Belfast

Black Velvet and White Star

White stars on black velvet.....

In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

In a neat little town they call Belfast

Apprentice to trade I was bound

And the many's the hours sweet happiness 

Have I spent in that neat little town

Belfast is a comparatively little town (just over a quarter of a million inhabitants, 17th largest in the UK and only granted city status in 1888), but it is stretching a point to call it neat.....  It was once a centre for the linen, tobacco and rope-making industries and then, with Harland and Woolf (created in 1861) it became an important centre for ship-building (though now 75% of their work is in renewable energy).  Torn apart by the Irish War of Independence, then heavily bombed in the second World War and then again severely damaged by the sectarian violence of the Troubles (1,600 people killed here between 1969 and 2001), Belfast has had a turbulent history.

Her eyes they shone like diamonds

I thought her the queen of the land

And her hair, it hung over her shoulder

Tied up with a black velvet band

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too

It was ship-building that really put Belfast on the map, however, when RMS Titanic set sail in 1912, and, with the opening of Titanic Belfast in 2012, ironically it was the disastrous collision with an iceberg that is largely responsible for renewed interest in the city.  Having lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs since the 1970s, the influx of over eight hundred thousand visitors to this attraction in its first year has led to thousands of new jobs in the tourism industry.

No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history

With this iconic new building, we are invited to visit the world's largest Titanic (oxymoron? Ed) visitor experience (how do you measure the size of an experience? Ed), located at the birthplace (inappropriate anthropomorphism, Ed) of RMS Titanic.....  Through 9 interactive galleries visitors can fly (er, not really, it's a cable car, Ed) through the shipyard, travel to the depths of the ocean (it's a film, Ed) and uncover the true legend (true? or legend? Ed) of the Titanic, in the city where it all began.....

Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Actually, it is pretty good, and I was almost sympathetic to the kid in front of me who, when questioned why he wasn't in school, responded gleefully, It's my birthday!

There are some informative displays and some highly effective simulations, including a space in which you are made to feel that you are on a lift ascending through the ship.  I haven't felt so queasy since I flew over the Victoria Falls in the London IMAX!

In the Titanic Quarter, apart from the derelict Harland and Woolf shipyards with their iconic cranes

and the vast film studios (Titanic Studios - The Paint Hall) where (under high security) the first series of Game of Thrones was produced, there are other reminders of the Titanic and Belfast's engineering past.  HMS Caroline, a First World War light cruiser and survivor of the Battle of Jutland,

lies in the Alexandra Dock (in 1885 Princess Alexandra cut the first sod....)  Not far beyond is the dry dock where Titanic was fitted out.  This vast space, and the adjacent Pump-House,

perhaps serves as a better memorial to that ghostly wreck, but maybe that's a matter of taste?

The caisson gate to this dock is still there, rusting gently in the damp air.  It weighs 1000 tonnes and could be opened in six minutes by water pressure.

Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

There are other reminders of the Titanic in Belfast - not only in the numerous borrowings of the name:

But also in the shadow that inevitably hangs over the city.  Outside the imposing City Hall, with its statue of Queen Victoria standing guard, there is the Titanic Memorial Garden, with the names of the dead listed in bronze.

Among the names I note one of my relatives, and pause for a moment, a watery chill running up my spine.

But it is time to move on.  There is more to Belfast than the true legend of the largest Titanic visitor experience!

There are bars, like the magnificent Crown, where real gas lamps and church pew like stalls create an intimate, somewhat Victorian atmosphere:

Or like the Sunflower, on a quiet street behind the Library, where graffiti prohibits topless sunbathing (Ulster has suffered enough!)

And opposite there are vibrant murals, one celebrating the sunflower.

Sunflower Faces, Union Street, painted by Kev Largey, June 2014

Murals are a feature of Belfast art and have been since the Loyalist mural tradition started in 1908 (the Republicans didn't join in until 1981) though some may be more an expression of modern urban angst, or even a comment on the increase in mural tourism (an American tourist had his camera stolen in the Falls Road while I was there)......

And on Divis Street there is an International Section for murals and graffiti, which includes a reference to Leonard Peltier, a Native American Activist, but which also carries, on sheets of paper above the paintings, the names of individuals imprisoned in High Security HMP Maghaberry which holds a number of dissident republicans as well as convicted terrorists.  

