Going to Lundy

I did it this morning - I phoned the Landmark Trust and booked a day trip to Lundy and back, specifically the 10.00am sailing from Ilfracombe on Tuesday 27th September. The voyage takes two hours each way. You get four hours on the island.

This is last year's brochure:

The arrangements for 2016 are the same.

I have been to Lundy before, but it was twenty years ago on 10th July 1996. It won't be an exactly similar experience because:
(a) It was then mid-summer, but it'll be early autumn this time;
(b) In 1996 I went with M---, but this time I'm going on my own;
(c) There is now a proper jetty for the Oldenburg at Lundy.

Having nobody with me means that I can do as I please. Last time, after a swift picnic, we made a trek to the north end of the island our absolute priority. So we didn't explore the village, examine the church, nor see what the island's pub, the Marisco Tavern, had to offer. Nor did we pay any attention to the south and west coasts of the island, despite reports of seals galore. To be fair, a dense fog enveloped the west side of the island soon after our arrival, and the seals would have been invisible.

On this occasion I will give these unseen things all my time, and I don't expect to go north of the Quarter Wall, which cuts the southernmost quarter of the island off from the remainder to the north.

The new jetty (actually built in 2000) means that no longer will the Oldenburg have to anchor offshore and get the passengers to the Landing Beach in small batches. They used a gig-sized motor boat for that job. On a calm day it was fine, unless you were in any way unsteady on your feet. On rough days the Captain might decide that only cargo could disembark straight away, and all passengers would have to wait for calmer weather to arrive. It might happen that no landing would be possible at all. Here are my 1996 pictures of that motor boat for passengers:

You came back on board the same way. Scrambling in and out of the motorboat was one of the excitements of the trip, but the new jetty has made it unnecessary. Something must have been lost from the overall sense of 'adventure' - the ship/motorboat transfer could be pretty scary - but disembarking will now be a simple walk along a gangway, and a lot more convenient. Indeed, actually setting foot on the island will now be guaranteed. Which is just as well: even with a senior concession, I paid a right royal £33 this morning for my day trip - not peanuts - and I want to enjoy this particular drink to the dregs.

It'll be a long day, with certain preparations to make the evening before. No handbags here! It must be a rucksack, with sufficient clothing to ward off getting wet and chilled. And although the island shop and tavern can provide food and refreshments, it would be wise to carry a yummy and sustaining packed lunch.

I will need to leave the farm at Great Torrington at 8.00am to ensure that I'm parked in an all-day spot at Ilfracombe, and can be ready to board the ship, MS Oldenburg, by 9.15am. I'll be on Lundy from noon until 4.00pm. I won't get back to Ilfracombe until 6.00pm, and not back to the caravan until 7.00pm, by which time it will be almost sunset. This may be the day that I get a takeaway fish and chips! I expect to be rather tired by early evening. But if the weather is kind, it should be an unforgettable day out. Well, it will be literally unforgettable in any case, of course, because I shall be taking pictures throughout.

The Oldenburg will probably be loading cargo as I get on board. There is a hold forward, and a member of the crew will be operating a small crane, to stash boxes down inside, as here in 1996...

...and when I took this shot when passing by in 2013, nothing had changed:

In 1996, it was possible to have a jolly good nose around with one's camera, prior to weighing anchor, getting shots of the bridge interior for instance:

And no fuss was made when I asked to shoot the Captain and his officer:

This time, it might not be so easy to get the same shots. Tighter security regulations might have made such free-and-east access a thing of the past! I will however try. They can only say no.

Although the passenger facilities on the ship have had a makeover since 1996, I don't expect any luxury during the voyage. They won't have been able to increase the number of seats, nor radically change the toilet arrangements. Most people travel on deck, which is OK if it's sunny, not so good if clammy fog descends, or drizzle sets in!

If the weather is inclement, and we all want to huddle in the warm saloon, safe from the wind and rain, I just hope that the 'women and children first' rule will still prevail, enforced if need be by ship's officers armed with pistols. Let the men take their chance on deck, I say. After all, they are supposed to be stout fellows - brave, lion-hearted and manly - and above all, gentlemen. Surely they will do the right thing, even if they perish? We shall see.

