Samphire Island by martin bradley

Samphire Island

Five miles long and two miles wide, the island, there since time immemorial, had housed humanity since before the coming of the Bronze Age; before the making of the trackway; before the coming of the Celtiberians migrating from Iberia, familiar with fishing and farming ; before the Romans favouring the island’s native oysters, bringing grapes; before the later seafarers, the sail lovers, the sand and wave fanciers, the Royal Academician creatives painting, printing and photographing the island’s natural beauty.

On the pre-summer island the sun had kissed growing samphire. It had caressed oysters on their half-shells where squeezed lemon droplets glistened.

There’d been blue skies, diving seagulls, the soft chiming sound of docked yacht-masts in the sea breeze, and scents of sharp ozone, sea-salt brine and of cloying mud.

Eventually grey clouds had clustered, chasing the sun from pebbled beaches, from seaward facing beach huts and coastal flora. Only sporadic cobalt skies had given hope, briefly illuminating black framed, antique, white cottages.

J had arrived on that isle late in the April of that year. He’d travelled on the lower deck of a local dual-red, double-decker Scania omnibus listening to the bus’s tyres talk of terrain, potholes, and crunching loose gravel. J had experienced the feel of that bus’s passage, its motion, swaying as if tumbling, caught in forward progress, falling headlong down the claustrophobic, darkened patches of the old road, brushing hedgerow branches and tree limbs, throwing itself around uncomfortable corners then finally approaching the open of the causeway, as if in triumph.

As far as J’s eyes could see, across the estuary causeway, the land had been characteristically East Anglian flat. To one side, and in the distance, a church towered over practically idyllically sculptured trees and farmhouses. The other side of the estuary had drawn his eyes to distant, blooming, borage fields, effectively carpeting the landscape purple-blue, watched over by an azurite sky and hazy sun.

The diurnal tide had been ebbing as the vehicle moved onto the causeway. J, intrigued by rivulet channels carved from glistening salt-marsh mud, had observed that altogether surreal landscape which, appearing temptingly solid, was water-eroded topography and known to be deceptively insubstantial, deadly even.

At that time, the bus had easily carried its half dozen passengers across the causeway. However, later in that same day, that same construction had flooded due to the tidal force phenomenon (the sea-water’s natural flowing preventing the island’s ingress and egress for more than one hour and a half). At full (or new) moon the briny was apt to become more robust in its incursions, and the isle reverts to its natural status, divorced from the mainland.

That double-decker vehicle had victoriously veered left, up a slight incline.

J had encountered fields of snuggly blanketed horses, reclusive houses peeping through lively trees, and farm shops proffering locally made wines from the island’s vineyards. Squat glass jars of fresh, island, comb-honey had sat, adjacent, offered at four British pounds a jar (the money to be placed in an ‘honesty box’ adjacent to fresh local vegetables and other seasonal island produce). Those had quickly disappeared as the vehicle sped onward.

Turning right, the bus had squeezed through a narrow lane which, in another year, would have been bordered by fields of bright, yellow, rapeseed flowers; but then cut, and the field lain fallow. That earnest bus had entered the village’s outskirts, bypassing The Fox Inn and the Island bakery. It had eased past Mohammed’s mini-mart and Sally’s antique shop then, at journey’s end, came to rest by the Island Cafe and Cock’s butcher’s (opposite the struggling village library, with the Art Cafe in easy sight).

Thanking the driver, J had alighted at the stop opposite that library, and beside the village’s 7th-century church, dedicated to Roman martyr saints (Peter and Paul). J had then had begun a shorter journey (one mile), tramping with his slight baggage through elder blessed paths, equally bordered by deadly wild arum red berries, the ever-present ivy and Roman (stinging) nettle. J had passed an abandoned boat nested amongst freshly erupted bluebells, in a small woodland. With no sense of hurry but, rather, an enjoyment of both the moment and of keen anticipation, J had sauntered down an incline leading towards his freshly rented Tudor (16th-century) house. It had nestled within the historic remnants of that island’s ‘Old City’.

Standing outside the antique white cottage, and before entering what in summer would be a hollyhock and rose country cottage paradise, straight ahead (and within eighty yards) J had witnessed an aged harbour. That harbour had been apt to overflow, flooding the lower section of the coastal road, leaving swathes of black, glistening, bladderwrack as a parting gift. Before he’d opened the white picket gate and walked into his latest adventure, J had gazed left, witnessing drunkenly leaning boats, masts chiming salty tunes in a slight breeze along The Fleet.

J had sensed a homecoming.

