The Sea

Chapter Eight – The Sea

Some places stay with us forever.
For Drew, it's the sea.

From childhood days on the Norfolk coast to standing beside the Pacific Ocean, from rivers and books to cruise ships and poetry, this chapter explores a lifelong fascination with water and the journeys it inspires.

A reflective voyage through memory, wonder, belonging and the people we meet along the way.

Because sometimes the places we return to aren't places at all.
They're feelings.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome. Each week I'll be sharing stories, stories drawn from real life, from people I've met and moments that I've witnessed. And sometimes they're remembered exactly as they were, sometimes, of course, they're softened by time. But they're all brought to you with kindness and care. Welcome to big skies and small ponds. Chapter eight The Sea I do love to be beside the seaside. I've always felt the pull of water. In the long distant days of my past I've swum in the cold, murky seas off the coast of sunny Skegnes and in the warm, beautiful Pacific Ocean. I trained as a lifeguard, so I understand not only the attraction to water, but its potential dangers. And yet the sea, oceans, the wide open sort that seem to stretch beyond whatever you can properly take in, well, they bring a sense of wonder and joy and peace. Rivers too, quieter, but purposeful, always moving, always going somewhere, even if you're not entirely sure where that somewhere is. Perhaps that's part of the draw. Some of my fondest memories of childhood are those days when we'd pack the car and head to the Norfolk coast a day at Hun Stanton, well more precisely, old Hun Stanton. You'd park on top of the cliff, and then you'd wend your way down the path to the beach, carrying the buckets and spades, the cricket bat and ball, and a picnic. The beaches there were vast, and even more so when the tide was out, and that tide, as we were always reminded, came in at the speed of a galloping horse, so beware and don't get caught out. Days in the sun, sand castles and soggy tomato sandwiches, which I still love to this day. Precious memories. Mrs B and I spent our honeymoon at the Norfolk coast. We walked on the beach hand in hand even when it rained. Because why wouldn't you walk on a beach? It's perfect. Even in the rain. Later this year we return again, as we have so many times, and come rain or shine, we will make wonderful memories, and will walk on the sand. It can be Norfolk, it can be Northumberland, or it can be North Wales. Sit me where I can see the sea, and you'll find I'm a very happy man. Foreign beaches have their place too. Last year I sat in a beachside cafe in Sardinia. I felt the luckiest man in the world. Good coffee, a cold beer, the Mediterranean, sparkling in the sun and alive with laughter as adults and children enjoyed its warm embrace. Many years ago Mrs B and I crossed one ocean to then stand on the shore of another the Pacific. Even now I feel it's something I long to do again. We were in San Francisco, and as you take in the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, there is this sense of wonder. The little boy from a Lincolnshire village, now half a world away, but feeling they were in the right place. It was on that trip that whilst walking the back streets near the Coit Tower, that we came across a bookshop owned by the artist and poet Robert Sexton. In hindsight, that discovery changed my life. The words and philosophy of Robert Sexton have become almost like a Bible to me. But I want to save those thoughts for another day. There is, however, one of Robert Sexton's poems that I hold dear, one which speaks of the brightness of the past. That thought has become the one thought above all others that steers me when I need to be steered, like when writing a funeral service. He also wrote these words. Like the sea, time has no heart. It sweeps everything away, and neither our resistance nor our regret can stay its flow. Something in these words feels true, but can it really be true that the sea has no heart when it calls to mine so clearly?

unknown 6:00

D.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

H. Lawrence wrote, They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all. Whales weep not. Don't get me started on whales. In fact, I think they might get a chapter to themselves sometime in the future. I seem to be drifting, excuse the metaphor, drifting into the world of poetry and song lyrics today, but very often other people's words have already defined how you might think and feel about so many aspects of life. So let me end this section with a line from a song that I want playing at my own funeral a song by Kate and Anna McGarigal Talk to Me of Mendocino. Let the sun set on the ocean I will watch it from the shore. It might not be possible for me to actually watch the sun set over an ocean as I draw my last breath, but wherever I am, as my eyes close, in my mind's eye, that's what I'll be seeing. Behind our home at the top end of the field ran the South Holland main drain. It was wide and deep and often fast flowing, and as children we were warned not to go in. To my memory we obeyed that instruction. And yet there were times I'd walk and sit and watch it flow. My big river. As a boy I read the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. At the time I thought I understood them. I saw the adventure, the raft, the freedom of drifting away from everything that tied you down. But I didn't really see the heart of it. Not then. Because the truth is the story isn't really about Huckleberry Finn at all. For me it's about Jim. And I think it took me a lifetime to properly notice that fact. Jim, with his quiet strength, his dignity, his humanity, the one who holds everything together while the world around him doesn't quite see him for who he is. And as a child I missed that completely. It's a strange thing realizing that something you once read, something you thought you understood, has been quietly waiting for you to grow into it. I hear it now sometimes in music too. There's a line that runs through the song Worlds Apart in the musical Big River, and it seems to carry that same idea. And you see the same skies through brown eyes that I see through blue, but we are worlds apart. People traveling the same waters, but living in entirely different worlds. And perhaps that's what water does. It carries us not just from one place to another, but from one understanding to the next. Because looking back, I wasn't just reading a story about a boy on a raft. I was being shown something about people, about who gets seen and who doesn't. And like so many things in life, I didn't really understand it until much later. Although I've never worn the blue suit of a sailor, well not professionally, you know now how much I love the sea. Whether that's standing on a seashore somewhere, or sitting on a cruise ship as we make a smooth transit at the Bay of Biscay, there's something peaceful about the ocean, peaceful in its movement and flow. I get lost in thought on those occasions when I'm by the sea more than in any other place. It's why I love cruise ship holidays, which I know are not everyone's cup of tea. But if you can avoid noravirus, you can have a good time. And for me a good time comes in two sections the peaceful section and the people watching section. It has become somewhat of a tradition in recent years that when I return from a cruise ship holiday, I write my post holiday blog and recount my observations of some of the people on board. As I never know their names, I tend to invent names that suit their observed characteristics. I can tell you that people were very keen to hear about the exploits of Orgasm Bob. And maybe I'll let you in on that story another time. It's only just struck me that when I left school I did think for a while about joining the merchant navy. The road you didn't take, indeed. Who knows what adventures I might have encountered? I tell you who I probably wouldn't have encountered Mrs. B, the person I've spent forty four years with, not only walking on beaches and sailing oceans, but navigating life. Thank you for joining me on this voyage of discovery. Home now from the sea, back in my own little pond, no room for a whale, but the minnows swirl about me like fleeting silvery memories. The poetic urges not yet left me. So if I may, for all the occasions I visited the seaside, the beaches I've walked, the waves I've jumped through or that have knocked me over, the emotions never change. Each and every time I turn my back and head home, I'm thinking I must go down to the sea again. Well that's just about it for today. I do hope you've enjoyed what we've shared today, and if you have, please feel free to like and even subscribe to the podcast Big Skies and Small Ponds. I'll be back again soon with another chapter, but until then, take care, and please enjoy writing and living your own story.