Circumnavigating the Island

ISLAND TOUR 2012

As we circumnavigate the island’s perimeters and explore its centre, like Ocean here, the street names and other aspects of its geography speak of a past island life. Although the buildings are bound by an interlocking system of roads and traffic lights, it’s still possible for the traveller to walk with some ease of entry and exit. The flow of traffic is both predictable and relentless, like the tides and estuaries and, you will come to know them and even take some comfort from them.

Given that George Pett was the first to build here in 1914, I’ve named it Pett’s Island. George was Annie’s father and Annie lived in my house before me. It was her letters that mentioned the island and persuaded me to visit it.

Pett’s Island is a struggling island community and one that can be similarly experienced on islands off the NW Scotland or SW Ireland. Many of its inhabitants, like George Pett’s followers, the Hansons, have long since fled to other shores to make a living. Rumours has it that islanders feel abandoned by the Owner of their island and believe that their livelihoods now have little future. Maybe you will be able to encounter them and maybe you will be lucky to share a conversation for they have become shy and uncertain, wary of strangers, suspicious of tourists with cameras and fine talking ways.

1. OCEAN

Ocean is one place that I expect to meet the islanders. It’s one place that welcomes strangers. Tales are exchanged and those who congregate on its steps or in its doorways invite flights of poetic fantasy and gruesome stories of the past. I’ve come here to both understand the nature of things and to find a way to escape the prospect that this island might disappear.

As it’s positioned on the edge of the ocean, it’s possible to walk along its shores down to Richmond’s point and look out and experience the complexity and grandeur of this observational point where two worlds collide.

"...through irritation caused by city noises... I recover my calm by living the metaphors of the ocean. We all know the big city is a clamorous sea, and it has been said countless times that, in the heart of night in Paris, one hears the ceaseless murmur of flood and tide. So I make a sincere image out of these hackneyed ones, an image that is as much my own as though I myself invented it..."(Bachelard)

2/3 RICHMOND POINT/HOUSE

Walking here, I have imagined the ebb and flow of the ocean. On the farthest reach of this island you can ride on a crest and you can swim beneath waves to touch upon the emptiness. It's here you can feel the quiet before the roar.

From here we see where the sailors and the sea merchants took their lodgings - many of who became the disciples of the Venerable Betel. It was once known as a dry house and a place of reform. But if you look closely there is a trap door leading to its cavernous cellars. Some say it was crammed full of smuggled goods.

On one of my early travels, I met Jack a former inhabitant who shared that due to a life of drink he had long since given up sailing the seas. Jack said he’d pretty much pushed the boat out and had sunk rock bottom until he was hauled out by Betel and taken to safety. (“It’s a good place and they were good to me”) Nevertheless when the Owner bought the island, there wasn’t a place for the likes of Betel and his disciples, so Jack moved to the mainland yet he couldn’t help coming back in the hope that Betel might return. “I’m pretty well sunk now,” he added “I’m all done in.”

4/5 ALBION STREET

Albion is the oldest reference to the island of Britain. Therefore, it isn’t a surprise that there is a street here named Albion, which also happens to be the main route to the Island’s centre. Before progressing inland, it’s worth taking time to look east across the mudflats towards the mainland in the south. Here there are other islands beyond, one of which is inhabited by the Wasteland Twinnings, a cheerful childlike tribe who enjoy games and collect vegetation but also like to travel overseas and play with their more exotic counterparts.

6 THE CENTRE

The centre has come to represent no man’s land and the vale of uncertainty. Only Jack’s mates choose to sleep here because they’ve nowhere else to go. Sometimes Jack stays with them and that’s how I came to meet him.  They like to feel close to the sea curled up in the shadows of the castle with its caves - and more importantly they’re closer to their memories of Betel. They are convinced he can still protect them and may, once the Owner has made up his mind what to save and what to destroy, come back and eradicate the abandonment that now fills their lives. So whilst they wait, the centre with its nooks and crannies becomes a place to hide with only the Owner’s watchman to shout them off.