Across multiple seas, and for two decades, J had sought solace in the impalpable spiritualities of the East. He’d visited Indonesian Borobudur (seen from a mynah's eyes as a substantial mandala; he’d walked the vastness of Cambodian Angkor, its glorious templed city of Hindu and Buddhist carvings of demigods, devas, and apsaras.

J had been overshadowed by imposingly broad faces of Asia kings with benevolent eyes, cooled by waterfalls of the Golden Chersonese revealed in jungles megaannum old. He had encountered imposing India, with its ancient Muslim mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples and churches. Elsewhere, J had been in awe of the lotus filled Xi Hu (West Lake) of China’s poetic Qiantang; its soothing islands, temples, pavilions, gardens and functionally splendid arched bridges spread appealingly before him. Then there had been the magic of Thailand’s Chiang Mai, the beauteous islands of the Philippines, Dhaka’s older city and the quiet majesty of Chandpur (and its antediluvian fishery).

A raging pandemic had returned J to Albion’s shores.

A conviction for mindful meditation, encouraged by a previous flirting with Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism had followed him. He’d eased himself back into the land of Boadicea, back to where he had, prior to his travels, existed for over half a century.

A hastily-made arrangement had J uncomfortably quarantined (for an official and obligatory ten days), in the house of a friend of a friend, and on that Samphire Island. It hadn’t be an altogether satisfactory arrangement. J had been washed up, alone, on what should have been familiar shores, needing sanctuary.

J had spent the obligatory ten pandemic days on that wild-fowling, duck, goose and curlew island. Despite character clashes, he had extended that sojourn to one month. The ensuing year had been spent, disastrously, in a nearby town, clinging to an urge to return and seek solace on that island for a year of rest and recuperation.

That 1500s rental cottage had boasted low, undulating, white ceilings graced with prominent, blackened, beams and space enough (but not too much space) for a solo occupant. Likewise, J had displayed his own ravages; those of lengthy travels etched into his three-score-years-and-eleven. His age, witnessed by silvery locks, salt and pepper streaked beard, could also have been observed in the distinctness of his seemingly tired eyes. They were those of a life well-lived, and a mind increasingly more comfortable in his past than in the lessening years before him.

J’s landlord, merely an insubstantial white-washed wall away, was a tall, slim, man, possibly ten years older than he. The neighbour had been a dealer of antiques, a elder man of seeming taste and refinement, and one who’d dabbled in antiques long before returning to the country of his birth to string antique tennis rackets, engage in endless pottering in his remarked upon floral gardens, and the scraping of stubborn barnacles from his yacht (his second home).

On that moving-in day, and to explain the height of the doors, the landlord had mentioned ... “Most people are taller in the 21st century than they had been in the 15th and 16th centuries.” He had continued... “The smallness of the doorways, coupled with floor level variation through time, had meant that there was an adequate history behind J’s constant awareness of living in a Grade II ‘listed’ building.” Eventually, J had learned, through trial and error, to duck his head appropriately and hunch his back while learning to exist in that challenging new environment.

April in the year of J’s island sojourn had slipped into May.

One comfortable, ozone scented, morning, J had partially traversed that gravelly incline, heading up and out on his one mile journey to buy bacon and eggs for the next day’s breakfast, when, about half way up that upward slope, he’d come to a halt.

In the road ahead had been one of the island’s female muntjac deer, unmoving.

That symbol of the Celtic princess Sadhbh had gazed as J had stood, also afraid to move, concerned about startling her. Then, all of a sudden, with a flash of white tail, the vision of the deer disappeared. It was as if she had never been there. J had been left, once more, alone on his breakfast quest.

The season of damson had soon arrived.

Ripe, purple, damson plums had threatened the house’s back garden’s postage stamp astro-turf garden with additional, rudely enforced, colouration.

The turf, in its turn, had been disturbed in places by mauve clover, pushing through where strips of turf had almost, but not quite, abutted.

In that rear garden, the (next-door) owner had laid two large paving stones. On them, a squat, collapsible, majorelle-blue painted metal table had sat, accompanied by a solitary chair. A second chair had reclined against the tall garden gate leading to the adjoining property, to the right of the house, That gate had been wired shut to prevent egress and ingress, as had a similar gate to the left of the property. These bound gates had emphasised the property’s privacy and secluded nature. In J it induced a tightness, an uncomfortable feeling of restriction.

In his new island reality, J seldom visited that attached garden, unless to attend to washing, or to reluctantly weed yellowing vegetation (past its grow-bydate) or to collect those fallen, over-ripe, damson (turf threatening) fruits. At times, a distinctive cuckoo had thrown out a daily challenge, then remained silent.

