A parcel arrived this morning from True North and Tintin wrapped in Santas and snowmen. Fantastic gifts within: a packet of glossy photographs taken during their recent stay, two skeins of orange rope, a bag of nails, gloves (latex and Marigold Industrial), a small spirit level and a sheaf of plastic ties (the sort used by the police to handcuff miscreants). And at the bottom of the box...
I tried them on immediately. A perfect fit. A fashion shot will be posted shortly (I can’t figure out how to set the camera to take a picture of myself so just imagine this one with my head on the top and you will see how purposeful I shall look).
Deliveries are a regular occurrence at the moment.
The Gangplank arrived last week – well, pieces of it: five long steel rods and a swag bag labelled, “Mr. Wayne Humphries” - Mr WH being the splendid man who designed and is to assemble it. And this afternoon, sawn tanalised timbers recline beside them on the deck.
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| Splendid Man |
I feel The Gangplank is symbolic as it signifies the beginning of Davenham’s metamorphosis. Not quite as loftily but more importantly perhaps, it will also mean a less hazardous journey from shore to front door which is why it merits capital letters.
These are some of our gangplanks...
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| Original gangplank at the quayside. |
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| Grand gangplank designed by the Captain. |
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| The Captain |
When we first arrived at the marina, Davenham was moored on an outside berth almost in the middle of the river and, except at extremely low water, she was always afloat. Whether or not we could embark or disembark depended entirely on the state of the tide. This could be a laborious and perilous affair since a set of not altogether stable wooden steps, a hooked ladder, a rope and several feet of water separated pontoon and ship and required in varying degrees, courage, recklessness and faith.
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| The Mother of the Captain, brave scaler of ladders, unruffled and stoic, descending (far left) in horizontal rain. |
At low water Davenham tended to drift towards the pontoon so only a slight stretch of the leg was necessary to step on to the ladder, climb up and either haul oneself over the bulwark or shuffle around the gunnel to the safety of the deck.
At high water she glided out, as though she wanted to be off, joining in the fun with the teasing waves.
In the normal course of events, pulling on a rope with over 200 tonnes of steel at the end of it and being unsurprised when it moves, would suggest the puller was person of super-heroic abilities. Physics, thrillingly, can make a superhero of the weediest of us.
I speak to Davenham as I draw, encouraging, urging her on, a boat-whisperer, reassuring and soothing. She responds, inertia taking over, gliding towards me, like an animal tamed until she is close enough for me to stroke her flanks.
Except in the wind. In the wind, she becomes wild, ensnared as she is by an unseeable enemy of mythic strength. I am wrestling with a force of nature and I will not win the struggle against its unremitting ferocity.
Herodotus narrates a tale about a wind - the South Wind – and the Psylli, a people who lived on the borders of the country of the Nasamonians (near present day Libya I think) who were:
“swept away under the following circumstances. The south wind had blown for a long time and dried up all the tanks in which their water was stored. Now the whole region within the Syrtis is utterly devoid of springs. Accordingly the Psylli took counsel among themselves, and by common consent made war upon the south wind…they went forth and reached the desert; but there the South Wind rose and buried them under heaps of sand: whereupon, the Psylli being destroyed, their lands passed to the Nasamonians… So at least the Libyans say, I do but repeat their words.”
Herodotus knew a cracking good story when he heard one; nevertheless it is a sobering tale. There they were, the Psylli, armed braves assembled, serried for futile battle against their invisible foe: indestructible and unconquerable and, ultimately, annihilating.
It is said though, that the character of a person or a people is judged by the quality of their enemies.
Our wind, which courses through the valley in tempers ranging from the mildly irritated to the muscularly rampaging, cannot be blamed for the dryness of Davenham’s water tanks. It snaps, lashes, rips at flags, tarpaulins, clothes; it flings chairs over , hurls buckets across the deck, slams doors; it whines and howls. But the tragedy of the Psylli is a powerful lesson.
“The names we give our emotions are like names sailors give to approaching typhoons in the vain hope of appeasing them.” David Grossman writes in “The Smile of the Lamb”. We identify, categorise, taxonomise. In naming, I suppose we are attempting to de-mystify. The Ancient Greeks and Romans managed this magnificently by incarnating the elements, their emotions and the natural world. By all accounts, relations with their pantheon of deities kept things ticking along rather nicely and everything in order and everyone knowing where they stood.
Perhaps this wind needs a name.
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| Splendid Man, Kip, True North and Tintin |
I wrote the above many mornings ago.
Before the horrific thing that happened.
Leaving at the end of that lovely day, when Kip and Wayne and I had been shopping for decking and screws, Wayne turned back at the door to pick up something he ‘d forgotten, and fell down the stairs.
Never so fervently have I wished I had a god to pray to.
“You get well.” I command him at his hospital bedside.
“You’d better be - I need the gangplank!”
I mean it. I DO need the gangplank. I need it without caring a fig about it. I need it because it’s a talisman, a thing that places him mended, fit, strong.
In the future.
It is, this gangplank, more symbolic than I could have imagined.