Wallowing in great comfort during the passage isn't really the point, though. It's getting to a real island, far out in the Bristol Channel. It's an amazing to do. Back in 1996, we had extra entertainment in the form of an RAF Rescue Helicopter, which hovered for several minutes just off the port side. It must have been a training exercise.

There was a school party on board, and the kids were thrilled!

But for adults the thrill is seeing Lundy close up. On a clear day, Lundy is always in view, but at first it's a long, low shadow on the western horizon, and small. And then suddenly it's a lot closer, and watching it transform from a distant shadow to a real place, all rocky, with detail to see, is magical. Everyone pushes forward to see.

There are actually two landing beaches - one deals with passengers, and the other with goods, brought down on trailers drawn by tractors. There's no 'transport' except a Land Rover, and passengers usually make their way on foot up to the village, along a gravel road carved into the cliff in places. That was in 1996: I doubt if it'll be any different in 2016. I can't wait to see!

MFV James Wickham

WARNING

This post generated a number of responses from people who knew this vessel intimately, and they kindly emailed me and pointed out errors and mistakes in my Internet research, for which I do of course apologise. It shows that piecing a connected story together from scraps of online information does not always lead to the whole truth! Even my thinking on what I saw in Ilfracombe harbour back in 1996 wasn't quite right. 

Occasionally this is going to happen. I don't see how, if one is a blogger, it's always possible to stick to matters within one's own direct personal knowledge and experience. It's sometimes necessary to speculate. I got some of the James Wickham's history wrong. Even so, this was an attractive vessel with character, and I had a personal angle. She deserved a post, even if I really ought to have confined myself to what I saw at Ilfracombe.    

I have considered a rewrite, but I am not a marine writer, knowledgeable in things to do with boats and the sea. Anybody connected with this vessel, who knows the facts, would do a much better job. I therefore invite them to submit paragraphs that I can add to this post.  

LM 15th October 2020

 

This about what happened to a former Irish-built motor fishing vessel, a trawler, that came into service in 1950, earned her living for some years around the Irish Sea, then passed through the hands of a number of private owners.

Why do I know about this boat? Well, I happened to take a series of pictures of the James Wickham as she left Ilfracombe harbour in July 1996. She was then a very smart-looking vessel. Whenever I subsequently looked at my pictures, I wondered what had become of her. I was also mildly interested in her 1996 owners, and thought I may have encountered them again, when in Padstow in March 2015 (See my post Padstow 1 - Rick's Café on 23rd March 2015, towards the end of the post)

The Internet is a wonderful source of information. I've managed to piece together the bare bones of this boat's history. I've also discovered who the present owner is. He's a man named Ron Owttrim, who has recently retired and whose grandfather was the original owner. I hope he won't mind my mentioning him without first asking, but I can't find his contact details, and I am not joining LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter just to acquire them.

He bought the James Wickham at a Ramsgate auction in April 2015, and began a blog about her restoration, which you can find at http://thejameswickham.owttrim.com/. The blog home page supplies some information about her:

THE JAMES WICKHAM
Motor Fishing Vessel

LOA 65ft
LWL 48ft 6in
Beam 15ft 6in
Draught 6ft 1in

A British registered vessel of 43 tonnes, built by John Tyrell & Sons of Arklow Ireland in 1949/50.

The James Wickham is built of larch on oak frames and is rigged with three jibs, gaff main, topsail, staysail, and mizzen sails.

The vessel is powered by a Kelvin K4 diesel engine giving 8 knots, 1000 mile range. There are two hydaulically operated steering positions, one inside the wheelhouse, the other situated outisde on the rear bridge deck and used when the vessel is under sail.

The vessel was originally owned by the Wickham family of Rosslare, Southern Ireland, who fished the boat throughout the Irish Sea and of the west coast of Scotland, for trips of up to 15 days duration throughout the year.

The blog has no further entries. I hope that doesn't indicate insurmountable problems, and an abandonment of the restoration project.

The James Wickham was first registered at Rosslare in 1950 to Raymond Wickham. The registration number was D98 (D means Dublin).