Though it is 20 years since the IRA ceasefire and 16 since the Good Friday agreement, there is still unrest and division in Northern Ireland, and acts of violence still occur.  Casual tourists (such as me) may be unaware of underlying tensions, but memories will be long, and peace and justice are fragile concepts.

In St Anne's, I am accosted by a woman in a cape, who demands money.  A man practises the organ.  A tapestry in memory of the Titanic victims hangs on the wall.  Otherwise the Church of Ireland Cathedral is empty:

Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

To the west of the city, in St Peter's Roman Catholic Cathedral a nun trims wicks on the altar. A man with a walking frame sits, perhaps in prayer. Otherwise it is empty.

Prepared a sinister mate
For her — so gaily great —
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

Just by Queen's University, in the Botanical gardens, the Palm House is closed:

On Botanic Avenue an empty bottle of champagne stands by an empty building.  

In the John Hewitt, owned by the Belfast Unemployed Resource Centre and named after the late poet, socialist and Freeman of the City, I face Farmageddon....

By the River Lagan, a giant fish breathes its last....

Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

Near the City Hall, the entrance to the Girls Brigade is through the Boys Brigade, next door:

Across the road from the Royal Courts of Justice a bronze shepherd drives his bronze sheep towards me,

And outside Belfast Waterfront a bronze cooper rests on his barrels....

They'll feed you with strong drink,my lads,
'Til you are unable to stand
And the very first thing that you'll know is
You've landed in Van Dieman's Land

As East Belfast boy Van Morrison sings, Belfast is stranded between that ol' devil and the deep blue sea and nobody's gonna tell [me] what time it is.  Past and future collide like steel and ice but there ain't nowhere else to be.  Razor wire and oil rig eye each other up in passive distrust.

On the street, the city fathers stand in confident triangles:

I'll give you seven years penal servitude
To be spent far away from the land
Far away from your friends and companions"
Betrayed by the black velvet band

While their forefathers pose by the caisson gate, the giant propellers still above their heads.  

Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

She was both fair and handsome

Her neck it was white like a swan

And her hair, hung down from her shoulders

Held up with a black velvet band

I used to sing that song, emulating my hero, Luke Kelly.  I love it.  It's a great song, a great story, and one that goes on and on, though the singers may have left the building.  The ambiguity of the Black Velvet Band (not so unlike a pint of porter) and the mysterious starry twinkle of diamond eyes, sparkling promises like the White Star Line but really hard and sharp, like ice, resonate on the docksides and in the quiet streets of Belfast today.  

Nothing is what it seems.  But, as Humph might have said, as the RMS Titanic of Time and the Ironic Iceberg of Destiny converge in the Ocean of Promises, I notice that it's the end of the show......

The watchman, he lay dreaming

The damage had been done

He dreamed the Titanic was sinking

And he tried to tell someone

Bob Dylan: Tempest

The rose is splashed with blood

Quotations from 

The Convergence of the Twain 

(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic") 

by Thomas Hardy 

and 

The Black Velvet Band, 

Trad, arr. The Dubliners

http://extramuralactivity.com/

RSPB Coquet Island

To the Lighthouse

Dusk falls on the Lighthouse and monastic ruins of Coquet Island

I am bound for Coquet Island, a mile off the coast of Northumberland, just out from Warkworth (Amble) Harbour.  

It's only a ten minute bounce across the waves in the RSPB RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat), expertly piloted by Paul Morrison, the Warden of Coquet, but, as with Alcatraz, the rocky and turbulent waters would not make an easy swim back to shore.

Warden Paul Morrison and Volunteer Hilary wave goodbye

I say I am bound for Coquet, and the word is apt in its connotations of contract and commitment, as well as that leaping idea that fits the boat's forward movement so well. I have committed to a fortnight's voluntary work on this tiny scrap of rock, and once dropped off there is a real chance that I could be stuck there for weeks, as the wind and tide can combine to prohibit any landing.

I already dream of helicopters.

But it's birds I am there for, even though the real stars of Coquet, the Roseate Terns, and their support act, the clownish Puffins, have all long since flown.

