Hanging Basins of Stourport

Nature does incredible things with water, usually within the panorama of river systems or the tenacity of oceans.  We try to control or direct these powers but often without success.  Canals, on the other hand, are cut with precision and used with ingenuity.  Stourport on Severn has both of these and is home to almost a hundred boats.  I visited the town this weekend and the abundance of water in this renowned island port creates a feeling of harmony with nature.

I began my quest into Stourports pedigree by visiting the Windlass Restaurant and Cafe, which nestles on the riverbank.  I wanted to look around the Old Tontine Stable Heritage Room which adjoins the eatery, but firstly I succumbed to the temptation of lemon cheesecake - well I would.  Exquisite.


Once suitably refreshed I enquired as to whether I could see the room, aware that leaflets set out a programme of tour dates - all of which are expired for this year, but a new programme will be announced for next year.  After a short wait, the chef came and unlocked the room, and I was invited in shortly afterwards.  He'd checked the place out and switched on a short televised documentary about stabling in the region.


"At one time," he informed me, "The whole building operated as stabling facilities for the horses that towed barges along the canal."  Much cooler than the restaurant, the bare brick walls had only a semblance of the whitewash that would have been arbitrary in the eighteenth century.


The documentary explained that the boatman's first concern on arrival would be finding a stable for the night, known as "A tanner a night."  The horse had to be kept warm and dry to prevent it getting sick.  Built at the same time were the Tontine Stable and the Tontine Hotel, a large characterless building with rooms that were hired out to merchants and traders.  The documentary goes on to describe how a boat horse harness differs from that of any other working horse and, chiefly, this amounts to a series of wooden bobbins that roll with the movement of the horse, and prevents chafing.  As with all things regarding the canal, these would be painted to suit the colours of the boat company.


Behind the Tontine lies a maize of basins at varying levels and linked by a series of locks and bridges, some of which could swing to allow access for barges.  The Wolverhampton Canal disappears into a dark hole that looks like a cul-de-sac, but on inspection, I found that lock gates immediately behind the bridge closed off all light.  This section filled me with awe.  I stood on a grating and, below it water gushed along the length of the walkway and under a concrete plinth.  This overflow from one basin, bypassed the lock and fell into a lower basin, carrying out the role of a weir.

A sign warned that boats should not enter the river when a red light showed because water levels were too high and river locks may be closed.  This confused me because I'd never heard of such things.  Even so, a red light was displayed and the boats were all stationary.

October Wings

On a wet week in October, goldcrests were the dominant feature of my discover wildlife holiday in North Devon.  They flocked over woodland, salt-marshes and moorland.  Some of my companions were unimpressed, claiming they were constant visitors to bird tables in their gardens - pfuf - not me. 

I loved watching their feathers radiate different colours as the sun caught their underbellies and then outstretched wings to glide up and away in the wind, before making the adjustment to swoop and change direction.

October is a good time to catch these birds congregating, having disposed of the breeding season.  Some flock together in readiness to migrate to warmer climes, but not the goldcrest.  For this tiny resident, it provides protection from predators; the changing light on a myriad of feathers confuses the raptors, and an extra pair of eyes help.  The bird parties pass through individual territories and some of these incumbents join the congregation, dropping out as the flock leaves their patch.

In woodland, flocks of long-tailed tits and their cousins could be heard above the canopy.  The easiest way to catch sight of them and study their numbers is to wait at a break in the tree cover.

Identifying their territories is easier during the breeding season, when it is possible to stand in one place and listen to their song.  This gives an idea of the size of each pairings domain and the exuberance of foodstuffs.

Redstarts were just arriving and I saw them flocking in the woodland below Dunkery Hill.  They come from Scandinavia.  For them, we are the warmer climes.  They hang back for favourable winds to make the journey, and whilst its damp and mild, are happy to feed and wait.  If head-on winds persist, a more hazardous journey has to be made and exhaustion makes them easy prey for Skewers, which knock them into the water.

Sustained rainfall held sway for the five days of my holiday, and as the groups minibus drove down a narrow lane on the last day, a farmer tried to move his sheep from a sodden field, but water gushed through the gateway as if from a pump.  The sheep would have none of it.

