Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

A young hunter ponders his future... Cracking, splitting - the shining ice retreating. Shrinking, stinking - our sacred lands are sinking. Rising, raging - storms through our shelters tearing. Raining, soaking - muddy mammoths’ legs are sticking. Warming, swarming - dark insect clouds are stinging. Hunting unrelenting - but the reindeer herds are leaving. Watching, waiting - our worried elders meeting. Dancing, praying - entreaties are not working. Fighting, killing – while our lands are disappearing. Starving, despairing – angry voices loud and wailing. Staying, or going? Some await a low-tide crossing. Following, I am leaving for green hills beyond our knowing. Sea area Dogger is named after Dogger Bank, a shallow fishing ground once visited by Dutch fishing boats called 'doggers'. During the last ice age Doggerland connected Britain to the rest of the European continent. As the ice melted the seas ...

Every Summer of my childhood We packed the car to bursting And began the long journey from Buckinghamshire to the Wild West. Each child could take one teddy Which sat on our laps On either side of our Little sister’s sick bowl. I looked out the window At the funny welsh sheep Dotted on the steep grassy slopes Like balls of cotton wool. I tried to ignore The churning of my stomach As our car dipped up and down hills And navigated narrow bends On the ferry from Holyhead The Irish Sea was rough A nun held her head in a sick bag As the boat swayed from side to side. The heavy doors slammed behind us As we emerged onto the blustery deck And tried to walk but were held back By the power of gale force winds Then the rush of disembarkment A mass exodus down metal stairs The slam, slam, slam of car doors And the revving of the engines. We drove out of the ferry’s mouth And in a magical momen...

This is not what I wanted to write.   I wanted to write about Finisterre. The shipping area that claims the northwest corner of Galician Spain before stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean.   Finisterre - full of romance and mystery. Literally the ‘ends of the earth’. Named by the Romans who knew of no other land beyond its wild and rocky tip, Capo Finisterre. Here, leaving the coast meant a journey into the unknown. A journey from which you might never return. Perhaps this is why it sits at the end of a famous pilgrimage route. Indeed, according to Celtic legend, this is the place the souls of the dead gather to follow the sun across the sea. I can imagine you shaking your head. Never one for romanticism were you? You, always so practical, so grounded. So impatient with my flights of fancy.  Before I met you it was like I’d reached my own finisterre. Nowhere to go. Stuck. Settled. And then you came along, offering me adventure, a new world and I leap...

The phone hasn’t rung. Five twenty. Couldn’t sleep. Up and about, radio on. Toast under the grill, tea brewing. Stare at the phone, willing it to ring. ……Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher…… Butter the toast. It’s hard to swallow. Sip the tea. Another sugar. The dog’s at my feet. I turn things over and over. Why did it have to happen to her? Why did it have to happen to us? All our years together, then clear blue sky to utter darkness in seconds. I read their text yet again, re-check their final deadline - 5:30 a.m. my time. For them, far away in that debilitating heat, it’s noon. If the money reaches them in time, they’ll call. If not that’s it. Here, too ill to leave the house, waiting, waiting for that ring. The phone stays silent. …..Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland….. Another bite of toast. Add some marmalade. Rays of sunlight. Normal things happening on a normal day, except there’s nothing normal about today for me or for her.   If only I could stretch it out, mak...

Farewell, my dear children.  Look at me one last time, then turn away and don’t look back.  Look out over the ocean and let your thoughts follow your gaze out towards the horizon. If you could reach out and dip your hand into the deep waters which hold your future, you may find that your grasp will bring forth pearls.  Or your fingers may be bitten by the sharp crab claws of fate.  Or both.  I hope that whatever life has to show you, you will find, above all things, balance.  Balance in every aspect of your life.  It is the key to success and happiness.  I have not been able to achieve balance for myself.  I have emerald gowns aplenty, yet not enough food for you, my sons and daughters. As I cast you out across the seas, I ask one thing of you.  Send your children back to me.  And your children’s children. Just let them stay with me for a while and I will return them to your adopted homeland. So keep going, beyond...

She was only a girl when they left. My grandmother Pointed on the map, to the faintest dot in the square of blue And it seemed to me to be made of the sea itself. So alone, So far from its orientating neighbour it could be anywhere Or nowhere. A speck outside the sheltering embrace of the Hebrides Flung into the fierce Atlantic, It is a place I have never seen, never touched, Yet I felt the bite of the salt and the spray in my lungs. She told me of the infinite sky and the scoured land And I felt the spring of heather and of kelp under my feet And heard the clamour of gannets. She told me of the squat houses crouched along the shore Now roofless, Home to wild-eyed sheep, Moss reclaiming the stones in a smothering shroud. She told me how they left their doors unlocked, and a gift - A handful of oats For their strange and zealous gods Who were as much of the wind and waves as of The Book Laid open at Exodus, And I wonder If their flight ...