Beachcombing for memories

Adventures on the tideline at Hastings

This is an extract from an ongoing work where I undertake a psychogeographic journey exploring Hastings, the coastal town in Sussex where I was born.

Miniature steam trains cross the tracks of my childhood. Locomotives, carmine red, sunburst yellow - all sleek gloss enamel, polished brass, shrouded in rising smoke.

I watched them pass, boarded occasionally. Being within them never had the same thrill as watching from close distance. The slow flash of colour, the excitement of flaring light, blank faces paling in a procession of painted wood carriages.

I loved those maternal excursions to the seashore railway, always uncertain of what locomotive colour I would encounter on any given day. Those particular colours still buried in my head. I can summon them at will, reach out to touch them, even though they have slid out of existence. An arbitrary act of conjuration.

And in that way the past flows through you, finding its own way, exposing undisclosed veins of memory. Reality is what you recall. What you cannot quite remember is destined to haunt you forever. It tugs at your mind like a wind blowing in fast from the sea.

Beyond these half occluded memories, unhulled boats still haunt the shore. A tide of hag stones possess the coast-line curve. The ritual has long since been enacted, the spell summoned. Conjuration is strong. You can never leave. The salt air you breathe anchors you. You will rust here like the chains and bulldozers on the beach.

Ghost sails haunt the shoreline - long gone luggers with torn, dispossessed sails.

Even the fish have gone now, moved to better waters. Boats that put to sea only ensnare the past in their nets, dredge up rusted mines or rumours best laid to rest.

The sky is judgemental, we can expect nothing less. Weather contorts, smiles and scowls. It knows I am washed up here.