In the breeding season, which is roughly April to early August, there can be as many as 35,000 nesting seabirds on this four hectare (less than one mile circumference) island, and so visitors are not allowed (there is nowhere to step!) and the Wardens and volunteers keep watch, both from hides and via CCTV.

RSPB Coquet Island Bird Hide, currently in London as part of the Camden Migration Festival. The 6ft x 6ft hide began life in 2005 as a basic shelter but has been gradually modified and enhanced over the past decade by its creator, award-winning blacksmith Stephen Lunn.  Externally it resembles a miniature version of the Trinity lighthouse on Coquet Island but instead of a giant bulb, there is a disco ball, which bathes the inside of the hide with shards of light at dawn. Stephen has also installed a wood burning stove, which he has forged in the shape of a clam.

This is to ensure that no one disturbs the birds nor steals rare eggs - surprisingly still a threat to this colony of Roseate Terns, which is the only one in the UK.

And so, once landed, I am Crusoed - though to be fair there are three of us: me, Wesley, the Assistant Warden, and Lee, like me a temporary volunteer. Even so, there is a real sense of isolation as the sun goes down.  There is no traffic, no TV, no running water, and as the moon rises there is a curious feeling of being adrift in space.

The work at this time of year is principally to manage the habitat so that it will be suitable for the return of the birds next spring (rooting out nettles and thistles, cutting and raking hay) and also to clean, preserve and store away the nest boxes for the Terns (remarkably they return - from wintering in Africa - to the exact same spot to nest each year, and some live for up to thirty years!)

Lee and me and our collection of freshly numbered Roseate Tern nextboxes

But there is also time to explore and to observe the natural world, which is by no means dormant...... More than fifty pairs of Fulmar breed here too, and I find one young one on the rocks, waiting for the tide to lift him off (they cannot take off from the ground)....

And I try to photograph these relatives of the Albatross in flight, as they swoop low past me at jet fighter speed, their wings locked, their eyes fixing me for a moment in a mixture of curiosity and menace.....

I count a total of fifty species of birds during my stay, with the most numerous being gulls, Oystercatchers:

Purple Sandpipers and Dunlin who seem to enjoy passing the time watching the waves:

But there are Herons too, 

And numerous Shags, flying dinosaur-like low over the water, then hanging their wings out to dry (to be super fast but also to achieve great depth under water - they typically dive to thirty metres, their feathers, unlike most seabirds, are not waterproof).....

And, though there are few trees of any description (Elder being favourite) there are numerous other varieties, including swallow, robin, such migrants as this young Willow Warbler (I think - please correct me if I have erred....)

You might catch a Yellow-browed Warbler en passant:

Rock Pipits hop about the shoreline, as well as the new-mown hay:

And the occasional Spotted Flycatcher appears as well:

And I spied this (female) Whinchat busily flitting between dried stems:

But it is not just birds.....  insects abound (or there would be fewer birds) and at the other end of the scale there are Atlantic Grey Seals, lying in state on the exposed rocks, lazily flipping flippers to disturb the flies:

Swimming so slinkily Silkie-like in rock pools:

Splashing into the surf in silly scares:

Or snorkelling just out of reach trying to see just what you are:

Humans count for little, though there have been residents here of one kind or another since at the very least the seventh century, when St Cuthbert recorded a visit. Hardy religious types have pitched up here, including Henry the Hermit, a royal Dane who died in 1127, having survived for years taking food only three times a week. During the last four years of his life he ground his barley into meal with a mill-stone, and after moistening it with water, made it into little round cakes that he dried in the sun.  He did not speak for three years and when he died he was found sitting in peace with a candle miraculously burning nearby (there was no lighter, nor matches, on the island).

Wesley Davies, the Assistant Warden, has lived on the island from April to October for five years now.

As with the Farne Islands, isolation has suited the reclusive and the mystic.  For several centuries there was a small religious community here, and remains of their buildings can still be seen.  