It happened that British Movietone News made a short film of the James Wickham being blessed by a priest, with the crew all present, prior to her very first fishing voyage from Rosslare Harbour in 1950. Here is the link to the YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNNldB3t3Xw. The film details are here: http://www.tcd.ie/irishfilm/showfilm.php?fid=46088.

The film reveals rather dangerous-looking, lose-a finger-if-you're-not-careful, open-deck working conditions that must nevertheless have been completely normal at the time. Quite a hard life for the crew, I'm thinking, even though she must have been an up-to-date design for the time. However, her working life was short. Fishing profitably would have become ever more difficult, and by 1961 she was registered in Wales, at Aberystwyth, and must have been sold.

Her second owner was a man named Gerald Lewis of New Quay, who had the boat converted for private leisure use. It was in his ownership that I saw the James Wickham at llfracombe on 7th July 1996. Here she is, in the four pictures I took.  I was standing at the quayside, and as I watched she weighed anchor and moved under engine power out of the harbour.

The dark red-brown colour scheme, embellished with that golden arrow, obviously wouldn't have reflected her original appearance when a working trawler, but nevertheless she looked arresting, and a small crowd was observing her departure. I remember thinking how lucky that lady on the boat was, to be the wife or girlfriend of one of those men, and have the chance to sail in this style!

And yet, this might have been the boat's last summer in Gerald Lewis's hands. By 1998 she was owned by a man named Bob Langford. Then there is a blank in her history. In 2007 she was up for sale again at Brighton. Here she is, at sea...

...and then languishing in the Marina. She was still much as she was in her Welsh-owned days:

The firm handling the marketing, Ancasta, provided some photos of her interior:

As you can see, old-fashioned, rather fussy woodwork everywhere, but for all that a well-equipped boat, although not up to the comfort standard expected by 2007. And I fancy the James Wickham did not sell for the £69,995 then being asked, nor for anything near that amount. She may have fallen cheaply into the hands of further owners who did not have the means nor the will to maintain her properly. By August 2008 she was moored at Ramsgate, looking somewhat forlorn, with her foremast gone and rotten parts protected from the weather by tarpaulins:

There she remained, gradually becoming more faded and decrepit:

There was one final attempt to sell her normally in 2013. The marketing particulars can be viewed at
http://www.boatshed.com/motor_fishing_vessel-boat-33316.html. It must have failed. Meanwhile Thanet District Council seized her, or accepted her, presumably for harbour dues not paid. They put her up for auction with Hobbs Parker Marine on 25th April 2015, and this is how Ron Owttrim became her owner.

Hmm. Look at that dodgy planking on the lower port side aft. And, generally, the faded paintwork and sad air of neglect. The auctioneers gave £225 to the RNLI Ramsgate Lifeboat Fund after the sale.

It will be a true labour of love to restore the James Wickham to her former state. It will take a lot of time, and it will be very costly. I do hope Mr Owttrim has the stamina for it, and one must wish him well, but boats consume money and I hope his family-inspired gesture does not prove to be a ruinous mistake. But it would be nice to discover this boat, fully-restored, in some harbour in a future year!

Then there were two

Oh, this is really sad. If you read my recent post Then there were three you'll recall that a heavy Pyrex jug slipped from my hands when washing up, and fell onto a couple of Chinese bowls in my washing-up rack, breaking one. This was the scenario:

I threw the obviously-broken one away. The one underneath seemed OK. But now I've noticed a hairline crack. It's on its way out. I've decided to throw it now - I don't want to see it get worse.

That's two bowls slain, after twenty-four years without mishap. I now have only two left, not what you can really call a 'set' any more. I will use the remaining two daily, but inevitably they will suffer greater wear and tear, or at least run a much greater risk of accidental damage. And I will definitely now have to buy a proper set of posh bowls to replace them, in case I entertain. Chinese bowls again, if at all possible. I like the style.

This is a rather tragic loss. The bowls, as a set of four, had been part of the background to my daily life for so long. They had been one of those minor but familiar possessions that I used through many a phase, many a crisis. The two remaining bowls seem forlorn, in mourning for their missing siblings.

