The motto of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies reads: ‘Gather ye the fragments that are left, that nothing be lost.’
In Truro Cathedral there is a flagstaff made using pieces of wood salvaged from the wreckage of the Penlee Lifeboat Solomon Browne, which went down with all hands in 1981 while out on a shout in treacherous seas. It flies the boat’s recovered RNLI flag. My poem ‘The Penlee Lifeboat Disaster’ draws on Cruel Sea, the BBC’s documentary about that fateful night, and aims to preserve this moving episode from RNLI history.
The seas off Cornwall, and its coastlines, provide livelihoods but take their share of lives. There is a precarity to life there, on the land’s edge, a continual struggle to maintain balance. Having grown up by the sea in west Cornwall, and having been shaped by so many formative experiences there – including the death of my brother in a car accident – but now having lived in exile from the county for the past twelve years, my debut pamphlet The Grief of the Sea seeks restoration. It harbours stories from seafaring communities – voices that speak of the eternal relationship between the coast and loss.
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I remove sticks and feathers,
the compost around my bush tomatoes
a new home for a pair of collared doves:
limp leaves, a snapped stem.
They return
to try the balcony above,
wings whistling as they rise:
flares launching from a stricken boat.
He would leave his desk at five-
fifteen and clock out
on the next three-minute decimal,
walk his ‘normal pace’
to New Street where the train
would be waiting.
He’d walk to the end of the platform
‘because no one else
would go down that far’
and slamming the door shut behind him
he’d sit and take his shoes off –
reach up behind his shoulders
to turn the carriage lights off –
and watch the orange fireworks
of the ironworks across Birmingham.
I am here
measuring out my life in morning commutes 7.23 in all weathers and most days frayed against the window paperback reader folding bike folder those who smell of the rain it never ends and not in an absolute way just as waves aren’t separate from water I am attached to the headrest in front when you move your eyes from left to right your visual cortex freezes and you don’t see the part in-between blind for 15 percent of the day each generation a little taller what was once a graveyard a paint can painted closed bricked up windows the empty space between the words when black holes pop they create a new universe it must be in tunnels that time begins each day with a fresh set of timetables
my brother died with elastic bands in his pocket 15 of them yellow or green small hoops for banding daffodils together my mum has kept them since in a plastic pot with a red screw lid that we used to keep drawing pins in or other stationary when I was young she wrapped five around her pocket diary and uses the others rarely last week one flew off across the lounge and I watched her crawl on the carpet eventually she found it intact not snapped still the same small yellow circle perhaps he would have stretched one out into a bigger circle deep inside his pocket with his thumb and forefinger while he was bored or talking to someone
At this time of year posters
advertising the travelling show
appear in shop windows:
HERNE BAY;
EASTBOURNE;
I remember attending in HAYLE.
I have a photo of my brother
leaning over the crowd barriers
signing his stage-name for a fan: Fandango!
But leaves fall earlier than we expect
and as the posters disappear
it’s hard to believe we had a summer.
The dark is the sea that has soaked through,
dripping into buckets already full –
night-time in the day;
the granite blackened, the fields dimmed,
the moon in each headlight.
With each stroke of the paddle,
you tried to keep time with the sea –
the blue pulling you deeper
into the undertow. In the gallery,
my small body of water
rests in front of your canoe:
your final form, unmoored.
i.m. Eileen Battersby
As we listened to you read,
cars passing by through the rain
sounded like waves;
a vast, black ocean outside.
It said, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.
archives the lost
Pool, Nance
craftsman, scholar
a laminated photograph, wildflowers
inside, a model schooner
remembers the lost at sea
Procter in the Pacific –
and those we’d walked across, under the grass
The bell recovered from HMS Lutine
used to be rung at Lloyd’s –
twice for a safe arrival,
once if the ship had gone down.
Toll after toll has breached the bell –
the crack, a widening silence.
But the loss book continues to lengthen
with a carefully inked quill.
well they’re mostly fishermen
they come from the same village as what I do
this is just a part-time job
I’m pretty lucky here
the sons of Mousehole
top notch
darts had just started
everyone was drinking laughing joking
a strange note in the wind
I asked him when he’ll be round the corner
we call Land’s End the corner
he said about just after tea
he said it was rolling a bit
a marker on the radar
slowly drifting in towards land
when the maroons were heard
stopped what they were doing
rushed to the station
only eight hands were needed
all dressed
the best he had
just sort of waited
waited and waited
and waited
to catch the right moment
to knock her off the slope
she went down and was gone
some thirty foot in height
like being in a washing machine
bouncing significantly
the ocean was very confused
a mother two children
eight miles east of Wolf Rock
together for Christmas
engines have stopped
about fifty-foot seas
with water in the fuel tank
he was drifting faster than he thought
it was getting very difficult
less than a mile from shore
sixty maybe seventy-foot waves
how very clean and new
the green painted deck looked
extraordinary
screaming
bright pink court shoes
The Union Star was on her maiden voyage
The Union Star was the latest one
With the Union Star so close to shore
The Union Star was heading straight toward
I could see the helicopter and I could see the Union Star
Water getting into the engine of the Union Star
Solomon Browne went up onto the Union Star
But after sliding off the deck of the Union Star
she was effectively out of the water
two boxing bags
trying to steady themselves
throwing lines over
shadows of people running
it appeared they were just jumping
and the lifeboat crew were out
with their arms out
he always seemed to be a free spirit
like a breath of air
she went out
and she’s still out
You and I were new, drinking on the quay in the extended
summer
when the Waverley steamer arrived.
It came in slowly, blocking Sheppey from view.
People looked up from pints and fish.
What is this?
Passengers photographed us and we photographed them.
We cooed and we clicked and we hugged each other.
Watched it dock.
Watched those waiting to get off.
Then, with the sea ahead, it continued its way.
The passengers felt closer this time.
They waved and we waved.
It grew smaller the further out –
that simultaneous feeling of regret and relief
when friends or visitors leave.
Each shingle-stone cast a shadow over the next shingle-stone
in a succession of shadows
and shingle-stones.
We walked home. I saw us –
two figures joined at the hands
with very long legs.
The explorer’s torn coat
hangs on a mannequin
accompanied by a story board.
Across the room the lion,
fixed into a roar.
Two paws pressed against the glass.
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JENNIFER EDGECOMBE grew up in Cornwall and now lives on the Kent coast. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Ambit, Caught by the River, Lighthouse, PN Review and Wild Court. Her debut poetry pamphlet The Grief of the Sea was published by Broken Sleep Books.
Acknowledgements –
‘The Waverley’, PNR
‘The Penlee Lifeboat Disaster’, Wild Court
‘elastic bands’, Ambit