"What's happening?" our driver asked him.  "Do you think it'll rain?"

Kevin, leader of the discover wildlife campaign predicted the environmental agencies would be monitoring the situation in preparation for the kind of disaster that hit Lynmouth in 1952.

I donned my rainwear yet again and braved the mists of Exmoor.  In the fast flowing streams, Dippers fed on aquatic insects and their larvae.  Being shy creatures, they moved along the waterway as soon as we arrived.  Many would migrate downstream as the season hardened.

Our group did that later in the day, arriving in Lynmouth to view the gushing river.  Sure enough, a pair of dippers flitted onto rocks, scooted around them and dived after their prey.  Sturdy wings guided them through the water, before resuming their perch for an instant.  These birds cared nothing for the presence of people moving around on the pavement above them.

That evening, I heard on the news that flash floods had unexpectedly devastated Clovelly in North Devon.

Changes in your Writing Technique

I like writing novel length stories where I can slowly reveal and develop conflicts.  I get a chance to delve right inside my characters and embellish what drives them.  I tend to over-write as I get into my tale.  It then requires tough edits to sharpen disagreements and heighten emotional turmoil, then slow it down so the character has an opportunity to take in the situation.

The writing group I attend have a word of the week and each person is invited to include it in in a piece of flash fiction.  There is no reason to write anything extensive and most people settle for around 100 words. To begin with, my offerings were simply a slice of life and, although anyone in the group recognised it as my work, I have never had a problem with over-writing with these short pieces.


The exercise has served me well.  I am turning out flash fiction worthy of the term now, and look forward to the new challenge each week.  My breakthrough came from the word "cucumber" and I have added it as a taster.

Cucumber

It started simple enough; a bus queue and a forgotten lighter.  I chatted with Silvie all the way into town, so natural and refreshing.  The woes of family life drifted away and I continued with the bus after I got the car back.  It was easy to convince Janet that it saved on the parking.

The cheating grew worse as I took to walking the few streets to Silvie’s house, and running my hands over her soft skin and savouring her flesh.

My father knew how to deal with my lies many years ago.  He took his belt and bruised my back.  One day he chipped a piece of bone from my shoulder blade and I could feel it rubbing under my skin as I cut the lines to his cucumbers. They lay tangled together on the floor for the rest of the season.  With the coming of autumn, my father cut them back until there was nothing left.  Running my fingers over the cold sheet, I’d become accustomed to that feeling.

I suppose people who write short stories and novels have to change their writing style, but I wonder if anyone else agonises over their second draft to the same degree as I do in one specialism, and not in another.

Deep Rivers

Imagine growing up in the bosom of loving Peruvian Indians, only to find later you're shackled to a white community who enslave those very people.

In "Deep Rivers," Jose Maria Arguedas tackles the emotional fallout from this kind of upheaval in a story told through Ernesto.  Abandoned to a boarding school for well-to-do white boys, he is left in no doubt that he is not an Indian.  Yet the Quechua Indian world view is Ernesto's oracle. whereby people, mountains, animals, rain and truth all have powerful dimensions of their own.  To each, he attributes tenderness and love.


I think Ernesto must see his classmates as philanderers who ignore the graces he has come to understand.  Arguedas describes how one of the boys boasts that his father whips the Indians at his disposal to keep them cowed.  The author also relates how the white boys mistreat girls so they have control over them.


Ernesto dreams of a girl who might take for her own his memories of the rivers and mountains he'd seen, of the sheer cliffs and wide plains populated with lakes he'd crossed.  But she should be small and slender with blue eyes and braids.


In his confusion, Ernesto comes to imagine he springs from some non-human species and asks himself if the song of the lark is the stuff of which he is made.  He is drawn to obscure intuition and magic.


Arguedas argues that reality can hardly be logical for the exploited Indian peasant, scorned and humiliated all his life and defenceless against disease and poverty.  Neither can the world be rational to the outcast child, rootless among men.