I do feel the loss of my favourite things very deeply. Oh, I know, there are no pockets in a shroud, and that kind of practical sentiment. But it's hard not to experience a certain passing sadness. Still, these breakages may signal a sea-change. Time to cast away the old, and bring in some new. It may all herald a comprehensive revamping and re-equipping of my home.

Ironworks

I was on the last leg of my morning two-mile walk when I saw this nestling in a grassy verge. I'd never noticed it before.

'My goodness,' I thought, 'that's a handsome piece of ironwork.' It was a manhole cover. I stood back and admired the strong design on the lid. But I especially admired the nice curving rim, and the studs on it. Surely those served no functional purpose, and were just decoration? Their presence seemed surprising. And I liked the sturdy corner struts, again surely a matter of art rather than strict functionality? I whipped out my phone and took a shot.

It was 'only' a manhole cover, but I couldn't remember seeing one like this before. Nearly all manhole covers (and other street furniture like them) are buried flush into the ground, or the pavement, or the road, so that they are not trip hazards, or likely to damage the suspension of vehicles. This one wasn't. It was proud and unashamed. I wondered why it was exceptional. I also speculated on whether most manhole covers, if disinterred, would look like this one did.

Next morning - it was less than two hours ago, in fact - I found another example not far away, in a shared driveway. This one was buried flush to the tarmac:

It was clearly the same design. Both covers had KNOWLES LONDON on them - the maker, presumably. The one flush to the tarmac must be coeval with the houses nearly, suggesting that it might date from the 1940s or 1950s and be as much as seventy years old. And that argued that the near-pristine cover I first noticed was also that kind of age. Well, if so, these iron artifacts lasted very well!

My general curiosity about these manhole covers and their designs was now aroused. Surely there was more to them than met the eye. And there was. It was a subject for Local Historians to get their teeth into, and I quickly discovered a blog run by such a person, retired now, who had built up a collection of photographs of manhole covers not just from this country, but elsewhere in the world. Do have a look at this link: http://manholemiscellany.blogspot.co.uk/. And this Pinterest page: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/135389532523248571/.

I learned that people use the 'industrial' designs of manhole covers as the basis for derived artworks, involving 'manhole rubbing'. Yes, really. See https://www.creativereview.co.uk/overlooked-the-art-of-the-humble-manhole-cover/.

Of course, if you are in the trade, or a lay person interested in the technicalities, there are websites that explain all about the different kinds and grades of manhole cover. For instance, see http://www.richardsbuildersmerchants.co.uk/choosing-the-right-manhole-cover/. And for a general grounding in the subject, Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhole_cover.

The local history and art-potential aspects interest me. I think I'll add manhole covers to my list of photography subjects - at least for a while. I mean, the fascination may be short-lived and burn itself out fast. But you never know.

And what about drains?

That's got E.S.E. PHOENIX LEWES on it. Wow. Drains could be an amazing sideline. This could herald a whole new era. One could get very keen on this kind of thing.

However, I draw the line on getting down on my hands and knees in the middle of a road, and making a manhole-rubbing. That's asking for trouble.

An ambition achieved

This week I have made good an ambition to extend my large-scale digital map coverage so that wherever I go in my usual holiday areas, I have a local 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey Explorer map right there on my phone. Here are views of my nationwide coverage, as they stand this morning:

You buy coverage in High-Definition 10km x 10km squares at £1.49 or £1.99 per square, through the OS's MapFinder phone app. I've been getting them in batches, £10 or £20 a time, whenever I have some spare funds. The yellow squares on my master map represent squares purchased last year, in 2015. Squares purchased this year, 2016, are coloured orange. As you can see, I've gone all out to ensure that the entire South Coast and the South West of England has this large-scale continuous coverage, which is excellent for detailed exploration by foot. But there are also some other areas covered, such as most of the Cotswolds, some of the Welsh Border, Gower, and little bits of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland.

