Thoughts about fishing

Anne has often suggested I take up fishing - she has two ideas of fishing in her mind -

The first idea involves fishing for mackerel on a tough little boat, thrown about on green icy waves - the boat will have set off from a quay strewn with nets and piles of plastic fish crates - spilled oil or petrol will colour puddles of sea water on rough stone - a grey sky will hang over the small port - burly men with bright eyes will huddle on the deck -

A number of times, for example, when I was in Portree, or in Swanage, I've half imagined she'd arranged to have me kidnapped, so that I might be forced to fish for mackerel -

Anne's second idea of fishing involves me sitting on the bank of a tranquil river, winding through water meadows - high reeds wave around me - the river flows past me, with mayflies swirling above its surface - A church tower is outlined against a summer sky -

I have to own up, and say that the second idea of fishing is much more to my taste - I can see myself thinking - or reading - I might, for a moment, feel myself dissolve into the air -

There is, however, a third idea of fishing - I saw these two fishermen on the beach at Eastbourne - they'd set up their rods upon the shingle - the fishing lines curved out into the waves - spray and salt filled the air - you would sit, under the sky, hearing the sea move upon the shingle - your hair blown about the wind - you might forget, as these two men may have done, all your meanesses and sorrows -

Visiting Eastbourne Pier

I have always liked piers, especially Victorian piers - it is a tragedy, I think, that so many of them have been washed away or torched - I still shiver when I see the pitiable ribs of Brighton's West Pier - I'd stood on the beach after the smoke and flames - the icy sea washed against the dark remnants of the pier - my feet sank down into the wet shingle -

Despite all of the tawdry layers of amusements since heaped upon these piers, I can still sense an aura of summers before 1914 about them -

In my mind's eye I see white paddle steamers approaching the pierheads - young men in boaters flirt with girls in filmy dresses - a band plays somewhere - the sky is blue -

In Re-loved, in Wareham, you might find grimy postcards showing such scenes - the postcard would be one of many, stacked up in a cardboard box - a blur of time would edge the post card - on the back of the post card, the simple message would make your heart melt -

My dad remembers dance halls near South Parade Pier, Southsea - he'd go there with his friends when the fourth race at the Dogs had been run - this would be in 1939 -

When I was in Eastbourne, I had to visit the pier - a blue notice assured me of finding pleasant friendly surroundings in the Victorian Tea Rooms - I walked out in the open, feeling the rain and spray upon my face, looking down at the sea - I forced myself to look inside the chamber of amusements - I saw the claw, hanging above a grey teddy bear -

I wondered if such piers might be portals - that you could see, if you looked hard enough, all the ghosts who walked there -

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Drinking coffee in a different world 

I had a cup of coffee in this cafe when I visited Eastbourne - I'd driven up the day before to Hailsham with Tessa - I visited Eastbourne whilst Tessa was attending an Occupational Therapy Taster session -

I've always been interested in the idea of class - the invisible signals we give out in England about our status -  I would like to think that I'm beyond class, like a starling with no song of its own - I'm sure, though, that I'm marked out as a citizen of Pardonia -

I felt no unease, however, drinking coffee here - the air inside the cafe was steamy - the furnishings were simple - scalding tea was poured into mugs from a large metal teapot - the Italian proprietress joshed her customers - there were photographs of her slim daughter on the wall behind the counter - I could hear steam hissing somewhere -

The morning regulars were coming in for their breakfasts - they were all men, and they all had the marks of being wounded by life in some way - one or two had beards - they spoke loudly to each other - one man was talking to himself -

This cafe was their club, I thought - they were welcome here - they could sit here, in the warm, out of the icy drizzle - one man studied his Daily Mail -

I felt that I could stay here for hours, drinking coffee, staring at the grey street - but I thought about the rules of this different world - I would still be caught out, sooner or later -

Looking at rooftops

I have started to enjoy looking at buildings - I think this may all be part of becoming a gaffer - I've bought a copy recently of the Pesvner for Dorset - I know very little about architecture, but the hundreds of arcane architectectural terms in the book's glossary fill me delight - I whisper the strange words to myself, like the words of a spell, or prayer - triforium, sedilia, plaisance, apse -

The articles in the Dorset Pesvner make use of glorious abbreviations for these terms, making the delight of reading the book yet more intense - St Catherine's Chapel, Abbotsbury, for example, is described as having perp windows - 

St Catherine's Chapel is built on the top of a bare grassy hill, overlooking the sea - the chapel looks like the remant of a much larger building, one perhaps torn away by a flood or dissolved into a dream - massive buttresses support the roof - inside, people sometimes leave offerings to mark their petition - you will see candles flickering in jam jars, wild flowers left upon the glistening stone floor -

