Published by Frederick Muller in 1953 this endearing book captures the true story of a sparrow fallen from its nest, its rescue from her doorstep by a widowed ARP warden and her care for the tiny bird throughout its life. The book enjoyed considerable success; reprinted four times in 1953, three times in 1954 and had reached its eighteenth impression by October 1968.
The book bundles together the story of the relationship between the two, the cataclysm of their experience of the Blitz and as the post war period begins and the sparrow grows older and is living to an age beyond what could be expected for a sparrow in the wild, a Tory of scientific interest begins to emerge.
It is this that prompts Julian Huxley in his foreword to remark on the value of a study in such detail of one bird’s lifetime. One of the most interesting accounts is the development by this particular sparrow of song,
“Wild house-sparrows have nothing that can be called a song, merely a series of chirps and calls. Thus it is really quite extraordinary that this bird should, quite spontaneously and without deliberate teaching, have stared to sing.” (Julian Huxley).
It is hardly surprising that for his rescuer, caught in the midst of the Blitz and her life underpinned by faith, should find in the event an allegory to live by. Kipps has a photographer take a series of photographs and in one the sparrow is looking carefully at the pages of a book.
“After the photograph had been developed I found that the words to which his little beak were pointing were these: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father? – a statement that embodies, perhaps, the most astounding revelation of the value of the Creator of the individual personality of the creature in the pages of the Holy Writ.”
More about the sparrow next time….
The Solitary Reader 