Ironbridge “Coracle Regatta” (part 1)
A sunshine filled early morning in toy town
As the opening act in a 3 part daydreaming drama, I believe it incumbent on me, even at this very early stage in proceedings, to give you a broad background as to why I see the tiny town of Ironbridge as a little piece of heaven here on earth. I first made my acquaintance with the “Grand Old Lady” and the toy town that surrounds her in the early months of 1999 and she’s enchanted me ever since. For a decade I went occasionally with a love of my life, enjoyed many a drunken night out and always when hosting visitors from my home city for a long weekend. I lived in toy town for 4 years in the middle of the next decade before finding any excuse to sit and wait for a job in Ironbridge on my taxi travels and since the lock downs, returned over and over again to a mile long, perhaps a mile and a half at a stretch, of England’s longest river and a stroll in a bubble of happiness. If you are within the bells of St Luke’s Church to the south or within the shadow of Ironbridge Rowing Club to the north you’re in a picture postcard world worthy of the tangled surreal minds of Wes Anderson or Roald Dahl. A world within a world of tourists who love the world around them almost as much as the people who are incredibly lucky to live in a world from another century, another time, with her own atmosphere and an aura I don’t have an adequate grasp on the English language enough to fully describe.
If you live in Ironbridge and I guess, even as a visitor, you can have toy town all to yourself if you’re lucky. I’ve watched a sun rise with an early morning cup of tea and a smoke sat on a small brick wall beside the bridge and I’ve had the entirety of Ironbridge in my hands late at nights beneath the fullest of moons, my only company the owls singing their nightly songs in the trees on the other side of the river. My son and I have shared numerous bags of piping hot chips on early November nights watching the fireworks from miles around and worn away our own footsteps during hundreds upon hundreds of strolls along the riverside to feed the ducks and swans, a human pleasure I’ll never tire of. Christmas in Ironbridge is very special, especially the night before the big day and as obvious as this may sound, if you’re lucky enough to live in Ironbridge you can’t help but have the feeling of being on holiday or at least having the appreciation of living in a holiday world, and certainly a world away from that strange looking outside world you see on television.
Whether it’s late at night and alone with only the owls and bats of a Tim Burton movie or spending priceless time with my son, being among the hubbub of a busy weekend or watching electrical storms drench the old town in a rain storm, Ironbridge is a special place to be and a place I’ve long called my “spiritual home”. I’m a romantic old fool at the best of times but please take a seat on a bench beside the oldest iron bridge in the world if you will, say hello to passing tourists perhaps or watch a paddle boarder accompany a swan as they both elegantly flow beneath the arches of the bridge. Listen to the bells of St Luke’s as you depart the book shop with a new read, treat yourself to some old fashioned sweets or watch a fleet of bikers making their weekly pilgrimage to meet and shoot the shit of life beside the bridge. Watch dogs eating ice cream or leaping like lunatics into the river! Picture yourself wrapped against the cold of a Christmas Eve as the Christmas carols are as warm as the smiles from a toy town full to bursting. Ironbridge is magical whether you have all of her charms to yourself or not and on a warm, summer sunshine filled bank holiday Monday?
Toy Town is simply an incredible place to be.
So I was up and out of bed ahead of an early morning alarm on a Monday morning and a bank holiday day of rest for the majority of the UK who would, for once, be ignoring that awful shrill of an alarm clock for an extra hour or two of peaceful sleep and without a care at all for work. But my plan for Monday 26th August 2024 was a simple one: arrive in toy town early, have a little piece of heaven all to myself (kind of), enjoy the spectacular early morning sunshine expected to disappear behind the clouds of an English summer around Noon, and then see my spiritual home transform all around me from a quiet haven of tranquility on the riverside to a historic town throbbing to the beat of smiling humanity.
It may well be the long weekend of the “Coracle Regatta” but those particular fun and games on the River Severn will arrive in parts 2 and 3. Here we have the early morning arrival, maybe 90 minutes in real time, and 3 or 4 images never found within my almost daily array of pictures from toy town I can’t help but capture and share to a wider world here. I almost (kind of) had toy town all to myself for a very special hour in some blazing early morning sunshine and I fed some ducks as I dangled my legs over a short wall overhanging the river. I might even embellish this into a story for part 2, who knows?
Time will tell.
It always does.
(To Be Continued)
Thanks for reading. So there you have part 1 of 3 and maybe even a part 4 of “deleted scenes” too. Depends how self indulgent I feel! Anyway, while you wait with bated breath for part 2, here’s some more rambling musings I prepared in March of this year:
"Tales I Tell Myself" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.