A DAY IN SOUTHEND
by Richard Banks
It’s
been a long time, nearly fifty years, and in my absence not too much has
changed. Edwardian shop fronts are still to be seen, and in the ‘old town,’ next
to the sea, the housing stock is of a similar vintage, but the green shoots of
modernity have arrived in the form of two off-street shopping malls and a
university hidden away in the back doubles. There’s also a new cinema, a
multiplex.
Some things will never change, the
curving slope of the pedestrianised High Street down to the estuary and the
view across it to Sheerness and the Kent Isles. Trains still run up and down
the pier, and the Royal Hotel where I am bound is much improved from the
neglected Georgian building I remember as a child. Indeed the hotel and the
terrace to which it is joined have never looked better. They belong to historic
Southend, a reminder of its genteel and sometimes aristocratic past when a
small fishing village was pushing its claim to be a fashionable seaside resort.
Over two hundred years later the aspirations of those who now run this City are
much the same.
That’s why I’m here. I’m what I call a
Climate Engineer. I make weather, micro weather systems that turn winter into
summer, where extreme weather events never happen and it only rains at night.
In 2024 this is an amazing technology and I am the genius who has made it happen.
Quite how is a closely guarded secret. After all, if this went mainstream who
would pay me the megabucks I presently command.
So, today I am meeting the Executive
Committee of the Development Partnership to hear what sort of weather they
want, and for me to tell them how much it is going to cost. The meeting is in
an upstairs room of the hotel. I am met at the front door by a young man who
conveys me up several flights of stairs to a large room where the Committee is
already gathered. The Chairman, a Councilman, politely welcomes me, introduces
me to six other suits and directs my attention to the view outside. This, he
says, is the Southend we are here to discuss, the seaside resort beloved by
generations of visitors.
Down below is a cliffside garden that
slopes steeply down to a well-trafficked road. The promenade beyond it is wide
and long, terminating in outlying parts of the City that were once separate
towns. Centre stage is the longest pleasure pier in the world and either side
of that is a large fairground with all the big rides. The amusement arcades and
eateries to the east are hidden behind another hotel, ‘The Palace,’ but I know
they are there. It is October, the sky is grey and a cold wind off the estuary
has deterred all but the most intrepid promenaders. Once - before the masses
could afford foreign holidays - Southend was a place where people stayed for a
week or two in boarding houses that have long since gone out of business.
Nowadays it is the day tripper that contributes liberally to the City’s
coffers. Big money on warm summer days, and of those there can never be enough.
At least that’s what the Development Partnership thinks.
They have been to Brighton, my last big
project, and want much the same but with a few extras. As well as warm, dry
days throughout the year it is important, they say, that Southend’s weather is
distinctively different, that it has features only to be found within its
borders. I tell them that they can have any shade of blue sky that they wish
and that once allocated it will be theirs and theirs alone. In addition, I say,
the setting of the sun over the estuary offers exciting opportunities to light
up the evening sky with a range of sunset colours that will only be seen in
Southend.
The Committee looks impressed. I
undertake to give them a detailed proposal, and the discussion inevitably moves
on to cost. This is the bit they don’t like. I have a single fee, it’s
non-negotiable, take it or leave it. Yes, I say, I know it’s expensive but if
Brighton is anything to go by the project will turn a profit within three
years. The money men on the Committee, the venture capitalists, know I am right
and that I can deliver. They say nothing; they will reserve their comments for
the discussion that takes place after I depart. In case they are not fully
committed I immerse Southend in a torrential downpour that floods some of its
streets. The message I am sending is clear. Put up with this and the winter
freeze to come, or feel the warmth of the sun in paradise. It’s a no-brainer.
They wish that they understood the
science that enables me to do what I do. They would steal it if they could, but
they can’t for the very good reason that it does not exist. Oh yes, I have all
the paraphernalia of a laboratory and more computers than mission control. I
employ a score of so-called technicians to analyse data and provide graphics
for my web sites, but it is all for show. In an age when science is the new
religion, I must appear to be the man of learning, the kind of man the world
values and understands. Those, like me who ‘do’ but don’t know how, defy all
explanation and are feared, our powers a danger that some might regard as witchcraft.
As a small child fascinated by my
ability to stop clouds in mid-air and make rain or sunshine I did only good
things. Holidays or days out to the seaside were always blessed with warm sunny
weather, my mother’s washing was dried by a southerly breeze, and my father’s
garden liberally rained upon whenever he thought it too dry. But if I could
reward those I liked I could also punish the few I did not. Those that
threatened me were most at risk, the school bully who blacked my eye was struck
by lightning and taken to hospital, his long blond hair pointing stiffly
towards the sky and sizzling with electricity. My mother, the only person to
realise my part in his misfortune, made me promise never again to use my powers
to harm others. We had a pact, she kept my secret and I kept my word. Now that
she is no more I am free to do as I please and what pleases me is to use my
powers to become obscenely rich.
I used to think that my interventions
produced no overall benefit or disbenefit for mankind, some would suffer while
others prospered. Now, I no longer care. Why care for a people so intent on
destroying the planet and each other. The pollution they pump into the sky and seas
I have no remedy for, and having none my contribution to this man made time
bomb has been to shorten the fuse; a crisis brought closer to the ‘here and
now’ has commercial opportunities that no enterprising entrepreneur can ignore.
So, when Governments desperate for a solution come my way, as surely they will,
I will ‘rise to the challenge’ and remove from the equation my not
insignificant contribution to worldwide warming. What happens after that is
down to mankind, this man can only do so much.
In the meantime, Southend will be warmed
with little consequence for the planet, and you and I will be allowed in for an
entrance fee costing less than a plane ticket to Torremolinos. Paradise awaits
you; sun, chips and beer, satisfaction guaranteed! What more could anyone want?
The
End.
Copyright Richard Banks