The medieval vaulted chamber on Coquet, probably the monks' living quarters, but possibly the original chapel

My room lies within the fifteenth century framework, though it has been completely restructured by Trinity House:

There have been stone workers here (Sion House, the London residence of the Duke of Northumberland, is partly built of Coquet sandstone), and sea coal diggers were said to have been living here in huts in the late eighteenth century.  Then in 1841 Trinity House established the lighthouse, which rises to twenty-two metres.  The designer, James Walker, incorporated parts of the monastery into the fortress-like structure, so that fragments of original wall and a vaulted chamber remain, and the base of the tower has sandstone walls a metre thick.

The first keeper on Coquet was William Darling, elder brother of Grace, the heroine of Bamburgh.  For over a hundred years there were at least two families living here, tending the light and fog signals, and they had cultivated gardens, kept pigs and chickens, and took their children to school on the mainland.  The tradition of family life ended definitively with electrification (in this case in 1976) and in 1990 Coquet was fully automated.  It now runs off solar energy, with a 35 watt halide lamp flashing three times every twenty seconds.  The white lights can be seen up to 19 nautical miles distant.  Trinity House still visit to maintain, but even compared with recent photographs the sense of decay is strong:

During my stay the light became comforting, almost a friendly human symbol to reassure me in the dark of night.  But on the other hand, in dim visibility or rain, the three second blast of the Fog Signal every thirty seconds, audible up to two nautical miles (and therefore very loud if you are close to it!) became very wearing, and this set me wondering about the use of lighthouses at all. We had several very misty days (and nights) and the two small boats I went on during that time navigated by GPS systems.  

While it is clear that the system of light houses, ships and beacons around the coast of the British Isles serve(d) a very useful purpose, I wonder how many mariners rely on their eyes and ears rather than sophisticated Differential Global Positioning Systems these days?  Trinity House's own website carries details of their engineering works to upgrade existing DGPS equipment, and the European Union's Galileo Positioning System is a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) which is due to be fully operational in 2020. We went across to the mainland on a small boat in thick fog, and the skipper relied entirely on two screens by his wheel.  

Another development that Trinity House has embarked on is the holiday let business - I wonder how long it will be before the lights really do go out?

Literary associations with islands are many, with some internationally famous examples such as The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner, who lived Eight and Twenty Years all alone in an un-inhabited Island......  In Defoe's novel, Robinson Kreutznaer, was the son of a merchant from Bremen, who settled at Hull, and who rebelled against good advice and sense, and was consequently punished by being the sole survivor of a graphically described ship-wreck.  After making himself safe and as comfortable as possible on his horrible, desolate island, Crusoe assesses his situation, noting down the evil and the good points as objectively as possible.  On the negative side he notes that I am divided from mankind, a solitaire, one banished from humane society..... While on the positive side, But I am not starved and perishing on a barren place, affording no sustenance. And he concludes that Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony, that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable, but there was something negative or something positive to be thankful for in it......

Other tales come to mind: the struggle to keep a fire going as a signal light in Lord of the Flies; Henri Charrière's account of his escape from Devil's Island in Papillon;  D H Lawrence's savage satire in The Man Who Loved Islands; Ben Gunn's traumatic experience in Treasure Island (vividly brought to life by Spike Milligan at the Mermaid Theatre in my youth.....) and Prospero's manipulation of shipwreck in The Tempest, and so on.  The metaphors work well, and society is enriched.....

Wez finds a sea urchin - supper is secure!

My isolation was tempered by good company, and was of very brief duration, but it was extraordinary nonetheless, and even such a short exile from the ways of civilisation is instructive.  I not only enjoyed being stranded here, but I also learnt much, not least in what we so often take for granted.....

Some of the team - Viking leggings are optional

I stumbled out into the dark, the beams of the lighthouse sweeping the night.  A distant whisper of surf brought the eerie sound of seals singing, and a damp breeze tugged at my tee shirt.  The unusually high pitched blast of the fog warning punctuated the quiet world, and the sound of a horse making water caught my attention, as the stream splashed on dry tussock and embedded stone.  

Isolation plays tricks on the mind.

There are no horses on Coquet.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.

Shakespeare, The Tempest, III (ii) 133

http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/videosandwebcams/film/52379125.aspx

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/north-east-analysis/analysis-news/northumberland-island-curio-goes-show-7840229


http://www.ghostsofgonebirds.com/