Myla Jones

Myla Jones

Malvern Link

One of the most important things to me is my connection to nature in the area, as well as to my family. I really love being outside, being on the hills and being in local places that are wild. They’re beautiful and there’s a sense of peace that I get there. I really love my local common, I have a couple of trees that I love to climb there. When I’m outside in nature I can just forget about the time and just be in the moment.

What gives me hope is that I’m in these wild places everyday which are flourishing. It gives me a lot of joy because I can see that as much as we are not doing everything we can to help nature, it is still flourishing in these beautiful places like the Malvern Hills. And they can flourish if we manage to take care of it. I’m also meeting people who care about it as deeply as me, which is really fulfilling and really wonderful. Where I can see other people caring about it as much as me brings me hope.I think the hills have inspired many to be creative, especially writers, and to me that’s proof of how influential even a small pocket of natural beauty can be on people. It’s truly wonderful to live in a place that is so lush with life in so many ways and I will forever feel grateful for having the privilege of growing up here.

Myla Jones

I’m 13 and I was born in the house where we still live in Malvern. I’d say I really love my home and that Malvern is a very safe, lovely, beautiful place to live in a lot of respects. I think that it’s not very varied compared to a lot of cities, it’s probably not got such a wide demographic, but certainly there are some very lovely people here.

One of the most important things to me is my connection to nature in the area, as well as to my family. I really love being outside, being on the hills and being in local places that are wild. They’re beautiful and there’s a sense of peace that I get there. I really love my local common, I have a couple of trees that I love to climb there. I often go there for a morning run or climb trees or just sit and think and read. I love the hills as well, but definitely the common because it’s so close, it’s nice to be there.
I find it really hard to get that sort of sense of peace, connectedness and happiness from a lot of urban places that I go. I think there’s more stillness and a lot less pressure and need to rush here than in the city or urban areas. In the city you feel a need to be busy doing more things and needing to spend your time wisely. Whereas when I’m outside in nature I can just forget about the time and just be in the moment. I don’t know whether I’ll go to university. If I do, I’ll probably go someplace that’s not a big city. I’d quite like to travel, so to have a job that I could do while travelling and see a lot of different places and meet new people would be good.

I don’t necessarily think that everybody wants to respect the natural world in ways that they should. This area is a protected natural area which is really good, but going to these wild places, it’s very rare not to see some form of disrespect, such as littering. I think the people who look after this area do a good job and I’m very grateful to them for looking after the hills and the common. I think they’re learning as well, because I noticed how before they used to cut all of the grasses and meadows and everything and that didn’t leave a lot of room for biodiversity. But now they just mow the paths where they can see people walking, which I really appreciate because it’s so lovely to see all the wonderful grasses in the summer.

Biodiversity is really important for wild places to be kept alive because if you just mow all the grass down, there’s not a lot of good habitat for the different insects and different grasses and just variety to flourish. And I think variety and difference in the wild is something that we should strive for. If everything was the same, it would be very boring. But also just beauty. I think there’s a lot of beauty to be seen in variety and in biodiversity and in the natural world. I think nature could take care of itself if we left it and didn’t take from it, but also we’ve got to the point where without some input and care from us, dominant species would just destroy all the ones we have made endangered. If we weren’t involved with nature at all, and we just left it completely alone, it probably could take care of itself, but we don’t do that. The very reason why we’re alive is because of the natural world. We are a part of the natural world. And so I think disrespecting it is not going to end well for us as a race and the world in general.

If I could change things, it’d be less changing what we’re doing around here and more of the entirety of society. I would want to change people’s perception of the natural world and how we live, and for the natural world to not just be something that needs to be protected, but to be something that everybody respects. A term that I read that sums it up nicely is “the honorable harvest”, receiving the gifts from the earth, but never taking more than we need and sharing it with all that needs it.

I would also like for us to allow nature to become more wild. Because I think at the moment it’s managed in a way which is good and very accessible to people and tourists, but it’s also in some ways marketing itself so more tourists will come and so business will flourish in this community. And I think that’s good, but at the same time, not using the hills and wild space as a marketing tool would be better.

I’ve seen many animals on the hills. I saw a fox in the quarry near Endhill, and it was just walking up the side of the cliff basically. I saw a nest of buzzards, of baby buzzards feeding.
What gives me hope is that I’m in these wild places everyday which are flourishing. It gives me a lot of joy because I can see that as much as we are not doing everything we can to help nature, it is still flourishing in these beautiful places like the Malvern Hills. And they can flourish if we manage to take care of it. I’m also meeting people who care about it as deeply as me, which is really fulfilling and really wonderful. Where I can see other people caring about it as much as me brings me hope.

I do go on walks sometimes with my friend, she’s really lovely and we’ve gone on a couple of walks together. I’ve also gone out with other people for activities, walking up the hills.
A number of years ago now, I went on a couple of walks up the hills with a local historian and a wonderful poet called Sarah Jane Aubrey. We did some poetry and some history on the hills. There’s been a lot of famous people here. We wrote about the poetic beauty of the hills, and that led me on to go and join a youth writers group in Ledbury, and do more poetry about the natural world. I think the hills have inspired many to be creative, especially writers, and to me that’s proof of how influential even a small pocket of natural beauty can be on people. It’s truly wonderful to live in a place that is so lush with life in so many ways and I will forever feel grateful for having the privilege of growing up here.