The end of war.

 The end of war.

By Christopher Mathews

(A love letter from Flanders)

My dearest, darling Florence,

It’s been so long I can hardly remember the shape of your face or the outline of your nose. The warmth of your skin in the sun on that day last summer, or the smell of oranges after you had been working in your father’s fruit stall all day. How your eyes twinkle when you smile at me.

The captain says, I’m not allowed to tell you where I am, somewhere in France in a trench, it’s a sort of ugly scar in the earth we all hide in. Do you know I haven’t seen or heard a bird singing since we got here. That’s because all the trees have been shredded to stumps, I suppose.

The morning mist mixed with the smoke from the guns hangs thick on the ground. We all live in terror of the Gas Rattles sounding, and Captain shouting Gas, gas, gas. Followed by “Mask up, lads”, as we all scramble before the green miasma comes.

Oh, for just a glimpse of your smile, to see you again. Sometimes I can’t remember what you look like. Do you remember that moment when your barley coloured hair flowed like ribbons in the summer breeze as I pushed you on a swing in the playground. Or the time when I gave you a ride home on the crossbar of my bike, your father was standing at the door looking cross. And you, trying to hide the oil stains on your dress from my bike chain. And he, with pocket watch in hand, tutting at the lateness of the hour. You were too afraid to kiss me goodnight in front of him, do you remember?

Where do all the rats come from. They seem to be everywhere and so big too. I swear, some are as big as the pigs on Mr Gregory’s farm. What do they live on? There’s hardly enough rations for me and the lads.

After it’s been raining, we’re wading through mud. How come the rats can get so big when there’s nothing to eat but mud?

My mate Frank says, they have found another food supply, out there, in the dark, among the bomb craters and barbed wire. But there’s nothing out there, so how did the rats get so big? Frank says they found a plentiful supply of meat. I don’t like to think of that.

Do you remember that day when we went tobogganing down Shooters Hill, we laughed. We couldn’t feel our fingers or toes, and your friend Betty cried all the way home on the bus. My dad made that sledge from an old bed frame and scraps of wood. I expect it’s gone now.

Lieutenant Graham says we should sleep sitting upright, with our hands tucked inside our trench coat pockets, otherwise the rats nibble your fingers or ears.

Rob and his brother Wil, didn’t come back after the last push. I wonder if they’re lying there, asleep out in the mud and cold. He still has my tobacco tin. I don’t suppose I’ll ever see it again.

Oh Flo, I long for the day when we will be wed, and this nightmare will come to an end. We felt so brave me, Charly, Frank, Rob and his little brother Wil, when we set off. He wasn’t even old enough to join up. Do you remember all the girls came to wave us off on the train. But I only saw you my dearest Flo.

Over here, It’s nothing like the posters or the rousing songs back in the pub. Can’t say too much ‘cos they will only blot it out. Something to do with morale back home.

Will you come rowing on the Serpentine with me again, we can bring a bottle of ginger beer and a basket full of sandwiches. Your mum makes nice sandwiches, and my mum’s fruit cake too?

We just have spam here, it’s not too bad, you get to like it after a bit.

Do you remember auntie Charlotte giggling like a girl when she saw us kissing in your mum’s pantry last Christmas. You went so red in the face.

The captain says, it will soon be over boys, so hold fast. One last push men! But that was Christmas 1915, it’s now February. 

We could hear the Germans singing carols, not one hundred yards away that Christmas. We joined in too. Who would have thought it, maybe they're not so different from us after all.

I still remember your sweet voice, the first time I heard you sing in church; like an angel, it was.

The first day it snowed it was so white, it seemed to wash away the war with all his ugly scars. It’s like God wanted to blot out the shame of it all. But it’s all grubby now, trampled under jack boots.

The chaplain says that God is on our side. I don't think he takes sides, do you?

Captain Graham does his best to reassure us all. He often walks along the trench just to cheer us up, you know, to check morale and bolster our spirits. He gave me a Cigarette once, when I’d run out. Yesterday he laid his hand on my shoulder,

“Take courage lads,” he said, but I could feel him trembling. He’s not much older than us.

I can still remember the first time you touched my arm, that made me tremble too, goosebumps all over, like electricity. Funny thing how both love and fear can make a man tremble.