Occasionally, seated in the small lounge with its leather furniture, J had recalled times of his youth. He’d remembered the mansion house where he was a surrogate grandchild while his mother worked at housekeeping, for the gentry.

There had been tea-times of earl grey. Interestingly decorated cream cakes, bought especially for him and resting on a delicate, bone china three-tier cake stand, on the grand wooden kitchen table, near the ancient Agar baking dinner for 10 spaniels.

As the seasons had worn on, there had been towering summer flowers, magenta hued sweet pea plants, wind sown with rambling entwined tendrils displaying their tender beauty as gulls cried overhead and stock doves (Columba oenas) had daintily stepped and ate in that rear garden.

On another morning, J had become alerted by a sound of yelping. It had evidently emanated from the revelation of one russet fox, in all its country elegance, following closely on the heels of another. Mesmerised, and with

his mind a little sharper from his morning meditation, J had remained seated on that upstairs rattan chair (with the light-blue embroidered Chinoiserie cushions) and, for a few seconds, had sat rapt, gazing at those beauteous passers-by.

Another memory had emerged, from suburban living some decades earlier. It was of his small two bedroom house and its den of foxes living in the back garden. The kits had gambolled near to, but away from, the hardy cox’s apple tree which, annually, had blessed the garden with roseate apples. J, and his then family, had looked out in the moonlight at that idyllic and transient scene, repeated infrequently and ultimately lost in time.

For a while, a little lost in retrospection, J had remained looking through that window with its blue paint peeling window frame. As the foxes had passed, his line of sight had adjusted to the white-walled cottages, opposite, catching the early sun. Black framed windows had starkly contrasted with the blanched white walls while, all around J, multi-layered bird songs had started up.

The sounds of booming pigeons, perched on the telephone line just outside J’s wood-framed bedroom window (the one graced by delicate soft yellow curtains), had echoed, crows had cawed, and sea-gulls had mewed chokingly cut off to mew again. A little later, the less distinctive calls of smaller birds had been barely heard as the day dawned, but had added to the general sound mélange.

In time, a robin (with its distinctive red breast) had hopped near the dying heads of roses once blush, but then umber in decay, and along the white picket -fence bordering the front garden, .

Still seated, J had continued to look inquisitively outside of the window, his old eyes espying an early-bird cyclist bouncing, earnestly, past and headed for the Old City Victory Dock and a surrendering morning tide.

In that month, fuchsia-hued hollyhocks took pride of place by the cobbled roadside fence, with other colours soon following. Most days, back then, J’s breakfast had been of two slices of wholemeal buttered toast, chunkily topped by partially mashed Cavendish banana. That fruit had been the best banana he could buy, given the circumstances. It not at all like the succulent, indigenous, bananas of all sizes found in his beloved Asia, but had to suffice in his new surroundings.

J had showered and dressed. He had wrangled his ‘Stormgrip’ boots on, and had remembered to slide the house keys into one trouser pocket, his smart phone and leather wallet into the other. He’d donned his (by then much battered) dark blue trilby. J had gently opened the front door, ducked through the doorway, instinctively double-checking his pockets, and had closed the slightly reluctant (blue painted), wooden door. J had walked, with some arthritic effort, past a clump of large towering daisies, and had exited the property via the white-picket gate, closing it, carefully, behind him.

J had taken his strides up the lane, easing the ache from his body and had respectfully nodded to the blue-shirted septuagenarian female twins, as they passed him at about Ten a.m. The May sun had been pleasant.

A slight breeze had teased what clouds there had been, while a blue sky had spread from over the horse-chestnut and monkey-puzzle trees towards the estuary’s ebb-tide.

J had trod the partially gravelled lane, striding up the slight incline, which had been not long enough, or steep enough, to be called a hill, but nevertheless challenged his ageing bones.

He’d passed Hazel hedgerows, imperial horse-chestnut and ancient oak trees, while at the lane’s top, and directly opposite, he had taken the ‘scenic route’, through a rural, slightly overgrown, footpath.

Surprised by rambling bramble bushes (laden with ripe and ripening blackberry drupelets), he’d recalled how, in other places and other times, blackberries would so quickly disappear into the hands of earnest pickers, young and old. But evidently not there, and not then, on that island of plenty.

Back in his 1950’s youth, and in that season, the brambles would have been striped bare of fruit by eager children and planning mothers. Family pies and jams with pectin would have been made with blackberry and the sourish Bramley apple. In that season, blackberry pickers’ hands would have been stained crimson from berry juice, so too their mouths, shirts and blouses marked with bluish lavender with slow-todisappear yet happy stains.

