Pier Review
Page 30
PENARTH
Opened: 1895 (Architect: James and Arthur Mayoh, along with local engineer H. F. Edwards)
Length at start: 658 ft (201 m)
Length now: 658 ft (201 m)
Burn baby burn? In 1931 fire destroyed the wooden pavilion and much of the pier. In 1947 a large section was destroyed by a ship. In 1966, the paddle steamer Bristol Queen collided with the pier in fog, causing serious damage.
Since 2007, the pier has appeared in an ident between programmes on TV channel S4C and it was in a 2008 episode of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. Gareth Bale was filmed playing football on the pier in 2014 for an advert.
2014 also saw the reintroduction of regular cruises around Flat Holm Island on a motorboat christened Dame Shirley (as in Shirley Bassey).
The pier has a link with the RAF's 617 Squadron – the World War Two 'Dambusters' Squadron – as their squadron leader had strong family ties to the town. The pavilion observatory has been renamed the 617 Room and the 2013 reopening featured a celebratory fly-past by an RAF 'Dambusters' Tornado.
In the souvenir shop, you can buy pieces of rotting wood replaced in the 1994 restoration.
Penarth Pier has a glorious verdigris copper roof. The pavilion is about to be restored. I know this because I can see it from across the road, where we are now standing, delaying the moment when we've nothing else to aim for. I learn more about the restoration when we head into the exhibition that faces it over the prom.
The exhibition in the pier shop is nothing like that in Hastings, nor really the one at Herne Bay. This one has an Arts-Councilstyle, oral-history display that my eyes slide off, a model of the coming refurbishment that I don't look at, and a woman behind the counter who is resolutely not interested in the slightest that we've been to every pier in England and Wales.
Mumbles closed, Beaumaris just a wall, Penarth under threat of artless regeneration, it seems, Aberystwyth tacky in a dark way, and Bangor cute and loved. The last few piers we've been to are almost a microcosm of the whole lot. I'm sure I now look at each one through the prism of all of the others, but there are definite types: old, commercial and fading into the past; glossy and soulless; falling down; or loved and owned by the people who live and work near them. I like the last two types the most and the glossy ones not at all. If you're not going to let the weeds grow through and show life as lived then you aren't reflecting the place where you're living. If the seaside is a reflection of the country and ourselves, then it's the bits we see that aren't perfect that will feel right.
* * *
We walk up and down the pier, very much numbed by the grammar of piers to really take in much detail. I get the feeling I want to do something, anything. The numbness is overwhelming and I need to shock myself into the present. Then I realise something. I've been to the seaside 50 or so times on this trip but never in the actual sea once.
* * *
I stare across the water. I can see Weston – where we started an age ago – in the fuzzy way that you can see other countries over water. There's a plaque at the entrance to the pier here that commemorates someone swimming over the Bristol Channel to Weston and it feels like we should do that, or should do something more spectacular even. Overhearing a conversation on the prom about a lost dog makes me want to suggest that we should immediately drop everything to find it, and then go find all the lost dogs in the country. I don't mention this right now. Give it a week or two.
* * *
The beach consists of pebbles. Smooth, cold stones shock the soles of my feet as I struggle to keep my balance. I'm mentally steeling myself for how cold it's going to be, but even then, as the first wave hits my legs, I'm shocked. Quickly I wade in till my shoulders are submerged and I have trouble breathing for the first minute or two. And, despite not wanting to put it off, it still takes me a minute or so more to dunk my head completely under the water. I take a breath, then my world is cold and salt. I feel it all go, the stress, the planning, the awkwardness. It feels like an age but my head is probably only under the water a few seconds. It doesn't matter.
* * *
After 55 piers plus some we didn't intend, after 12 days and 11 nights, after tents and beds, after many pubs, but mostly after hour after hour of that bloody car and its smell, it's done. What now?
A kid on the beach sits with an acoustic guitar, bare back against the sea wall. I think I catch him singing: 'You can go your own way.'
We have but one way to go, and only one method to take. It starts with a push.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BRUMMING ON EMPTY
Polly Harvey asks us to take her back to beautiful England. The car is subdued, there's no place or opportunity to celebrate, just a two-hour schlep back in a vehicle that isn't fit to make scenic stops. I want a drink so badly, but can't as I'll have to drive once Midge has got us back. I'm already worrying about how to start it again if it stops. At the moment it's going at least, going through backwoods A-roads: 'more interesting,' says the driver.