I should really love a July wedding, shouldn’t you? We’ll have ginger beer and your mum‘s best cakes. I still keep the lucky rabbits foot you gave me when we parted, it’s the most precious thing I have, apart from your letters and my Bible.

Frank says, I’m stupid for trusting in such nonsense. He was shot the other day in the arm, they patched him up as best they could, but everything rots down here, I fear he may lose it to gangrene. He says it’s his lucky ticket home. I wish I had a ticket home.

I think I will ask my brother Donald to be best man, what do you think? You could ask your sister to be bridesmaid. I’m sending you ten-bob so you could start saving for our honeymoon. Southend, on the seafront, riding the dodgems or the helter-skelter, holding a big mop of candyfloss, glorious! And dancing too, at the Kursaal! I’m not very good at dancing. I know, you could teach me. Or if we can afford it, the Isle of Wight. No, don’t be silly Jack, we’re not millionaires are we.

The Big Bertha’s have started pounding again, so I’ll have to sign off.

Did your big sister have her baby yet? I hope it grows up with a dad. Every kid should have a dad.

Do write soon. I store up your letters and keep them in my Bible close to my heart.

I can’t sleep when the bombs are going off ‘cos the ground shakes. I wonder if my mates can see the fear in my eyes, I can see it in theirs. I think Norman has gone mad ‘shell shock’ they calls it. He wet himself on the first night of bombing, we found him huddled in a corner crying for his mother. Lack of morale fibre. They calls it, but I say, scared witless, like the rest of us.

“Our father who art in heaven… deliver us from this evil.” I never thought about that prayer much before now, but we all pray, every night, even Micki, who always said he didn’t believe in God. There are no atheists in the trenches.

Remember me in your prayers Flo, as I remember you. The captain has called orders down the line, so it’s tin hats on and rifles at the ready. When the whistle blows we’ll be up the ladder and over the top.

Think of me sometimes, if I don’t come back.

All my love, Jack

 

                                                                                               Copyright Christopher Mathews - November 2025

Spring on the bank of Buttsbury Brook

 Spring on the bank of Buttsbury Brook 

By Christopher Mathews

The stream is swollen ripe with rain, that feeds the meadow and the plane,

Suckles the trees with fertile wine, and feeds the myriads that dine, on tender shoots of verdant green, spring may soon be seen.

Gentle rain beats softly down, on the dry and frozen ground, and so the earth begins to yearn in winter’s night for spring’s return,

spring must come at last.

The air is laden warm and sweet to wake the moles from winter sleep, to stir the worm beneath the ground to seek the fresh spring’s vibrant sound,

Spring is coming fast

It nourishes the wild and fertile soil, as all the creatures begin their toil,

urgent now no time to lose find a mate and choose. find a home, make a nest no time to take a rest,

spring shall come at last.

The earth once captive to winter's grasp, begins to warm by sun at last, and so to wake the sleeping land from its slumber, unseen by man.

The beetle and the bee begin to stir inside their secret tomb, the frozen soil begins to yield to the warming sun across the field.

spring will come at last.

No time to lose too much to do, to build the hive and tend the brood, to seek the nectar in the flower, this is her appointed hour.

Spring has come at last

The snowcapped hills release their store of living water on the poor. For thirsty land, a new fresh spring is now at last at hand.

But spring will never last

 

© Christopher Mathews, April 2025

 Limpet - between the tides

                                  By Christopher Mathews

 

Oblivious of men, she keeps her small safe world, locked away from crashing waves, but she never makes a pearl.

 

No precious jewels are secure and safe inside her secret cave. She has no time between the waves to be a human’s slave.

 

Record of the years, the cycles of the moon, marked in calcium layers, she paints her little room, now dark now light, now blue now white, the health of the sea is held in each, the container of her life.

 

The ebb and flow of tide, are her night and day, now wet now dry now hot now cool, deep beneath the waves.

 

Slowly graze the limestone crags, the gravestones of the ships of men. Hold fast, be strong, all winter long, when storms must always come.

 

Hold tight, hold tight, with all you might, when the pecking seagull comes. be tough, survive and live your life, my armour plated one.

 

Like the grooves of a record or the rings of a tree, she marks the years of famine or of plenty. First he then she, then young now old, the solitary life of the limpet is seldom ever told.

