the airport and a flight to some exotic location. As it happens, we were off to the airport but our feet would be steadfastly staying on terra firma. Commando was running  the Summer Solstice Sprint, a 5k down the runway of Southampton Airport to raise money for Sophie’s Appeal a chairty set up by the parents of local girl Sophie Berringer, who was diagnosed with Wilm’s Disease, a form of kidney cancer, at the age of five and, sadly, lost her battle in 2004. The chairty raises money to support children, the families and nursing staff who face and fight cancer and to fund research into Wilm’s Disease. All runners had to be off the site before the first flight of the day, hence the early start.

It took us a while to find a parking space and even longer to find out where to go once we had. There were signs for the runners but, after the initial promise, they turned out to be fairly unhelpful. In the end we followed someone else in Lycra and came to a gate between two of the huge airport buildings. An orange glow illuminated us as Commando picked up his race number and I wondered if we’d already missed the solstice show.

Coming out between the buildings it was immediately clear we hadn’t. The orange ball of the first summer sun seemed to be slowly climbing from the Itchen Navigation beyond the trees on the other side of the airport fields. The fiery rays turned the block paving to a sea of copper and the line of waiting planes to pink. We were early and there was still a chill in the air making me wish I’d put on warmer clothes but it was worth getting up early for.

On the taxiway officials were setting up the start finish arch between two airport fire engines bathed in the dawn light. They managed to raise it but it fell again. I turned to get a photo of the massive hangers where the reflection of the golden glow turned mundane metal doors to copper and gold. This was a once in a lifetime chance to explore the airport airside and I took full advantage, looking around at the fire station and control tower illuminated by the first light of summer.  The sun had inched a littler higher, the sky was beginning to brighten. Soon it would be fully light.

There was still a dawn glow as I took Commando’s pre race photos. Behind him they were raising the arch of the start finish line again.  While they worked I looked towards the trees trying to spot the place I’d sat on the grass snacking in the April sun. As I peered into the glare the blue taxiway edge lights came on, twinkling in the grass. It’s hard to believe this sleepy field is the eighteenth busiest airport in the UK. In fact just over a hundred years ago this was a meadow belonging to North Stoneham Farm. Then, in 1910, Edwin Rowland Moon brought his monoplane Moonbeam II, built in the Wool House on the corner of the medieval Southampton walls, for its first test flight. This was also the first ever flight on what was to become Southampton Airport.

When the arch was finally in place we looked around at the other runners. About three hundred people had signed up for the race and some had picked up the gauntlet to run in fancy dress. There were several dressed as flight crew and the usual assortment of superheroes but the stand out costume was a Red Indian brave. There was some discussion as to how he would pin on his race number and we both agreed he must have been freezing. Even bundled up in a warm t-shirt, mac and hoodie with the hood up I was shivering. Whilst we were looking around we spotted some of Commando’s running club and went over for a chat.

The first hangars were built in 1917 when around four thousand officers and men of the United States Navy were camped out along the nearby railway line. By 1921 they’d been turned into dormitories for refugees waiting to sail to a new life in America. They must have been very different to the massive metal hangars we stood in front of talking about PB’s and training. It wasn’t until 1932, when Southampton Corporation purchased the site, that this became Southampton Airport and the name is still a bone of contention amongst the people of Eastleigh as the land is just inside their town boundary. It was here, on 5 March 1936, that the first test flight of the Supermarine Spitfire took place.

The conversation ended when the call came for the warm up. Organised warm ups are one of the downsides to events to my mind and Commando agrees with me on this but he did gamely attempt to join in with the stretches and lunges. Personally I was thankful to stay a spectator. Finally it was time to line up on the taxiway for the start.

It was as the runners lined up for the start that things went a little pear shaped. A rather officious official spotted me hanging back a little to take photos of the crowd.
“If you’re not one of the runners you can’t come in here,” she said, ushering me back towards the gate despite the fact that the edge of the grass was lined with other spectators. “We’re not insured.”
There was nothing for it but to do as I was told but, when she turned around to walk towards the race I stopped short of actually going through the gate.

The offical marched off towards the other spectators and I and another woman, the mother of a runner, watched her from just inside the gate. We both expected her to move the others on but she walked right past them and kept going towards the start line. We looked at each other and frowned, feeling singled out. Slowly we both inched our way forward, expecting to be pounced upon at any moment. When another official walked towards us I thought we’d been sprung but he walked right past without a word so we hurried to the edge of the grass. By this time the runners were just specks in the distance heading for the end of the taxiway.

Behind us a few others, who had obviously been singled out by Mrs Job’s Worth, were hanging around by the gate peering towards the runners. In all honesty our view from the edge of the grass wasn’t that much better. Years of watching Commando run have made me pretty good at spotting him from a long distance and I was sure I could see him amongst the moving dots in the distance. Then again, this particular dot looked way too close to the front of the pack so I could have been mistaken.

At the end of the runway the line of men and women turned and ran, like a stream of ants, back the other way. Soon enough the first runner crossed the line. I squinted along the taxiway straining my eyes trying to spot Commando. It wasn’t long before I did. He crossed the line amongst the front runners, in the first twenty five of the three hundred. Not bad at all for a man in his fifties who is training at a slower marathon pace. Of course he was annoyed because he’d forgotten his Garmin in the rush to leave home and didn’t have a record of his time. It may have been a PB.

Thousands spent  the solstice at Stonehenge watching the sun rise over the heel stone of this Neolithic monument. Amongst them there were undoubtedly a few Druids. Maybe one day I will get to witness what must be truly a magnificent spectacle but watching the dawn break over the Itchen Navigation and Southamptin Airport is not a bad alternative.