A recent trip to Cornwall was just what was needed to charge the batteries, both physically and creatively.
Cornwall, as you may know, is endlessly evocative, and stories hum along its rugged coastline – waiting to be caught in a salty breeze. Below is one such attempt. I hope you enjoy.
Timidly descending the worker-worn steps into the murk, the buoys are painted grey by twilight.
In boots and waterproofs, Billy Holroyd heads through the clanking masts towards the bow of The Minack Player, the beloved family boat. He hoists his bag upon his shoulder and, hunching, drags his father’s cap over his eyes.
Hurdling ropes and chains with skill, only the knot in his stomach tells of the nervousness felt upon his first solo voyage. As father cannot earn the rent from his sick bed, the responsibility must fall upon Billy. There will be food on the table this coming night.
The engine rolls, rumbles and bubbles into life as ropes are flicked clear in serpiginous signatures of spray.
Slowly and with tongue-straining care, Billy edges the faithful vessel out into the harbour, chugging through the breakers and rolling out onto the dark of the brooding sea.
When the storm had abated and feeling a little better, Mr Holroyd, skipper of The Minack Player, wanders down to the portside to clear his lungs. The fleet, those vessels of his wily friends, are bobbing in the harbour. None had ventured forth that morning.
Saluting fellows fixing their pots, Holroyd bumbles past, hand trailing on the railing. He almost doesn’t recognise that The Player is absent until he has stared into its berth for a good ten minutes.
Holroyd dashes down the stone stair onto the pier, scratching his head and waving at the gap with disbelieving swirls.
“Alright, Jim?” asks red-bearded Tucker, coiling rope onto his arm.
“The Player? Have you seen The Player?”
Tucker shrugs and draws deeply on his final embers.
Holroyd turns quayward – wondering if his boat had somehow been spirited up into the fish market, but Billy’s bicycle chained to the lamp-post was all he could see.