© Christopher Mathews

 Final Disclosure

Christopher Mathews 

First Contact 

There had been rumours and sightings for years of course.  Since Rendlesham Forest in 1980 and before that the Roswell incident in the US.  But no formal recognition, no government acknowledgement that they existed at all, just blunt official denial, coverups, misdirection and wild press speculation.  People, being what they are, made up their own minds or more accurately, their imaginations. There were no hard facts. 

 

However, decades of speculation came to an abrupt end on the last day of March 2033 when official government disclosure was made obsolete in a most dramatic way.  Every internet site, every TV and radio station, every mobile phone and subdermal coms chip carried the same chilling announcement.

 

Do not be alarmed we have taken control of your communications networks. This message is from the Intergalactic High Council. Humanity has at last come of age.  Your race was ceded by this Council eons ago over infinite space.  You are now on the threshold of solar colonisation, soon you will discover interstellar travel.  

 

But your science and technology have outstripped your wisdom.  You lack self-control, in this you are infants, you will destroy one another and the Earth.  You cannot be trusted to govern yourselves; you cannot yet be allowed to spread beyond your world.

 

Humanity is therefore now under the guardianship of our Interstellar Caretaker, Ansat.  He will meet your world leaders to discuss the transition.  Forty solar cycles from now Ansat will address your world.

 

This announcement sounded wise and benign, even fatherly, but was heavy with the threat of absolute and irresistible power.  The same broadcast was repeated over and over for twenty-four hours, and then communications went back to normal.  But the interruption had caused chaos and barely contained panic. Aeroplanes and stock-markets around the globe both crashed. The delicate balance of modern life, so dependent on technology that we have come to rely upon had been exposed as fragile, and we all now knew it. Humanity was at the mercy of these strangers, and we were powerless. Effortlessly they could disrupt the technological web we have come to rely on.  The food supply chain would collapse overnight, panic would break out, as people squabbled over dwindling supplies.

 

“A loaf of bread for a day’s wages,” the book of Revelation predicted of the last days; a succinct description of social collapse which lies just below the surface of our age.

The folly of our proudly vaunted long life expectancy is just an elusion, as all those dependent on medication would die within a week, because no supplies could get through for lack of fuel. 

 

It is shocking to think that with our technology gone, we are all just one step from being bronze aged goat herders. Hubris had brought us to the brink of collapse.

 

Our world would now cling to their promise that mankind is on the threshold of its next giant evolutionary leap. With this announcement, humanity is truly poised on the edge of the next Cambrian Explosion.  We know that we are not now alone in the vast universe as we once thought, and now nothing would ever be the same again.

 

Over the intervening weeks, the world’s press was fixated on this one story, almost to the exclusion of all else. Examining every implication and possible outcome. Respected scientists, from every discipline, clamoured to give their insights.  Many came forward to say they had been monitoring the massive spaceships in orbit around our little planet for years.  but were forbidden to speak out.  

 

Fringe new age cult groups as well as many mainstream religious leaders like the Pope held massive gatherings. Offering their welcome, announcing Ansat as a saviour, the twelfth Imam, the coming messiah, whilst desperately trying to accommodate this paradigm shift into their traditions.

 

The sense of anticipation mixed with real dread was palpable. No one doubted the truth of the announcement or the validity of their claim. Dissenters were swiftly and silently disappeared.

 

The same worldwide announcement was made every seven days throughout the months of April and May, just as spring was coming into full bloom, but it also brought social unrest, collapse and even chaos.

 

On the fortieth day, all the phone and TV screens changed to a live feed from the White House lawn, in America.   The world’s press was busy setting up cameras. Leaders from all over the planet were gathered.  Our own King, along with all the royal crowned heads of the world were there. The leaders of the world’s religions were distinct in their colourful finery, and most shocking were rulers of nations, which under normal circumstances would never be seen at the same gathering.

 

The Benevolent Guardian 

 

A thundering sound was followed by the shocking sight of a gigantic liquid spaceship landing on the White House lawn.  A hatch opened with a cold metallic hissing sound.  The dignitaries parted as all eyes turned to look upon a terrifying sight.  Countless numbers of 7-foot-tall non-human creatures emerged. Human-like, but only just enough to be recognisable. These looked like monsters made from the discarded remains of all sorts of reptilian creatures.  Their appearance was softened, but not wholly disguised by the fact that they were clothed in what could be, either royal livery or more sinisterly military uniforms.  Each was carrying a long complicated metallic blue object, which ambiguously, could be a royal sceptre or a weapon. They were leading, what to everyone’s relief was a man, a very normal-looking man.  He was rather tall and slender, possibly of Scandinavian or Nordic ancestry.  He approached a microphone set up upon a dais.  His tall, mute entourage fanned out, shoulder-to-shoulder in an arc behind him, obscuring completely the world leaders.  Earth was looking on, holding its breath.