Along that footpath, compacted earth had been lightly covered with fallen yellow leaves. J had slowly traversed that path, weaving around the back of suburban residences and, on one side, separated from them by an ageing closeboard panel fence. He had been bordered on the other side by hedgerow tangles of ivy, elder, oak and other trees.

Still extant stinging nettles (Urtica dioica), (brought to Britain by the Romans for their irritant properties on arms and legs, warming soldiers in the cold climate) had the potential to make J’s track impassable. However, some kind soul had been through, beating back that potential impediment, allowing J to take pleasure in the sheltered ambiance of that country pathway.

An intermittent sun and shadow had been most welcome as J had ambled through the pathway, and its natural quiet. Quiet except, that is, for the occasional low boom of distant wood pigeons. On his ambling, J had noticed that the scents had been largely of green with, perhaps, a vague acrid hint of far-off farmers’ bonfires then dying, but still lingering in the air.

Before long, the hedgerow had given way to an elderly metal ring-fence. To his left, J had seen the faux wildness of the greenfield burial site, and on his right the headstones which marked a more traditional cemetery. Bypassing Weavers, Stokers, Larks, and myriad names on myriad tombstones J had exited, via a small cedar avenue, into a mixed public housing area.

From the beginning of that footpath, to its end at the cemetery, it was as if J had travelled through time, from the Elizabethan golden era of the 16th century Old City to the 21st century town, with its varying dated houses; the footpath acting as a conduit, bridging time, bringing back childhood memories and thoughts of an Asia which had never been far from his thoughts.

In his recent past, J had taken Spring walks by Xi Hu, that lake of poets and artists, over its three causeways, where numerous temples, pagodas, gardens, with natural and artificial islands, abounded. There had been the aroma of ‘Beggar’s Chicken’ mixing with ‘Nero’s’ coffee drifting across one bridge in particular. A weak sun had

glanced off myriad lotus flowers overseen by the poet Huang Binhong’s statue. They had been times when love was strong.

Saturday. It had been the second day of the town’s annual Regatta (held since July 1838, and originally accompanied by rowing matches and the hunting of ducks). It had been a warming day. Wispy cirrostratus clouds had graced Celtic blue skies. J had walked out of the Old City, with the island’s small harbour before him.

The ebb tide had stranded various craft. In the distance, smaller vessels had been slightly bobbing in their watery lane, and moved with an offshore breeze. J had turned left, out of The Lane, skirting a large, predominantly white, building titled ‘The Old Victory’. Those joined houses had once been the original public house (‘The Leather Bottle’) on that coastal road. That was before the Battle of Trafalgar, and a subsequent name change. A newer pub, further along the coastal road, in 1907 had taken the name ‘Victory Inn’ .

J had ambled past purveyors of ‘Native’ oysters on the estuary side of the road. Piles of shucked oyster discards had attested to the buildings’ trade, and to the great popularity of those establishments.

Back in the November of 1665, and while in London, the diarist Samuel Pepys had written about the barrels of oysters he had acquired from that island’s area. Those eagerly sought after ‘barrels’ were not the size of barrels used for ale, but much smaller, more like tins, or cans, used for that island’s oyster trade and known since before Roman times.

Boatyards and their captive craft, reminiscent of watercolours J had seen of nearby salt marshes and beaches painted by the British artist Eric Ravilious, had sterns facing Besom Fleet. That was where ancient Anglo Saxons had once constructed a fish weir.

Boat names had varied from ‘Timpulla’, ]CK 91], ]CK 935[ (the CK designation being local), to ‘Cheryl Sara’ and ‘Jenny Dee’ and had spoken of loves and lives departed. ‘Jenny Dee’ was a smart, black and white houseboat. Other houseboats had been dotted along that coastal road including crafts titled ‘Spray’, ‘Albacore’, ‘Mulroy’ and ‘Hotspur’ (built in 1874, and landed at the island in 1914). Then there were ‘Gypsy Rose’, ‘Salt Wind’, ‘Anna Maria’, ‘Mojo’ and the intriguing Zeldenrust’ (1903), moored in estuary mud and occasionally floating.

Other vessels, like the houseboat ‘L’Esperance’ (built in 1891) had been the home of a celebrated pianist during the 1960’s and 70s. That boat had still graced that island coastal walk, and observed by J, on his perambulations. ‘L’Esperance’ was rumoured to have been once given to Prince Henry of Prussia, as a gift from his Aunt, Queen Victoria, before being permanently docked on Samphire island.

As he had promenaded the coast Road, the first hint J had of human-tide were maritime enthusiasts (and visiting vendors) setting up their wares in the larger carpark, readying themselves for eager visitors. Safe in their knowledge of sun, heat and a slight estuary breeze.

