I Went to Blackpool
"Saltwater in your veins" My grandfather would say to me as we worked the boats offshore in the 80s and 90s.
I was an Oarsman on the John Lea and Domino which were two 22foot converted sailboats that ran on war surplus fuel since 1946.
No, I didn't row. When these slow boats came into shore we'd load and unload passengers off their sterns into Bedford trucks that had their tops cut off (yet more war surplus).
The thing is they don't turn, they have to be turned. As the tillerman gives it all he can to keep her hard rudder over the Oarsman balances a 12 foot oak oar off her prow and at the right moment, like he's about to spear some great beast, the oar snakes into the water and down to the soft sand by water's edge.
The Oarsman judges the pull and retrieves then repeats the act. again and again each time with a little more angle and bracing to persuade her round before she loses speed and becomes dead in the water or worse still, overshoots her turn and runs aground.
He feels the boat as she fights his persuasion, knows how much to hang on, knows when she's liable to pick him up and throw him to the deck or even rip the oar from his hands. Then... his job done, he runs the gunwhales and never missing a foot, leaps down into the water's edge to chat with the mad eyed lass who stands alone watching.
At the end of the day the Oarsman's shirt is stuck to his chest, not with sweat but with a thin film of blood from the broken surface blood vessels he's shattered fighting the white whale. She sits silently on the carriage waiting to be towed back up the slade and to rest, he laughs loud and the wild eyed one is there again, he grabs her hand and, his pockets full of money earned hard; a town laid out in front of them full of loud noises, neon and madness. They grin and their feet pound the promenade beating a tattoo close to their hearts.
Ours was the last of the Blackpool boating families to wind up business in the 1990's.
Salt water runs in my family's blood, you can wade or sail here but make way when the oar slices down and the Oarsman laughs.
I was an Oarsman on the John Lea and Domino which were two 22foot converted sailboats that ran on war surplus fuel since 1946.
No, I didn't row. When these slow boats came into shore we'd load and unload passengers off their sterns into Bedford trucks that had their tops cut off (yet more war surplus).
The thing is they don't turn, they have to be turned. As the tillerman gives it all he can to keep her hard rudder over the Oarsman balances a 12 foot oak oar off her prow and at the right moment, like he's about to spear some great beast, the oar snakes into the water and down to the soft sand by water's edge.
The Oarsman judges the pull and retrieves then repeats the act. again and again each time with a little more angle and bracing to persuade her round before she loses speed and becomes dead in the water or worse still, overshoots her turn and runs aground.
He feels the boat as she fights his persuasion, knows how much to hang on, knows when she's liable to pick him up and throw him to the deck or even rip the oar from his hands. Then... his job done, he runs the gunwhales and never missing a foot, leaps down into the water's edge to chat with the mad eyed lass who stands alone watching.
At the end of the day the Oarsman's shirt is stuck to his chest, not with sweat but with a thin film of blood from the broken surface blood vessels he's shattered fighting the white whale. She sits silently on the carriage waiting to be towed back up the slade and to rest, he laughs loud and the wild eyed one is there again, he grabs her hand and, his pockets full of money earned hard; a town laid out in front of them full of loud noises, neon and madness. They grin and their feet pound the promenade beating a tattoo close to their hearts.
Ours was the last of the Blackpool boating families to wind up business in the 1990's.
Salt water runs in my family's blood, you can wade or sail here but make way when the oar slices down and the Oarsman laughs.
By:
Bikewreck
Age:
41-45
,
Male