He spoke with a soft engaging voice, delivered in a clear and refined English accent.  Afterwards, others told me that he had an educated American voice, or spoke in perfect fluent French.  It seems to me that each person heard him in the voice they instinctively most trusted.  Oddly, none of the recordings made of that announcement can be recovered, they were all blank.  Finally, he cleared his throat and addressed the waiting world…

 

My children, it is a real joy to us that humanity has at last come of age.  But you are like adolescents who have discovered the first strength of manhood, but not the maturity to wield it.  Think of me as your guardian, taking care that you do not destroy yourselves before you can walk on your own. Or, if you prefer, as a schoolteacher settling squabbles in the playground.

 

I represent the will of the ‘Intergalactic High Council of Sentient Beings’ who, in their beneficence wish to invite mankind to our table when you are ready. Until that time, you must submit to our custodianship.

 

Your leaders have therefore agreed to surrender their power and authority to me, for a while.  I have crossed the vast expanse of space over millions of years in peace and friendship to…

 

But here, his soft voice and seductively reasonable words were abruptly interrupted by a break in the transmission.  A dishevelled looking old man appeared in what was obviously a makeshift studio.  He was half recognisable as the leading physicist who had been appointed by our own government.  He had met with the interstellar delegation when first contact was made, but soon after had mysteriously disappeared.

 

The unmasking

He lies; they are not what they claim to be.  They have not travelled across space to bring peace. They have always walked among us.  They flatter with the notion that ‘humanity has come of age’ or with an invitation to the ‘high table of sentient beings’, but they have appeared to subjugate humanity.  They impress with technology because it is in technology and science that we have placed our faith.  We have abandoned the God who made us and have surrendered to the demons who would enslave us.

 

History is littered with their malevolent presence bringing oppression and misery to mankind.  They are interdimensional beings; they occupied the shadows, the dark matter, they are the goblins and ghosts. The demigods and demons of ancient literature they are the Nephilim of the bible. The devils and the fallen angels of history reinvented as space beings. Subjugation is their plan; they seek to bring hell to earth and obliterate the Imago Dei and re-make man in their own image.

Ansat is nothing more than a demon masquerading as an Angel of light. He came to deceive and enslave humanity in chains of darkness and proclaim himself as God…..

 

But here the screen went blank, all screens went blank, all communication went blank, each of us was now alone, facing an uncertain future.

 

Copyright Christopher Mathews

 

The Night she disappeared

 The Night she disappeared

By Christopher Mathews

“The captain who thinks he is master of the sea is a fool. She is a cruel and fickle mistress who cannot be trusted. But once she has cast her spell, holds men in her net of wonder forever." *

Distress flares were seen around midnight somewhere off Old Hobb’s Point. Another ship in trouble was battling a frozen angry sea.

In the year 1859, fierce winter storms battered the Dorset coast, claiming many lives.  A severe storm will snare a weary crew who long to be stowed away at home with his family after a rough Atlantic crossing. An impatient captain, hoping to make for safe anchorage in Poole or Portsmouth may regret pushing his crew too hard. Better to have made for Falmouth and wait the storm out in safety. But a gale can last several weeks and that would cost the captain much of his bounty prize. 

Late in the evening a farmer was searching for lost sheep on the clifftops in spite of the gale. Sometimes, frightened sheep are driven over the precipice in panic during a storm. The stark white outline of the floundering ship was caught as the lightning flashed above Old Hobb’s Stack. The awful sight of the beleaguered ship fighting to keep herself from being gored on the rocks, was forever branded on his mind.

Her shredded sails were useless, as she was being driven before the wind and surf. There would be little chance to tack out to the relative safety of the open sea. It would mean certain death to send his weary crew aloft to set new canvas.

If she could only run before the wind to the safety of Falsehaven Cove, just two miles beyond the point, they may be able to save her. If not, she would be gored on the reef of Old Hobb. Once in his teeth, Old Hobb does not let go.

