Tag: ocean

The Water Signs Location Tour: Morecambe Bay

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Our train pulled into Morecambe Station just after 2pm. It was raining, so we took shelter in the waiting room in the hope it was a passing shower.

Twenty minutes later we had read every leaflet and transport timetable of interest, and the rain had only got heavier.

Keen to ditch our bags, and with empty stomachs, we started out towards the boarding house. I was uplifted by the smell of salt in the air. My gaze ever-turned towards the watery horizon, where jagged hills loomed in the distance. The bay was so much smaller than I remember it being in my childhood years – a reminder of how perspective changes between the ages of seven and thirty-seven.

Once we’d spent some time mooning over the Art Deco dreaminess of The Midland Hotel, we ambled along in the wild and wet to our B&B just off the sea front. The hotel turned out to be managed by a good-natured Glaswegian who carried my bags to our room even though we had paid a modest sum for our board.

He asked what brought us to the bay. I wanted to tell him I was a writer. That I’d spent many a childhood Sunday in Frontierland – the theme park that was now a Morrisons supermarket, just around the corner from where we were standing. I wanted to tell him I often write poems about the ocean, and that I would probably write a few while I was here.

But I didn’t.

Talking about what I’m writing is always so beyond me in the early stages of a project. There are so many questions that I don’t have the answers to at that point. So I gave the manager an awkward smile and said ‘we are just away for a few days.’ My husband smiled and corroborated my story. He’s good like that.

The next day, we awoke to a view of the bay that was much cheerier than the night before. Friday’s dusk had been moody, smudged in charcoal, which somehow made it even more miraculous that trails of water managed to glitter across the sand like stardust.

That morning though, the Irish Sea was a blend of aventurine green and stonewashed blue. A storm of seagulls cycloned above it whilst the lines of distant hillsides, like the spines of sleeping giants, hunched their backs against the sky.

We swiftly dressed for breakfast, which we were informed was served between 8.30 and 9am. When alone in the room we laughed over the strict timings, though I accept it is the perogative of boarding houses to set less-flexible meal times than the lavish hotels. I’ve worked the hotel breakfast shift myself and know they don’t have to pay staff just for the serving, but for the setting and cleaning. The washing and drying, and the setting for the next meal.

When we went downstairs, we found we’d been given by far the best table in the breakfast room. As I sat down, I thought how lucky this was, especially after arriving the day before to find we had been given an ocean-view room. It wasn’t until I’d devoured a substantial pile of scrambled eggs that I discovered the source of our good fortune.

When booking the room, my email signature had betrayed the fact that I am the author of two novels. I had completely forgotten that signature was even there. Not surprising given my last novel was published a good 18 months ago and in any case, I didn’t think anyone read email signatures. I was wrong.

Whilst I was contemplating a second glass of orange juice, the lady who co-owned the hotel approached me, saying: ‘You’re the author, aren’t you?’

It took me a few moments to work out how she could possibly know this. I replied that I was, and explained a little about my projects when she asked. I promised to send her my poetry if I wrote any about Morecambe. She promised to look up my books and was delighted to have me as a guest.

This, of course, meant all the conversational side-stepping I’d done on arrival had been pointless. I had given myself away as a writer before I had even arrived.

After breakfast we walked down to the sea front so my husband could take in the air and watch me hunt the foreshore for sea glass, rocks and shells. As I looked across the bay, some of the hills in the distance looked like ghosts in the mist. As though I was looking back through time at apparitions of hillsides that once stood thousands of years ago. Before erosion and tectonic shift moulded the landscape into the rugged beauty on offer today.

Right then I decided I would write a poem about this place, and, when I got the chance, maybe update that email signature.

A poem about Morecambe Bay is included in Helen’s bestselling poetry debut: Water Signs.

For tips on writing and publishing your own poetry, tune into The Poetrygram: a poetry podcast hosted by Helen featuring news, views and prompts to use in your own writing.

Movie Memoirs: Jaws

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It’s still a family joke. That when our Dad came home from his shift at the bingo one night in 1986, I marched up to him and declared: ‘Daddy, that’s a very naughty fish.’ It took Dad a moment to understand why his weirdo four-year old was being more weird than usual. Then the images flooding out of the TV set caught his attention and he realized I had flicked the channel over to an early evening showing of Jaws.