We get onto the M5 eventually and straight away see a sign that tells us there are delays from Junction Seven to Junction Five. I calculate that this will bring us back into Birmingham in time for rush hour. That doesn't happen, as soon afterwards we hit traffic around Worcester. That's a metaphor for returning to civilisation if ever there was one: three lanes of static, with cars slowly drifting across lanes near any junction. Next to us, as I stare blankly out of the window, is a battered white minibus with a work gang in it. They aren't talking either, though I suspect that's through tiredness rather than this hollow feeling I'm consumed by.
I'm not sure what I'm going back to. We've proved it can be done – not that anyone really cared enough to doubt us.
The bit I'm looking forward to is that hour or so before sleep when food doesn't taste right at home, when you want comfort, but everything's just off. A broken-down car sits on the hard shoulder, and the family is now sitting in the sun on the embankment with their golden retriever. I point and we sing a song for the last time.
Eventually we get back, drop Midge off at the house he shares with his dad. He leaves the engine running as we swap seats, shifting equipment and Danny about for the next bit of the drive. We wave Midge off. He's a terrible driver, but a very good man. We love him. Twelve days with barely more than six feet between the three of us, there's a lasting bond created here. With tears and a hug I drop Danny off too – door open, car chugging, keys in the ignition – and I've probably never felt more alone.
Later, I lie alone in bed: too hot to move, sweat droplets forming on my widow's peak and I contemplate what I'm going to do next. I haven't a clue. I'm not sure how this ends.
* * *
I often think back to the trip. What was it? I mean it certainly wasn't a holiday, but, even though it was hard at times, it wasn't work either. It was something we needed to do. A pilgrimage. Something our souls wouldn't have forgiven us for if we hadn't done it.
So who or what in our pilgrimage was the God we were trying to get closer to? I once heard a theory that the reason that we evolved the way we did, relatively hairless, with chamber lungs and the ability to float from the moment of our birth, is because we are descendants of the monkeys that met the sea. That branch of the ancestral tree settling near water. Now, I'm sure there are a hundred reasons why this is total horse shit, but it does explain one thing that nothing else does: our deep and utter connection to the sea. It never got old, that excitement of seeing the sea after a short time driving inland. Despite following the coast we still would race to be the first to spot it. And, when we got to the piers, the majority of time was spent just looking out to the horizon.
Piers are nothing if not adaptable. The ones that survive are the ones that can anticipate the needs and whims of the public. Be it in the terrible lowest-common-denominator way of Blackpool or the simplicity of Boscombe. Personally, I think the only reason piers exist is so humans can go out and collect themselves and connect to the deep, unknowable
entity that is the sea. Of all the things that they offer, the piers that endure are the ones that are about this connection. Pier fishing, deckchairs, bars and restaurants offer not much more than a chance to sit and commune with something bigger than ourselves.
Like all pilgrims, the clothes we wore were modest and imbued with meaning. We deprived ourselves of food and suffered on the crucifix of our own excesses. And at the end we're changed.
* * *
A story isn't just what happens while it's happening. A book of a trip isn't a record of what you did in the time you were living it – it's a record of all the living you did up to that point and maybe even more so the life you lived while writing it. Everything changes.
I'm sitting on a boat on the Adriatic, the sun blazing red low in the sky. Contrails crack the hazy cloud cover like the scorched earth a little way inland. I'm looking over the intensely clear water for the promised dolphins. I'm on honeymoon, with my Guinevere, but I'm scribbling these notes into a notebook identical to the one I had on the trip. Not everything changes.
It's now getting on for two years since we first started planning Pier Review and my view of life is very different. I've moved to the countryside, Danny moved to the coast. Midge remained in Birmingham, which is good for the city as we were worried that, like the ravens at the Tower of London, the kingdom would fall without him. Not everything changes.
So what has changed? I'm not telling you right now, except that the Clio destroyed itself as I sped down the M40 about a year ago.