I will of course be buying more of these Explorer map squares, but the essential coverage is now there, and I will think carefully about every future addition. It's been quite an investment. I've bought 423 map squares in the last twelve months at a cost of £786. In the twelve months to come, I shall need money like that for things such as dental treatment, and to help cover the cost of my Scottish holiday, pencilled in for May or June 2017. So my map square purchases are henceforth going to reduce to a trickle!

I do of course have the entire country digitally covered in High Definition by the next scale down, the OS's 1:50,000 Landranger map. That's installed on both phone and laptop. It's completely adequate for touring and exploring any area, unless you want the really fine detail that the 1:25,000 Explorer map provides. And there is as well my vast collection of paper maps at a variety of scales, going back to the early 1900s. I always take some of those on holiday, to find the location of things that were once there, but are no more.

When young, at age ten say, I yearned to have a seamless large-scale map on a handy gadget I could easily carry around. The 2016 reality on a smartphone is a dream come true. Gosh, think what I can now do! I can look at Penzance in the far south-west, and Folkestone in the far south-east...

...or Portland Bill in the far south, and Lerwick in the far north...

...I can contemplate Rhossili on Gower, and the Rollright Stones on the Cotswolds...

...and imagine a day on Lundy in the Bristol Channel, or an autumn tramp through the New Forest...

In my opinion, these are beautiful maps - and actually better to view on a back-lit phone screen than in traditional printed paper form. The OS will also update them automatically, whenever a new paper version is published.

If you detect a certain 'treasure island map' mentality behind my practical enthusiasm, I dare say you are quite right. I have been romanticising over maps and atlases all my life. Maps urge me on to see places for myself. And of course, photograph what I find. The entire country is stuffed with interesting things to seek out, and these large-scale maps are the key. My next holiday, two weeks ahead, is mainly devoted to the events of the Appledore Book Festival, but I have a few days free to whizz off in Fiona. I intend to make ancient standing stones and holy wells my theme on these outings. And to find them, my Explorer mapping will be essential.

Adultery

I have before me three novels about adultery, taken from my bookshelves:

They are Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head, published in 1961; John Braine's Life at the Top, published in 1962; and Guy Bellamy's The Secret Lemonade Drinker, published in 1977. One woman author and two men. Two of these novels were published just before The Permissive Society came into being; one when it had firmly taken hold.

The chief protagonist in Iris Murdoch's novel, Martin Lynch-Gibbon, is a sophisticated and Oxbridge-educated forty-something London wine merchant, who inherited the business from his father. He dabbles in military history-writing. He has a glitteringly successful (but childless) marriage to an older wife. He is very comfortable with her. They share a consciously civilised life, and deeply care for each other. That caring does not stop him having a young mistress, a university don of bohemian ways, whom he can indulge with ridiculously gaudy presents that he could not possibly buy for his wife. The story is all about relationships, overt and hidden, between well-educated, talented persons at the top of their game, all of whom have enough money to do whatever they like. Self-development and personal growth is the theme. It is also a study in how power and initiative can shift from person to person. At the end truth and honesty prevail, and everyone pairs off differently. The future looks challenging, interesting, hopeful, but not necessarily successful. The atmosphere of the book has been called 'Jacobean'. I wouldn't say it's as dark as that. But there's plenty of London fog before the sky clears.

John Braine's chief protagonist, late-thirties Joe Lampton, is a Northern grammar-school lad made good, chiefly because he married the boss's daughter. Married her because he got her pregnant. He is never allowed to forget that he has achieved his position the 'easy' way, and has not worked his way up through hard graft. This takes the shine off his otherwise sleek, comfortable and privileged life. But he puts up with his father-in-law's disrespect because he dearly loves his little daughter. Nevertheless, Joe Lampton's world is hemmed in by keeping up appearances, and leading a respectable life beyond public reproach. In his part of the world, tongues will wag if there is any slip. Such is the atmosphere in his stuffy, pretentious suburb. He longs to break out, and he gets the chance, but is haunted by unfinished affairs from the past and his father-in-law's scornful control. The novel is a sequel to an earlier one that chronicled his rise to success - a story that included the suicide of an older married woman. He is himself now older, has had ten financially rewarding but humdrum years at the top of the steel-making business, and his marriage is tired. They bicker constantly. Only physical lust seems to be left. The story is a tale of escape, of the importance of children, of understanding what really matters, and finally making a fresh start with the original partner.