Falsehaven is no place to overwinter but “any port in a storm” is no metaphor along this rugged coast. Falsehaven is not named thus for no reason.

Leaving his sheep, the farmer ran down into the small fishing village calling,

“Shipwreck, off Old Hobb,” to the small fishermen’s cottages scattered along the street.

Nothing forges such strong bond in a small community as fishermen whose very lives are repeatedly in one another’s hands. The sea calls to each of them for their livelihood, but they each call on one another for their lives.

Branok was the young skipper of his great granfer’s old Dorset fishing Lugger the Henryetta, and crew in the Falsehaven lifeboat.  He was also a brand-new father, just that day. The townsfolk were all celebrating with him in the Luggerman’s Rest. The storm shutters of the tavern were battened down against the gale, it was long after licencing hours. The fishermen of Falsehaven supped on their ale deep into the night.

After midnight, above the sound of the men singing, the chapel bell rang out, a clear and piercing sound, cutting through the gale and the fog of pipe tobacco. It called the Lifeboatmen to trespass once again into the sea’s treacherous domain when she is most angry.

As soon as Branok’s wife heard the bell toll she knew what it could mean for her. Her newborn baby cried, and she nursed her, wrapped in her strong warm embrace. More than ships are dashed on the rocks of Old Harry in a storm. But it would be no use pleading with her husband, she knew him too well. All the wives knew that the fishermen of Dorset are bound to the sea with bonds far stronger and deeper than kin.

On leaving the warmth of the tavern, the men all touched the sign above the inn’s door for good luck, some muttered a prayer, or snatches of a hymn. The sign read, “God save our souls.” Each would need whatever courage God will supply if they were to see their loved ones again before the Great day of Judgement, “when the sea shall give up her dead.” Branok thought of his young wife Endelyn and new daughter Rosenwyn,

“What would become of them if...” But it does not do to dwell on such things before a rescue.

But there were others too, whose greedy eyes were on the floundering ship. They light beacons along the beach, but not to guide her home to safety. They are not intent on saving souls, they have a different prize in mind.

The Wesleyan Chaple, at the high end of Ratline Street looks reproachfully down on the tavern. They stare at one another along the length of that street with unspoken distrust. Both calling the town’s sinners to come and take their very different libations. And so, the words, “God save our souls,” are written above the doors of the chapel too.

The tavern is a conveniently short stagger from the harbour wall, where the boats tie up to unload their catch. But the chapel is a slow, hard climb up the long steep hill of Ratline Street.

On a bright, cloudless, day you can look down on Falsaven Cove from the clifftops, with a score of fishing luggers drying their sails and nets in the gentle summer breeze, mirrored in the surface of the deep azure sea. You may catch scraps of a sea chanty as the men haul the boats up the stony beach.

The farmer who ploughs the soil may believe the sea is just water, but the fishermen who ploughs the ocean knows not to trust her, even when she is in this mood. On such a day the rugged weatherbeaten cliffs are the only clue that the sea is a fickle mistress who does not yield willingly. She gives up her wriggling, glittering jewels reluctantly and demands a high price from those who would forage in her deep waters.

The fishing boats of the town are often crewed by three generations of men. Their faces, hands and temperament reflect the weatherbeaten crags, with tufts of thick wiry beard like the tussock grass which grows among the rocks. Boys must become men the day they leave school. Every family in Falsehaven has lost someone to the sea, some have lost several generations.

On this night the whole town gathered on the quayside to watch their menfolk row out through the relative safety of Falsehaven Cove and on into the pounding surf and treacherous waves heading towards the reef of Old Hobb’s Point. The little boat looked like an insect, a water-boatman in a maelstrom.  To the small children, their fathers are mighty men who can battle the fierce seas, their wives know better. “Come, my little ones, the chapel bell is calling us to prey for your pappa and granfer.”

The skipper of the Sir William Hillary knew there was little hope if the stricken ship did not clear the Point. That night’s catch would bring little joy to anyone.

