Ironbridge “Coracle Regatta” (part 2)
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds”
“How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfill the book
Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom?”
“Redemption Song” by Bob Marley
I arrived in the toy town of Ironbridge at a little after 9.30am. The early morning sunshine was still clouded somewhat in a light haze that would burn off in around an hour but that’s getting ahead of ourselves as normal. First it was to a fishing peg, number 13 to be factually correct, but long since designated by me as the “best seat in the house”. On a summer’s day after very little if any recent rain, the River Severn is so beautifully still as to appear to be not moving at all, and therefore a provider of the most incredible of reflections from this very best seat in all of toy town. Through the misty haze and to my right, the self-titled “Grand Old Lady” and oldest iron bridge in the known world looked radiant in the early morning sunshine and to my left, the most spectacular of reflections of the town itself, alive, but eerily quiet before the bank holiday storm of tourists that would descend upon this tiny piece of heaven on earth in the next couple of hours, and stay for the remainder of a beautiful holiday day in a world and a place and a land that time has pleasingly forgotten.
The town was still rousing itself for the big day ahead and in its own inimitable way. In just two hours both ends of this beautiful stretch of the River Severn will be a hive of human activity, the bridge a constant allure to the south, the regatta incredibly busy to the north, but at 10am I had Ironbridge largely to myself aside from some early morning tourists, and for an hour I sat in the soon to be blazing sunshine, legs dangling over a small wall on the riverside, smoking an illegal cigarette and singing Bob Marley songs as I fed a particularly ravenous set of early morning ducks. Quite frankly it was an hour of our supposed “time” I could live over and over again until the end of our supposed time and maybe I will. I definitely maybe will. A lively bundle of fluff by the name of Lilly or Tilly or maybe even Millie snuggled into me on her morning walk and collapsing into my lap. Cue nervous, awkward conversations with the lady companion of Lilly, Tilly or Millie (Billie?) and profuse apologies all round for the dog now threatening to leap into the river after the ducks. I noticed she looked back a minute or so after our early morning shenanigans and before disappearing into the trees in the distance. Was it a look of longing, of desire, of lust for the strange man in the Radiohead t-shirt singing Bob Marley songs to a bunch of noisy ducks? Maybe. Who’s to say? Then again, I had been staring into a blazing sun for nearly an hour, lost in my usual array of tumbling, bumbling thoughts and a little stoned for a Sunday morning whilst having the time of my silly life singing songs beside a river in a picture-book toy town so anything was possible and anyway, I’d already seen a ghost of a Christmas past this morning, an apparition of a love lost in another lifetime a quarter of a century of long hot summers ago. Surely it wasn’t? It couldn’t be? But after staring into a blazing sun for an hour on this most magnificent of Monday morning’s, I’d convinced myself it might just be.
Ghostly apparitions come easily in a town such as Ironbridge, even in the daytime, so I find the best course of action is to purchase some old fashioned sweets from a kindly gentleman by the name of Jeremy and today I departed from his tiny sweet filled kingdom with some delicious Lemon Bon Bon’s and some “Yorkshire Mixture”. I joked that I may be back later as I intended to be here for most of the day. My joke would become a sweet toothed reality in a few hours time.
First I had an hour to kill before the start of the regatta and as usual I had a plan: to walk the mile of riverside I’ve walked innumerable times before, smile at the families and children feeding those lucky ducks (again), stumble over some rather pleasing and pleasingly different exhibits in the largest and grandest of museum buildings toy town has to proudly offer and then disappear into the surreal world of Hunter S Thompson, Raoul Duke, the Good Doctor and a mad Doctor Gonzo, all accompanied by an ever diminishing set of old fashioned sweets and surrounded by the busy laughter all around in an ever busy public park and thoroughfare to the regatta a little further along the river. I’d join them soon enough I thought.
Let’s just read a little more Hunter S Thompson and his utter contempt for President Richard Nixon first!
According to the wizards at Wikipedia, a coracle is
“a small, rounded,[1] lightweight boat of the sort traditionally used in Wales, and also in parts of the western parts of Ireland, particularly the River Boyne,[2] and in Scotland, particularly the River Spey. The word is also used of similar boats found in India, Vietnam, Iraq, and Tibet.[3] The word coracle is an English spelling of the original Welsh cwrwgl, cognate with Irish and Scottish Gaelic currach, and is recorded in English text as early as the sixteenth century. Other historical English spellings include corougle, corracle, curricle and coricle.
Which is all well and good, for now, and even then I guess, in a past long forgotten but not in Ironbridge and arguable birthplace of the coracle, and certainly not for the annual regatta of amateurs and enthusiasts to twist and twirl in their rounded, difficult to steer boats going exactly nowhere very slowly! But this is, after all, heritage, and a history that should be defended at all costs, preserved for coming generations to come and, I am pleased to note, a reason why so many families and tourists, local residents and even a weirdo in a Radiohead t-shirt found this all so charming and enchanting and a beautiful time to be sat with mother nature beside one of her many rivers.
I’d return, but not before sampling the sweet smells emanating from the numerous hot food vendors (the vegan Bangladeshi curry smelled AMAZING), and watch a fantastic folk band now enjoying themselves where a young lady had mere minutes before, and a quite brilliant, truly brilliant rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. I didn’t know it at the time and was only aware when I returned later that I’d actually enjoyed this wonderful rendition standing next to the young singer’s proud Mum, but I should have known it even then. She was the very dictionary definition of the word “proud” and rightly so.
I was clearly having far too much fun.
So I decided to treat myself to some more old fashioned sweets.
(To Be Continued)
Thanks for reading. I bet you didn’t expect tales of ghostly apparitions and Lemon Bon Bon’s did you? My regular audience did. You should become part of the Gang! Here’s something I prepared earlier this year to ease you into the club. Treat yourself!
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.