Though stated in somewhat rudimentary terms, my opinion of sharks hasn’t much changed since that night. Perhaps because we lived so close to the ocean and it was easy for my overactive, pre-teen mind to dream that our house had sunk to the bottom of the Irish sea, and that a shark would crash through my bedroom window at any moment. I was even suspicious of swimming pools for a time and that was before I sat down to a night in with Jaws 3 on DVD, a six-pack of diet coke and an over-sized Milky Bar (never let it be said I don’t know how to party).

Whatever the reason, as a rule, I still keep my toes out of the ocean with the exception of last July when I visited Cornwall with my in-laws. We were staying near St Ive’s during a heat wave and thus paddling ankle-deep in the cool Celtic Sea was relieving. The relief evaporated however when the week after our visit a 9-foot blue shark was spotted circling the bay of St Ive’s, right where I’d been paddling.

For anyone who wants to explain that the likelihood of the shark attacking me is low, you should know a shark would not have to attack me to kill me. My phobia is so intense, he or she could simply wave a fin above sea level and the sight of that alone would be enough to stop my heart.

Over the years I have tried to get this fear out of my system. I’ve written articles about films featuring the ocean, conducted in-depth research into the making of Jaws to remind myself its just a movie (and a book) and made videos about the importance of Jaws in the cinematic canon. I’ve even written poetry about how it feels to look into the black eye of a white shark but still Susan Backlinie’s screams echo in my ears.

Some of my friends have suggested I go cage diving with the creatures to overcome my fright – I refer you to the earlier paragraph about shark fins.

Although I have failed to overcome my fear during the course of the last thirty-three years, it has become a part of who I am and has spurred a fascination with all things below the surface. That fascination has prompted me to create a whole host of things I might never have created otherwise. So, what I’m saying is, fear isn’t always bad and I’ve decided I don’t really want to get over my fear of sharks.

I’m happy to stay out of their natural habitat, leave them to their bone-crunching business and admire them from just far enough away to be able to say that sharks are really quite majestic creatures. And to marvel at the idea that in some ancient civilizations, these monsters of the big screen were worshiped as gods.

Helen explores her relationship with the ocean further in her bestselling poetry debut: Water Signs.

Built to serve: a love letter to the lighthouse keepers

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This post was inspired by my visit to the National Lighthouse Museum in Staten Island, New York.

George Bernard Shaw said lighthouses were built to serve. What about the lighthouse keepers, then? They served not only locals and sea-farers but the very lighthouses themselves. They sat awake in the bleakest, starless hours while all others slept, and dreamed of grander destinies.

A life of such servitude comes at a price. It is lonely. Others don’t always understand the desire to give and look for motive where there is none. Interpret humility as lowliness and wonder why a person would choose that over power. Such minds will never understand that the most powerful act anyone can carry out in this bewildering universe, is to give.

Most lighthouse keepers were men. The women who took up such posts were typically those who had never married or were widows. Looking at their pictures mounted on museum boards, I wonder if those friendless men and women ever invited broad-shouldered sailors into their sleeping quarters during the wild, windswept hours before daylight broke once more over the horizon.

I wonder if they ever wanted to feel something other than froth and sea spray against their skin. If they yearned to be lit only by the shine of a lover’s eyes for once. Or if they resigned themselves to the fact that the moment they took up their station at the top of the tower, they had committed their whole being to the ocean and would never know another master.

Even in the modern world, we are all slaves to something. Smart phones. Alcohol. Sugar rushes. Nicotine. Diet routines. If one were to choose an overlord of their own free will, there are much worse prospects than the ocean. She who is bound to carry out the moon’s bidding.

Yes, the salty waves are merciless at times. Cold. Murderous even. But they are also a source of endless kaleidoscopic beauty. Perhaps most importantly, despite her tides, the ocean is one of the most constant forces we know. She remembers our beginning and will witness our end. In an existence that churns just as vigorously as the North Sea on a grey February day, it is heartening to think that even when we are long gone something that once touched us will live on. I expect the lighthouse keepers understood this idea only too well.