Rowing hard, they approached under the sheltered lee of the cliffs, which stood landward of Old Hobb’s Stack. On rounding the point, there she was, broken in two on the unyielding rocks. Three of her four masts were gone, the aft deck smashed by the surf and her inners spilled out from the rip in her side. Branok, who was at the helm gasped at the site, “Poor souls”

Men could be seen on the foredeck clinging to the bow sprit and shrouds, some torn between jumping into the surf or staying with the ship until her inevitable ruin. On seeing the lifeboat, the crew all cheered with a new sense of hope rising above their despair. The stranded sailors quickly rigged a Bosun's chair from the stump of the foremast and shot a line down to the lifeboat. Once the line was secure, the crew were rescued one by one. Seven of her crew were saved that night. Two who had jumped, were plucked directly from the sea itself, but the rest were lost, swept from her deck like bar skittles. Branok thought of what Jesus had said to St. Peter the fisherman,

“Come follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men.”

Just seven souls were saved from a crew of about twenty, and what had become of her captain, the sea make not such distinctions.

By morning the worst of the storm had blown itself out. That day’s low tide would be a grim harvest of worthless cargo among infinitely valuable lost souls.

Every man and boy on that lifeboat knelt at the alter rail of the little chapel to give thanks for bringing them home safely. Their womenfolk had spent the night on their knees on that same spot. The small congregation, including the seven men who were rescued, spontaneously broke into Horatio Spafford's hymn It is well with my soul. Stafford had lost all four of his daughters to the sea.

The following afternoon was bright and clear although the sea was still rough. From high up on Old Hobb’s Point nothing could be seen of the ship, but the grim flotsam on the beach.

© Christopher Mathews, June 2024

*Adapted from a work by Jacques Yves Cousteau.

Fear of Falling

 Fear of Falling

By Christopher Mathews

The alarm was set for 4:00 in the morning, but he awoke well before dawn, stirred by some inner clock. The birds had not yet risen to lay claim to their patch of the clear, summer sky.

The sweet, breathless morning air refreshed his senses, bypassing his troubled mind, he lay still, as the physical sensation of peace washed over him, his limbs restful and quiet.

For a fleeting moment his dream lingered on, tethering him to that other world, beyond the reach of his restless mind. Until inevitably wakefulness came flooding back through the touch and sight and sounds of his own remorseful day.

The nightly truce between body and mind had passed. It is said that the unquiet mind rules the waking hours like a tyrant but, in the fortunate few is deposed at night by sleep.

He had packed his gear in the car the night before. Over coffee he scrawled a note to his wife which read,

“Don’t keep dinner, don’t wait up”.

He sat in the car with the engine running, setting the destination on the satnav. It read back to him in a bright cheerful woman’s voice:

“Beachy Head, popular tourist spot, high on the white chalk cliffs of the South Downs, overlooking the English Channel, on a clear day visitors can see all the way to France”. 

But it also has a darker reputation, not mentioned in the tourist guidebooks. These visitors only tell their story in brief scrawled notes.

He pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind and turned off the satnav. This journey should not be interrupted by the ceaseless chatter of this trivial world.

The roads were empty as the moonlight, low in the sky flickered through the trees lining the narrow lanes, rendering everything in its harsh, silver, ribbons.  Like blades cutting “snicker-snack”, chasing him through the landscape. He thought how different this was from his daily commutes battling with traffic. It was as if the roads had cleared themselves to make way for this one journey.

After an hour or so the hedgerows thinned and became open fields for the last two miles. The moonlight was now soft and gentle like snow on the rolling fields.

“Almost there, he thought, not long left”.

Past the last slumbering village and approaching the Seven Sisters, he now turned east toward his destination, the highest point of the cliff looking down on the Beachey Head lighthouse, caught between night and day, moonlight and the soft glow of the pre-dawn morning. He thought absurdly how the lonely lighthouse looked like a toy sitting forgotten on the beach, left behind by some giantish child who had been making sandcastles the day before.

Not bothering to lock the car he swung his pack on his back, tightened the straps, and walked, his mind fixed on the highest point of the cliff where the earth stopped, and the heavens began.

He stood right on the edge, swaying slightly as the gentle sea breeze brought the taste of brine to his lips. He fought against waves of vertigo which tingled through his limbs like electricity. Strange, how the line between the fear of falling and exhilaration is so thin. So very different but both sharing the same visceral sensation, which hijacks the mind and overpowers the senses. And still he swayed on the spot, teetering on the edge of decision.