Guy Bellamy's book is a lighter affair. Whereas the other two were, in their different ways, a 'serious read', his fast-paced and decidedly more salacious book is easier to absorb. The characterisation is of course less profound, but for all that the chief protagonist, Bobby Booth, is engaging enough. He was once an inspirational teacher, very good with kids, but had to give up his profession for better-paid work. He has become a launderette manager, working under the wing of a wealthy friend who is constantly thinking up money-making schemes. Bobby regrets leaving teaching. His present work is utterly routine and boring, even if the money is useful. It was needed so that he could set up home with an apparently wonderful girl who walked into his life just as he was turning thirty, and his carefree lifestyle of easy but loveless lays had suddenly come to a shuddering halt. It seemed like a fairy-tale. But as the book begins, that marriage is not going so well either. One badly wants children, one doesn't. The unfolding story has Bobby's life turned upside down by the revelation of certain truths, a callously-contrived murder, and the unexpected arrival of a third party.

For me Iris Murdoch's 1961 novel was seminal. When I first read it at age seventeen, in 1969, it was still a recently-written book. It had relevance to the times. It seemed to be nothing less than a handbook on How Adults Behaved. I had suspected that grown-ups didn't play by The Rules, and this book confirmed it. I certainly modelled myself on its characters, and regarded it as an authority on what I should expect once I left school. (I was disappointed: people were not nearly so sophisticated)

I first read John Braine's novel much later, in the late 1970s, when I was twenty-six or twenty seven. By then I was starting to feel internal pressure to find someone at all costs - despite observing work colleagues pairing off and coming unstuck. The book was a timely warning about marrying for material benefit alone. It also gave me an insight into what it might be like to have children. And although the book portrayed children as magical beings to die for, somehow that made me feel I could never be parent enough to be worthy of any child. So it was influential in my avoiding making babies.

It was 1980 or so, when I was nearly thirty, that a girl friend lent me her copy of Guy Bellamy's book. It only took a weekend to finish. But it alerted me to the possibility that at any moment Someone New And Unexpected could come into one's life, out of the blue, and make a huge difference. I still believe in that. The only thing now is that they would most likely get a polite brush-off. I feel twenty years too late to start an affair. It's absolutely not going to happen.

So much for fictional adultery, and stories weaved around it. I rather think there is hardly a real person on the planet who, while in a relationship, has not considered their position and had the notion, fleetingly or otherwise, that Somebody Else They Know would have made a more suitable life-partner. But actually stealing someone away, and being a willing party to a deliberate and heartless betrayal? To flaunt the misdeed, and be heedless to the hurt caused? Surely that takes a high degree of lust, passion and selfishness. Even ruthlessness. Clearly many people do possess that combination. It's entirely the sort of thing weak, frail ordinary human beings will get up to. (And not just politicians)

I won't condemn people for being ordinary human beings. Nobody can escape the darker sides of being human, and I'm not one to moralise with a Book of Rules in my hand. But if it leads to the destruction of a happy family, as it's bound to, then in my view they do deserve some negative feedback. But I would regard an honest analysis of the mistake, the learning of a lesson, and finding a way to move forward with a fresh heart, as much better things than punishment.

I am of course somewhat unqualified to discuss modern adultery. I avoid forming relationships. I do not have affairs. I feel no internal urging to make me throw myself at somebody else - and present them with a conflict of loyalties. Nothing at all of that lust and passion just mentioned. A vanishingly low libido means that I am very comfortable with a life without sex. And celibacy is a valid mode of living, not a failing. It frees your energies up for other things.

Of course, other people might still see me as a potential threat. It won't be from anything I've said or done: for them, my simple existence as an unattached woman will be enough. Any woman in my position is likely to be treated with a certain degree of wariness, as if we have secret designs, as if we might be predatory. I'm just hoping that my age and lack of sex-drive are very obvious things. I want them to blunt the fears of any insecure spouses I may encounter. I would be dismayed to be seriously thought a potential adulteress and home-wrecker.