Beneath the places where Bethel’s disciples sleep are bones of the Grey Friar monks that fossilise under the weight of concrete where also houses once stood. The Grey Friars were the followers of the great St. Francis of Assisi. The order arrived in England about 1224. I am not sure of the date at which they established themselves in the low swampy and foul land by the marshy banks but eventually 3 centuries later the Grey Friars were pursued and driven from their solitude to another more certain kind of death. All is left is a crumbling wall from which I imagine sea pinks and ferns still grow.

And then there’s the likes of old Thomas Darker:

“ Although really a wealthy man he became mentally deranged and secluded himself in a miserable apartment in an upper storey in this court. He deprived himself of almost every one of the comforts and most of the necessities of life and he kept his door closed and refused to see anybody. After nightfall he issued forth and would obtain water for his necessities from a neighbouring well. Apart from that excursion into the outer air he never seems to have left his voluntary prison. Upon one occasion his brother forced an entry into the room, but was met by black looks and threats and was told that he was in grave danger of being shot for his intrusion. At last old Darker died, the cause of his death being a fever into which he was thrown by the mental excitement caused by the Corporation insisting upon his spending money in covering up an old disused and dangerous well and after his death considerable quantities of gold and silver coins were found in his chamber.” www.nottshistory.org.uk

7 MELVILLE STREET

Melville’s sea monster lurks in Collins Cutaway; he sidles into the crevices of the rocky cliff face to sleep before gliding out on the tide to snare passing boats and to pluck unsuspecting people from the shores.

8 BCT or THE PORT

This is the main port or docking station for passing traffic. It yields a fine trade and the workers here are wise and know everything about who comes and goes so nothing much escapes them. Once or twice I’ve been allowed in and if I were ever lonely this would be another place I’d come to share what I’ve seen…

In a place of ruin I heard a whispering

that windows have no eyes.

Yet behind cracked lids of rusted panes

they blinked a sliver of sighted understanding.

9 THE TROPHY

Last spring I found a trophy – to remind me of my journey.

“I had been restless for days and not wishing to further delay, took the decision to return to the island. My intention had been to find a trophy, and in doing so, a symbol of remembrance.  I had imagined this object buried in the murky pit where once I heard golden leaves singing and if it was still there, I was certainly going to take it”.

This object was a defunct pressure gauge, a small intricately constructed metal object with dials, coils and nuts.

10 No1 COLLIN STREET

Built in 1914 by John George Pett, a perambulator specialist, No1 Collin Street was the first major building to be built as a result of the Broadmarsh slum clearances.  Standing five stories high, it was one of a number of grand buildings such as next door’s Bhatia Best to provide a crucial part of travelling to the commercial and political hub on the mainland.  The new Owner like the previous Owner chooses to leave No1 Collin Street empty. Falling into disrepair as it towers over the northern Broadmarsh it’s marooned and circulated by roads, which bear fast moving traffic.

11 BHATIA BEST

This is a good place to reside, highly populated and visited by members of the legal profession, advice is always at hand if you are a victim of fraud or bankruptcy. Its imposing frontage is ornate with a neoclassical grandeur, as to be expected of the Victorian and Edwardian sea frontages we find as far afield as Brighton or Scarborough. One particularly fine aspect is its expansive roof space, which for an extra payment, the management will allow you to climb to the top, and from it the views are indeed splendid.

12 BROADMARSH

Over the months, I befriended one visitor who once realising that I was only interested in preserving the island’s future and sustaining its prosperity, gave me directions how to get to the rooftop. Emerging from the staircase, opposite I could see the roof of No1 Collin Street looming even higher. Beyond was the castle and to the south I was able to see far away to the hills of Leake. However I became quite perturbed by his constant references to those poor souls who leap to their deaths from the Broadmarsh opposite, or Jumpers Rest as he called it. So for the rest of my stay I could imagine nothing but their limp bodies falling silently down to the swirling waters below followed only by the sound of gulls calling.

What becomes evident is the way such neglect erodes and scratches away in physical and emotional ways, continuing to meter out a long-term penalty in human terms and on the environment. The prospect of further island clearances brings little hope but then maybe someone will have the imagination to find a way to restore island life so no one else needs to leave or abandon their livelihood. 

Brenda Baxter

www.brendabaxter.co.uk