A thin white pre-dawn mist lay over the calm dark water, diffusing the horizon between sea and sky, one vast seamless canvass. the great expanse of heaven was all about him. As if he himself was witnessing the creation of the formless world on the very first day. “Formless,” he pondered the word, a memory of a dusty bright sunlit Sunday School swam into his mind when he was eight, of opening a heavy bible which said:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

The cliffs below him were suddenly caught in the blaze of the rising sun as it broke the eastern horizon. like burnished gold leaf overlaying the chalk cliffs.

“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.”

“This is the perfect day”, he thought to himself.

As on the very first day of the world, not a soul looked on, he was quite alone. The vast sky was above him and soft dewy grass at his feet. To his right his shadow was that of a giant, but he himself felt small and insignificant.

Trembling, he said to himself,

“I don’t have the nerve to jump, the fear of falling is too strong.”

Turning, he walked deliberately back, counting out 20 paces, the prescribed distance. Gazing wistfully over the rolling green patchwork of the Sussex Downs he turned his back on England and ran fast towards the precipice. At the very edge of the world his feet danced in empty air as he leapt into nothingness; arms outstretched to embrace the vast heavens. His fear of falling was swallowed up by the joy of flying.

Then came a sudden jolt as his billowing white chute opened above him.

Base Jumping is a reckless sport, but in that brief moment he felt alive.

The strong updraft of the salty sea breeze carried him high above the cliffs. The harness of his paraglider creaked and strained to bear his weight aloft until he was well above the downs. Blacked-backed gulls joined him, taking advantage of the same thermals rising from the land. Soon he was joined by other paragliders each riding the crest of an invisible wave, which forms high above the cliff tops.

The sun was fully up now, the twilight having been banished like a bad dream. Sightseers like ants looked up at the spectacle of that strange flock which soared back and forth along the cliff.  Like a colony of latter-day pterosaurs they wheeled rising, falling and rising again. Until having reached the top of the wave they turned to make their slow descent inland.

The fear of falling, like the bleak night was swallowed up as he soared up into the clear, bright and lovely, delightful day.

© Christopher Mathews Feb. 2024

My Worst Holiday 01

 My Worst Holiday

By Chris Mathews

“This is the one for us!” Mabel said, rifling through the glossy magazines she pinched from the dentist’s waiting room. “Listen to this Arthur, Shore & Shanklin Holiday Tours of the Isle of Wight. Wonderful, two weeks on the sandy beaches of Shanklin or Ventnor.”

“Listen to this Arthur,” she read, “the coach picks us up from Chelmsford and takes us all the way there. Just think, you won't have the stress of driving, and for once, we won't have to start the holiday under a cloud because you lost your temper getting me lost in the middle of nowhere, just because you are too stingy to buy a new map. Those maps of your father’s are at least 20 years out of date.”

The 17^th of July 1964 came at last, and with their suitcases packed, they stood on the pavement waiting for the coach from Shore & Shanklin Holiday Tours.

“Arthur, are you sure this is where we board the coach, it seems a very odd pick up point, right outside the front gates of Chelmsford prison, of all places. I ask you couldn’t they have chosen somewhere else.”

“That's what the young lady at the travel agents said.” Arthur replied in a wearied, longsuffering tone.

An ancient, dilapidated coach pulled up in front of them after ten minutes, and Mable said “that's disgraceful, they promised us a new shiny sleek touring coach. Look at it, it's just an old grey bus. The travel agent will hear of this in a stiffly worded letter.”

As the doors slammed open a surly, grim faced man in a blue uniform stood before them with a clipboard in his hands, without meeting their gaze or any attempt at the usual pleasantries, he barked out “number.”

“it's Mr and Mrs Jones, I believe we are numbers 24 and 25, and, I do need a window seat, one can get rather bilious if one can't see out.

“Oh, certainly Madam, cocktails will be served at 11:00, and what time would you like lunch?”

His sarcasm was lost on her, and Mabel whispered under her breath,

“That's better, you see Arthur, a little courtesy goes a long way.”

“Thank you, my man, prepare luncheon whenever is convenient, we don’t want to put you out. Well, come along Arthur.”

Arthur was jabbed in the back with a stick the man was carrying, none too gently either, but he said nothing. Arthur was used to that sort of treatment, having been married to Mable for 40 years.

They climbed aboard and found their seats. Mabel sat next to a big burly man covered in tattoos. “How do you do,” she said we are the Joneses, but you must call us Arthur and Mable.” He simply grunted and looked away. And what is your name? Without looking at her he said,

“My cell mates call me knuckles and my enemies don't call me.”

