Birling Gap Poem by Philippa Lane

Birling Gap

Rating: 5.0


At high tide,
as we drove along the seafront
on our family outing,
our car would be peppered with pebbles
and salt water
that the procellous sea
and raging gales threw up.


The giant waves would wash right over us,
and the wind-screen wipers
were seldom sufficient to see
in front of us, so we usually stopped
or the car stalled not liking the wet.

At low tide, my brother and I
skipped from one barnacled rock
to another, like hop-scotch;
we hung prawn nets down in the gullies
and checked for different seaweeds.

One wonderful day we found a conger eel
trapped in a gully; we had a painful run
to the lighthouse to get a gaff hook,
our bare feet killing us,
so hard were the pebbles.

We speared the eel and later took it home,
where we sliced it into edible pieces,
wrapped them in newspaper
and proudly gave one to each
of our neighbours.

We measured the eel -
it was six feet two inches long
the same height as my father.
It had vicious, needlesharp teeth
that could easily have bitten off

one of our thumbs as we tried to net it.

We took a photograph
with my Kodak Brownie
of me holding it up
in my blue checkered gingham dress
with a big, proud grin on my face.

My brother and father looked sombre,
and my brother's school cap
was crooked on his head
and my father looked at the camera
grimly as if it was the enemy.

We all stood on the burning tarmac
on the flat part of the roof
on the second storey
of the bank flat where we lived,
and my mother took the shots.

My mother made parsley sauce
to go with our share of the conger eel
and we revelled in each bite.

Other days, we would go to Birling Gap
and take our deckchairs and lots of blankets
that we would wrap ourselves up in
hugging them
to our oh so cold bodies;

and we sat there in the bleak landscape
on the desolate pebbled beach
digging into our brown paper lunch bags.
a grimmer place there couldn't be
for a picnic, but that is what we did.

Strange as it seemed,
such outings
were magical to my brother and me.

At high tide, the water was ten feet deep
at the sea wall and I liked to dive
into the freezing water
in my woolen bathing suit
my mother made for me;
,
I would brace myself
and dive in,
swim a few breast strokes,
then gasp for breath,
and haul myself up the wall

shivering and shaking
feeling the bitter
north-easterly wind
and wrap my towel around me
to lessen the agony

and changed into dry clothes in the car.

It was the bareness of the place
that drew me to it
time and time again.

So different from the crowded,
sandier beaches where children
happily built sandcastles
as the adults watched or paddled
in the calmer waters -

only a few miles from Birling Gap.

One very tall Victorian hotel
stood alone, erect on the landscape
silhouetted against the sky
in the photograph we took
of the three of us sitting hunched over
bracing the wind,
sitting on our striped canvas deck chairs.

Here now in Canada, fifty years later
and a thousand miles inland
from the nearest sea,
all is unusually calm
for we have a high cedar hedge

all around our garden
that shelters us from winds,
winter and summer, and
I think of that time in my childhood
nostalgically.

I can still taste the salt
of the briny Sussex air,
taste the blanched flesh of the eel.

Some say, never go back.
But in a heartbeat I would -
Such is my dream.

June 10,2006
Senneville, Québec, Canada

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Michael Shepherd 17 June 2006

Philippa, that's so evocative, especially for those of us who grew up by the sea and in the countryside as well (did we know how lucky we were? No!) . It was the 'different sorts of seaweed' that did it for me! Thanks. And may you always have it to treasure. If you went back, it would seem to small...so matter-of-fact...

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Peter A. Crowther 17 June 2006

This poem is a wonderful snapshot of a place and time. The reader feels him/herself transported there never mind the writer!

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Subroto Chatterjee 01 May 2009

Yea...I know you would..you did. Extremely evocative...haunting..memorable...sharply edged, razor-toothed like the conger eel...a flash of Dad and the eel...not just the height...and the ever present cold..wind and water. Unforgettable memories and you. Thanks for sharing. Cheers. Subroto

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Ashraful Musaddeq 25 October 2008

Wonderful composition. Last two stanzas are amazingly beautiful. Love with 10.

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Not a member No 4 13 March 2007

An enthralling tale Phillippa and you imbue it with the innocence of childhood. Full of strong images as well - the spray of the stormy sea washing over the car, the barnacled rocks, the big conger eel and the chilling swim. Takes us all back to the rocky shores of childhood. Lovely piece of writing. jim

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Patricia Gale 18 June 2006

Splendid imagery! I felt I was there with you! Well done Philippa! ! Patricia

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Herbert Nehrlich1 17 June 2006

Simply stunning! I would love to visit there now. Best H

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Philippa Lane

Philippa Lane

Chichester, West Sussex, England
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