But England, Wales, Britain, whatever, that does change: it evolves. And bound up in that are the echoes of how we see it. The edges of culture are important, and the edges of the landmass are too. Where we touch something we can't understand, the sea, where we can look out and away, in the spaces where we get space to think – that's where the evolution happens.
Our country, like a story, doesn't exist without its future as well as its past.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Danny and Jon would like to thank all those who have expressed belief in this adventure and the resulting book. That includes Harry Vale, Margaret and Richard Moorhouse, Pete Ashton (who also refused to come along to take photos), Ben Whitehouse, Laura McDermott, Brian Simpson, Julia Higginbottom, Louise Carrier and Mark Hill, all of whom backed the original crowdfunding bid, getting us on the road.
Our gratitude also goes to everyone who read early drafts and offered advice, puns, or spotted huge embarrassing mistakes, especially Julia Gilbert, Gavin Wray, Jon Hickman and Mat Atkins. We didn't notice missing an entire pier out on the south coast or that we doubled back on ourselves to get it. We didn't notice doing it, nor after when writing about it, nor even when editing: in fact if it wasn't for our agent Joanna Swainson we'd still be thinking 'Blimey, all these roads around Herne Bay look the same.' For that, and every other bit of valuable advice and help, and for believing that this was worth it, Joanna, thank you.
Jon would like to thank Libby, Poppy and Fritz for all things, including company, advice on Danny's feminism, helping us find out which bits just didn't work, warming the settee and not sitting on the keyboard quite as much as you would have liked.
Danny would like to thank his Mom, Dad, Craig and Caroline for their kind support, and anyone who has had to put up with him banging on about the book. He would like to dedicate this book to his Nan, who will never get to read it, but is proud of him anyway.
And of course we both would like to thank Midge, without whom, if we'd made the trip at all, we'd have probably done it at higher speed. You're a lovely man.
IT'S ON THE METER
One Taxi, Three Mates and 43,000 Miles of Misadventures around the World
Paul Archer & Johno Ellison
ISBN: 978 1 78372 766 7 (ePub), 978 1 78372 765 0 (Mobi)
When three friends – Paul, Johno and Leigh – fuelled by an alcohol-induced dream to travel the world, clicked ‘buy’ on an iconic London cab called Hannah, little did they know what they were letting themselves in for. Leaving the Big Smoke in their taxi, bound for Sydney, the lads began a 43,000-mile trip that would take them off the beaten track to some of the most dangerous and deadly places on the earth. By the time they arrived home, they would manage, against all the odds, to circumnavigate the globe, and, in doing so, break two World Records.
From altercations with the Iranian Secret Police to narrowly escaping the Taliban, the trio’s adventure is filled with hair-raising escapades. Feel the fear, frolic in the fun and meet the hundred passengers the taxi picked up along the way, as the authors take you on their action-packed journey.
ON THE ROAD... WITH KIDS
One Family's Life-Changing Gap Year
John Ahern
ISBN: 978 1 78372 823 7 (ePub), 978 1 78372 822 0 (Mobi)
One Family. 30 Countries. No Turning Back.
John Ahern had a good job, a big house, a loving wife and two great kids. But he felt he was somehow failing as a husband and father. Craving a great adventure to bring his family closer together, he sabotages his high-flying career, rents out the house and buys a battered old campervan online. The plan is to spend a year on the road… with kids. As they roll through 30 countries on an unpredictable, challenging and hilarious journey, John and his family find themselves mugged by monkeys, charmed by snake handlers and inspired by their fellow wanderers to create a life less ordinary. It’s a life-changing trip. Take it!
ARE WE NEARLY THERE YET?
A Family's 8,000-Mile Car Journey Around Britain
Ben Hatch
ISBN: 978 0 85765 309 3 (ePub), 978 0 85765 351 2 (Mobi)
If you think writing a guidebook is easy, think again…
They were bored, broke, burned out and turning 40, so when Ben and Dinah saw the advert looking for a husband and wife team with young kids to write a guidebook about family travel around Britain, they jumped at the chance. With naïve visions of staring moodily across Coniston Water and savouring Cornish pasties, they embark on a mad-cap five-month trip with daughter Phoebe, four, and son Charlie, two, embracing the freedom of the open road with a spirit of discovery and an industrial supply of baby wipes.
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