“Lovely, but I hope our rooms are a little bigger than a cell, we have ordered a sea view and a connecting Avocado bathroom suite. “

“And are you looking forward to your holiday on the Isle of Wight?”

“Holiday, yeah, I suppose you could call it that, after Chelmsford and before that the Scrubs and Wakefield. though I don't suppose Parkhurst will be much better.

“Yes, but, think of those brisk early morning walks along wide empty sandy beaches and the bracing fresh air, that’s real freedom.” Mr Nuckles grunted at this, wiped the greasy mist from the window and turned away again.

“He does not seem to be looking forward to his holiday much does he Arthur,” she said under her breath.

“Perhaps he is recently widowed,” said Arthur longingly. 

“Oh yes and that’s why he is down in the dumps I expect, we will have to try to cheer him up a bit when we get to the hotel.”

“Best not Mable,” said Arthur looking across at Mr Nuckles. And he too turned away to take a nap.

“This holiday will be a chance to get away from the humdrum life chained to the kitchen sink all day.”

Mable chatted on to no one in particular at one point suggested a singsong. Arthur groaned as he pretended to sleep.

To Mables discussed, they were not allowed to take the bracing sea air during the crossing to Cows. This would no doubt be added to her stiff letter too.

“Look, look,” cried Mable, “the hotel is set in its own grounds with walls and gates, it must have been a grand country house once owned by... But yes, look look, Her Majesty’s something or other written above the gates. Oh, I do wish I had my spectacles.”

There was some confusion when they disembarked from the coach. With the Coach tour guide barking out numbers from a list, and they had to carry their own bags too, as they were briskly marched across the forecourt.

“I should like to see the hotel manager young man” demanded Mable. “This place has obviously been allowed to go to rack and ruin, it looks nothing like the photos in the brochure.”

“Certainly madam, I will show you to your suite and ask the manager to pop in an see you once you have had a chance to unpack. Perhaps he can bring you a small, sweet sherry too madam and how do you like your porridge in the morning.” The uniformed coach courier said sarcastically.

“That’s better, and be quick about it my man.”

“I’m going to find the bar,” Arthur said, seizing the opportunity for a peaceful half hour. It had dawned on Arthur that this would be a holiday unlike any other for Mable. And, whilst he was not a vindictive fellow, he felt that the experience may well do Mabel some good. He also felt that long sleeping boyish devilment which had been suppressed through 40 years of his own imprisonment of a very different sort.

He found his way to the games room where he played table tennis with a celebrated bank robber, lost a game of chess with a financial embezzler and even had a fascinating conversation with a murderer. Another prisoner offered him some prison moonshine.

“Only, keep it under your hat governor, don't let the screws know.”

“Prisoners get a really bad press”, he thought to himself “underneath they seem like really decent fellows, I could really fit in here.”

Several hours were spent in the company of some of the most notorious criminals in Britain. But eventually the prison governor called him to his office. He profusely offered his most humble apologies. And burbled on about no need to speak to the press about the unfortunate mix up. He offered him a glass of sherry and ordered a taxi to wherever he chose to go. Eventually, the governor himself escorted him to the prison gates still mumbling his apologies. Somehow, in all the fuss Arthur forgot to mention Mabel, and before he knew it, he was half a mile from the prison.

“No doubt they'll realise their mistake eventually, and I suppose I'll have to come back and pick her up, but in the meantime…” Arthur thought to himself, rubbing his hands in glee.

Arthur found a small B&B in a sleepy seaside town close to the railway. Steam trains were his long-neglected passion. It had slowly given way to tedious hours of bridge and cocktails with Mable’s friends under her persistent social climbing. “She could have been a mountaineer.” he thought with a wry smile.

He had a wonderful time touring round the Island making many railway enthusiast friends. No fancy pretentious dining, no expensive cocktails, no, “elbows off the table Arthur.” just pub lunches with his new mates. But after four days in which he thoroughly enjoyed himself, guilt began to nag away at his conscience like a storm cloud on a sunny day. But Arthur told himself:

“I suppose I really ought to... Eventually, they will realise won’t they though... I'll ring them tomorrow, or… maybe the day after. One excuse followed another, and so the days of peaceful freedom stretched on.

 

© Christopher Mathews - Aug 2023