Authors Electric

Looking down the River Deben towards Felixstowe Ferry It’s grey outside with the hiss of rain. Peter Duck rocks slightly. Why should she care if there are drips on my head, on the cabin table and, occasionally, the laptop? She’s had what she demanded, which was movement; release from the captivity of her mooring. She craved a voyage, however small. She insisted. A boat always on a mooring is like a songbird in a cage. At 0500 the surface of the water was a mirror for the sky above. Not a ruffle of wind. A slow throb of engine gave us steerage way as we moved down river in the early morning light. The ebb tide carried us through Methersgate, Waldringfield, Ramsholt, then continued without us to Felixstowe Ferry and the sea. We picked up the last of the Ramsholt moorings for peace, breakfast and time to think. The quiet was astounding. Apart from the river birds. Nothing silences them. A tern settled on top of the main mast, spreading its sickle wings and forked-fan tail, opening it...

  I watched Peter Duck being lowered those final few inches back into the Deben. I heard her sigh with relief as she settled into the water where she belongs. Her own weight, which had been supported by four rigid cradle struts  through the eighteen months she’d spent ashore, was now dispersed across her underwater surface, the river pushing her up as gravity and the weight of her own superstructure pulled her down.  Aaaah… It was like sinking into a sofa at the end of a long day, kicking off tight shoes and letting the shoulders slump. Aaaah… As the thick webbing slings from the crane were loosened, it was like undoing the top button of a too-tight waist band. Aaaah… as I stood deliberately alone on the pontoon, watching that final return to her element, I sighed too. A piece of my soul was back where it belonged. Soul is a difficult word to use here. I experimented with ‘being’, ‘pysche’ and ‘self’ but none of them quite worked. It’s difficult, anyway, to analyse how...

In the latter part of this strange summer my son Bertie and I have been working on a history of Waldringfield. A k a ‘Wunnerf’l’ as the Suffolk pronunciation has it – which the locals are quick to point out is almost indistinguishable from the correct way to say ‘wonderful’. ‘Wunnerf’l Wunnerf’l’ runs to 314 large and glossy pages with somewhere in the region of 618 photographs and is a tremendous achievement by the Waldringfield History Group -- and also by Bertie who was responsible for design and typesetting. At the outset, however, I wondered where we would ever reach our collective goal of publication by Michaelmas (Sept 29th).  The two pages of foreword entitled 'Wonderful Waldringfield' went through a larger number of politely argued re-writes than any other section of the book. Everyone had their view on what precisely constitutes the particular wonderfulness of this Suffolk village. The answer, of course, is the Deben. 'The River Deben means many things to many p...

Monday Oct 29 th 2018: Peter Duck was on her mooring, lying to the flood. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction, straight down the river from the cold nor’ nor’-east. It was going to be impossible to hoist the mainsail as the full force of the wind would be bellying into it as soon as it was half way up the mast. I tried the foresail. It was flappy and excitable, offering only to sail us off at an angle which would put us directly on the mud. The channel is quite narrow here and there was little water as yet. I was impatient to set off. my brother, Ned  hoisting the  mizzen - many years ago I went aft and consulted the mizzen. This is my favourite sail. My friend George Jepps (who lends his name to a ‘Peter Duck’-ish character in forthcoming Pebble ) once called it Peter Duck ’s “rudder in the sky” The smallest child can raise or lower it and it’s a sail that will always try to help if you ask. Former PD owner Greg Palmer once gave it as his opinion t...

PD annual return to the river. (these photos from 2016) I was standing on the river wall in Woodbridge, watching at a little distance while Geoff, Steve and Tim from the boatyard concentrated on their annual task of lifting Peter Duck back into the river. There’d been a bitter northerly the day before, driving rain and gusts predicted to reach 40mph. We’d all been relieved to Abort Mission. They said they were worried about my boat: I said I was bothered about their backs. Probably the truth was that none of us fancied getting soaked and frozen that Monday morning. Suddenly a day spent catching up on office chores had seemed an attractive option. Today the weather was bright but chilly, the breeze stiff-ish, threatening to buffet PD 's precious hull sideways as Geoff and Tim hung onto the warps and turned her precisely while Steve drove the crane. In calm conditions only one person is required, guiding both of the warps – on those days I almost feel  I’d have a go mysel...

Mum's Arden Shakespeare, coveted since I was a child. Out of their box and onto my shelf To be left someone’s books is a wonderful thing. It's possible that as we emerge from Christmas holiday excesses and make earnest NY resolutions about de-toxing, de-cluttering, de-fragmenting (or waddever) some readers may already be clutching their frontal lobes and wailing  "No Space… !"  "No Time… !" I don't care. This is a statement. Not a assertion or a thesis. The only qualification I'll allow is that the books may need to have belonged to someone you love... Our house is Cluttersville Central. My daughter found me sitting on the back kitchen floor a year or two ago, weeping helplessly “Why, oh why do we have 38 pairs of Wellington boots?” Her immediate solution was to order a skip. Yet we still possess 13* guitars, 92 tea towels and a quantity of yellowing sheet music which stretches back to the collection that had been abandoned in the stool...

"The curfew tolls the knell of passing day The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me." Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray (1716-1771) Ramsholt Church by Jack Merriott (1901-1968) All Saints Church, Ramsholt,stands alone at the top of a low hill overlooking the River Deben. It may have been a watch point to give warning of invasions from the sea and it’s impossible to sail past in either direction without looking up at it and feeling recognition. My father’s ashes are in the churchyard and my mother plans to be buried there as well. Even Francis, non-Suffolk-born and a non-believer, has said he would choose Ramsholt to be his resting place. The church yard is unkempt and full of wild flowers, either blooming, delicate and colourful, or withering and dying, gently, in due season. The round tower has buttresses that make it appear oval. I wonder whether...