So what of Arguedas; a scholar who has written one of the most authentic works we have in relation to the indigenous people of South America.  Yet he committed suicide at the end of 1969.  In his last letter he wrote, "I withdraw now because I feel I no longer have the necessary energy and inspiration to continue to work and thereby justify my existence.  Such deflation in a successful man shows how isolation can destroy the spirit.


I would like to believe the appalling treatment of Indians described by Arguedas is assigned to the mid twentieth century.  The government in Peru are promising much but I fear that little will change.


What do you think?

Thin Air in the Andies

Have you ever considered what it's like to breathe 4,000 meters above sea level?  I did when I knew I was going to La Paz.  Everyone who'd been there said they thought they would never be able to cope with the altitude.  I imagined myself gasping for isolated pockets of oxygen.

The problem is that you don't gradually climb to that height, you are instantly there.

We arrived at six a.m. from lowland Miami.  The aircrew woke us with hot drinks, and most people chose tea or coffee.  An American gentleman opted for a cup of hot water, to which he added a teabag.  "Helps me with the altitude," he explained.  "Always suffer when I first arrive."  I learned to do the same whenever I could.  The teabag contained finely chopped coca leaves - which surprisingly can be bought legally in America, but not in Britain.

Mount Illimani

Below us I could make out the Grande Cordillera range of mountains that separates La Paz from the Amazon basin.  Mount Illimani is the highest peak.

At the air terminal I walked down the steps, breathing... well, normally.  The air was thinner, but I felt confident I could deal with it. And you can - so long as you don't do anything.  Leaving the
airport, I saw La Paz laid out before me in an amazing panorama.

La Paz

Our tour guide advised us to drink three litres of water a day - just keep drip feeding the stuff.  My wife, Pat and I tasked ourselves with buying a litre of water each and returning it to the hotel.  Have you noticed this first mistake?

Then we took a stroll along the avenue Municipal Santa Cruz in the pleasant seventy degree sunshine.  My chest began to tighten as we ascended the gentle slope and I found myself searching for breath.  There were several cafes, fresh fruit baskets and bric-a-brac stalls along the busy thoroughfare.  I sat at an open air table and introduced myself to coca tea - it tasted OK.

Next morning I gasped for breath as I Drew on my socks, a bit like you do after running a 100 yard sprint.

We began our tour with a cultural walk around the city, and given an insight into the Bolivian mind with a history lesson.  In 1879, according to the guide, Chile invaded Bolivia's Atacama Desert in a bid to take ownership of the generous mineral deposits.  The Bolivians, in the middle of a two week fiesta, decided to finish their festivities before going out to defend the outlying territory.

Parliament Building

La Paz is the seat of government for Bolivia and the parliament building is lavish compared too much of La Paz.  We weren't told whether coca is drank in there, but it is so much a part of Bolivian culture, I'd expect it to be.

How Close Do You Go

Do you read a book to become immersed in how the characters cope with the situation in a whole new world, or do you want one person's dilemma as your escape route.

We know that by writing in the first person, the reader can get closest to the protagonist.  We are engaged in their ever mounting struggle, and care about the situation they are caught up in.  The individual becomes our friend and their cohorts our family.  But the author treats them as someone else's children who she can't stand.  The reader is kept hanging on, coping with a way of life that is alien, but gradually becoming familiar.



A lot of people write that way, but from the books I'm reading, it seems less popular at the moment.

This may be because it's easier to present a rounded impression of the story by delving into different points of view.  It allows you to develop each character by seeing them from conflicting angles.  We know from our own experience that everyone has good and bad characteristics; which is which, can be a matter of opinion.

A positive as seen from one person can be a negative in the eyes of someone else, especially if there has been friction between them.

The book I'm working on has four points of view.  At the time that I had it professionally critiqued, the reader followed Baz more than anyone else but other characters had their say.  One comment I had to face was that, on reading the manuscript, she didn't see it as Baz's story, because other people got in the way.

In the end, I stayed with several points of view because it is the way I want to write.  But in doing so, I have to accept that the reader will not fall in love with my main character to the same extent as they would have, if I'd written in the first person.