I enjoy, most of all, looking at roof tops - in West Street, Wareham, I am soothed by the stone roof tiles of the Georgian cottages - in Clapton, I stare happily at the elegant late Victorian villas, with their smooth slate roofs and clusters of cream coloured chimney pots -

In Eastbourne, I looked up, to see this fantastic roof top world above the tattoo parlours and cash converter shops - I imagined Steerpike climbing up the stone curlicules and scroll work over the attic windows - I admired the wrought iron balconies, the buddleaia somehow growing amongst the stonework -

I was reminded of the crumbling palaces I had seen in Naples - I thought about the spendid baroque churches I'd visited - their beauty enhanced by their decay -

Southern Coastal Town Syndrome

When I was a headteacher, I would go to conferences - in a break out room, clutching my conference pack, I would often hear about southern coastal town syndrome - women with neat bobs, or men with sleek suits, would smile whilst they talked to power points -

A town afflicted by this syndrome was one with a low wage economy - a significant number of families would be on benefits - educational attainment would be below the national average -

When I visited Eastbourne, I wanted the shiny keynote speakers I had encountered in the past to walk the streets with me - I wondered how they could be so measured - I wanted to see their hearts rent with indignation -

I saw run down shops, people with worn pale faces - the facades of the buildings were in a state of disrepair - only the cash converters shop seemed to be prospering - a huge yellow sign advertised the fact that money could be loaned on the spot - the news agents was like Fort Apache -

I felt like an intruder, a man sneaking around without leave - the world around me was one of pinched horizons - I could climb into my new red car and drive away, listening to some Cape Jazz -

The men and women I saw here would return to damp bed sits or to sparsely furnished flats - how many of their children, I wondered, would be able to fulfil their true potential -

I thought about Robert Tressell and the Great Money Trick - how long would it take, I wondered, for Mugsborough to be torn down?

Thinking about James Bond 

I read my first Bond when I was a teenager - I read Doctor No with great enjoyment - I relished the short sentences - the gleaming amoral world depicted by the book thrilled my naive soul - when I turned the pages of the paperback, I forgot all about having to turn up at the news agents for my paper round - I was walking, instead, upon white sand, kissing a dangerous girl -

My Great Pan paperback's cover showed Bond, supporting a semi conscious blonde - she was wearing a torn yellow dress, and her arms dangled down by her sides - Bond's shirt and trousers were also torn and ripped - they were standing up to their knees in some form of marsh - Bond looked spent with exhaustion, but ready for anything -

Behind the figures of Bond and the girl, was the smooth face of an oriental, shaven headed, like a great green moon - his expression showed no emotion, but his narrow eyes were fixed in a gaze of malign intensity upon Bond and the girl -

The paperback cost me two shillings and sixpence - now, foxed, with yellowing pages, it is lost within my shelves -

I saw the early Bond films with Sean Connery as Bond - Connery was just as I had imagined Bond - like a  sleek and cruel animal -

When I visited Eatbourne a few weeks ago, I walked down a street parellel to the esplanade - I glanced up to see this poster, showing all the Bonds - it was placed above the ground floor of  a restaurant called The Gurkha Delight - the restaurant was closed when I walked by - there was a sad air to the street, but when I saw the  suave Bonds, they reminded me, all at once, of my hours of guilty reading delights -

Shops closed for winter

Whenever I see a shop that is closed, I feel bereft in some way - I look at the shop window, or windows, glistening perhaps in the rain - I can see no  movement within the shop - only shadows move beyond the shuttered door -

I have, in my mind, a vision of an ideal shop - Pete, the husband of Anne's friend Maire, has such a shop - Pete's customers regard his shop as a place for counsel, a place to be soothed by his kindness and by his gentle voice - they tell him their sad and complex stories whilst they wait for a new watch battery -

Shops, I feel, should be more than soulless zones - they should be genuinely welcoming and quirky - I can find no solace in a super store -

When I was a fragile boy, I went to a green grocers - Mr Locke had elastic bands looped round his wrists - vegetables were displayed on wooden crates, placed upon the pavement - I carried home potatoes and onions in brown paper bags - I stammered out my mum's divi number when asked for it in the local co-op - 
82189 -

My sense of desolation is increased ten fold when I come across a shop which is closed for winter - I imagine the shop unloved throughout the cold dark days - I rattle its door, and peer through the glass - there might be some junk mail on the floor, or a drift of freesheets -

I saw this shop in a tiny side street leading off the seafront at Eastbourne - when I looked inside, there was no sign of life, nor of any recent activity - I was especially struck by the way the sign said closed, angled against the glass, like an angel's sword -