Further around, younger static craft were hauled up, anchored and had been awaiting for the turn of the tide. An untroubled azure sky and pleasant air had allowed J a clear view of other craft waiting in the perspectival distance.

A rising sun had cast its shadows forth like so many mackerel lines. Some waiting boats were red sailed, green and pink hulled, some were blue tarpaulin covered. Larger fishing boats were of darker blue and pink, resting on their trolleys and awaiting the turn the tide, later in the day.

By ‘Monkey Beach’ steps, and in an Elder tree overlooking the estuary, an unconcerned, plump grey, pink and blue pigeon had feasted happily, amongst clusters of joyous elder berries. That bird had nestled itself into the tree, eating as it went, unperturbed by J’s observance. In one nearby, oyster shed, young bronzed male employees had begun shucking the flesh from the shells, with the shed doors open, while eternally hopeful Herring-gulls had performed complex weaving and hopeful dances, above them.

Avoiding other’s merriment, J had assiduously evaded the maritime furore and had taken himself down wooden steps towards the beach. He’d ambled along the still-damp sand, looking out at mud flats, at momentarily stranded craft, glisteningly moist mud and the green algae of a morning coast in the sun.

Occasionally in his promenading, and instead of continuing along that coastal road to its conclusion at Hove hill and eventually the High Street, J had taken a footpath to a partially damaged board-walk. There he’d forded a small stream (at the salt marsh), and intruded into the conservation area near to St. Peter’s Well. From there he had turn left, and onto the beginnings of the shingle and white sand beach with its jaunty, colourful, beach-huts barely seen in the distance.

In time, August had arrived. Halcyon days had worn on and intruded into that month. J had begun yearning more for his beloved Asia. The British heat, which in the days of his youth had hardly given material for a rosy retrospection, had began to climb into the early 30s Centigrade (80s Fahrenheit) and, being bereft of air conditioning or heat-shifting fan J had begun closing all curtains against the sun’s intrusion.

That UK summer had endured temperatures seldom seen in the British Isles. Some nights it was hot like Asia, with J opening bedroom widows which, unhelpfully, had only allowed hot air in. Alternatively, closing those windows had allowed already stuffy rooms to be even more so.

Later, there had been a false Autumn. A time when deciduous trees dropped leaves too early, vying with the emergence of early crocuses and primroses, which were normally arbiters of an early Spring. Early morning pigeons had been convinced Spring had arrived, judging by the noisy behaviour of two birds, their wings fluttering outside J’s open bedroom window, which had awakened him from a particularly dreamless sleep.

The ominous threat of drought made the gardens, back and front, more resemble a wasteland. J had been finally glad of the ever-green astroturf, although the dearth of flowers had starkly contrasted with the same garden’s profuse flora but a few weeks previously.

Suddenly, the island weather had changed from ferocious Mediterranean days of heat, to dull, British, leaden cloud, and a half-hearted rain’s drizzle. It had not been wet enough to refill the water stocks laid barren by the previous heat, but irritating non-the-less.

Then, it was over.

The accoutrements of his British living had been disposed of. Light, warm-weather clothes had been selected. J had retreated back down the lanes, back down the alleyways, and back down the roads toward the city.

From there, ten thousand miles and thirteen hours had lain before him until, in a humid night, an Asian taxi had deposited him in familiar territory.

Still solitary. He was away from the luscious samphire laced island, the salty mast-made music and the brine scent which had succoured him for a twelve month.

Now, from his metal-grilled, post-colonial, lounge window, J witnesses proud pots of ‘Birds-of-paradise’ flowers, dishevelled ‘Lemongrass’ and an array of Asian green potted herbs and spices, standing on his tiled forecourt.

A most welcome Eastern sun gradually seeps over the terraced house, leaving most of the plants in comfortable shadow for the rest of the equatorial day. At rest, J leans back into his woven ‘Kerusi rattan’ chair. His feet resting on the ‘Tikar Sarawak’ mat.

Looking out, J remembers his exile, the salty island of samphire and the journey back from there to here. Home.

J smiles briefly.

He sips from a small glass containing an infusion of local coffee (kopi) and condensed milk (to take the bitterness from the coffee’s robusta beans).

Before J lay new stories/new adventures in his beloved Asia.

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/love_s_texture https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/on_the_island

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/being_here_now_ https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/malim_nawar_morning

14 OTHER BLUE LOTUS

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/on_the_island

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/lotus

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/cambodia_chill_re-issue

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/remembering_whiteness_booklet