As the eldest son, it falls to me to tell thee something about my world, my friends and The Lighthousekeeper, my second home. Where should I start? Believe me, this won't be bleddy easy.
The Lighthousekeeper is where you'll find the Blighs. The Blighs have run the pub for donkey's years but the time is coming when they two should have to put their feet up and take a rest. Ride off into the sunset. To be fair they have never really worked their socks off since they took the bleddy place on. The Lighthousekeeper is, for want of a better description; there isn't one, a dump. It's cold, even in summer when Camelann is chocker-block with snivelling parents and complaining kids. it's strange; you'll hardly ever see any 'emmits'; that's our Duchy name for tourists, in the Lighthousekeeper. Just as bleddy well, Bligh would soon scare them away and if he didn't; Blencathra would!
The Doom Bars. They sound like a punk rock band, don't they! Far from it.
We have two Doom Bars hereabouts. First there's the sandy one surrounded by water. Second, this won't be easy, second is the cold, damp, darkened Doom Bar that is the most important part of my local, the Lighthousekeeper Inn.
The sandy one is the treacherous strip of sand that shifts around just inside the estuary. Hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes have been smashed to pieces there. Thousands of folk have been smashed to pieces there. In summer the Doom Bar can be a child's playground, in winter, it can be a graveyard.
The dark, damp Doom Bar is not quite so treacherous but there is a large element of danger lurking within. Blencathra Bligh! Blencathra, the goddess of granite! Distant cousin to the Easter Island statues. More closely related to Gog and Magog, the celebrated Cornish giants who used to knock around the Duchy's bottom at one time. I'm not saying the Duchy has a bottom-apart from Newquay-I mean the bottom of the Duchy; Penzance, Land's End, Newlyn and The Lizard. There's nothing after these quaintly named places, well that idn't quite true; there is Atlantis.......
No, no wait, it's there, somewhere offen Land's End. Nobody knows for sure exactly where, it's sorta lost temporarily, we 'ave just misplaced it, nothing more.
O d'you hear the seas complainin', and complainin',
whilst it's rainin'?
Did you hear it mourn in the dimorts,* when the surf
woke up and sighed?
The choughs screamed on the sand,
And the foam flew over land,
And the seas rolled dark on the Doom-Bar at rising of
the tide.
I gave my lad a token, when he left me nigh heartbroken,
To mind him of old Padstow town, where loving souls
abide;
'Twas a ring with the words set
All round, "Can Love Forget?"
And I watched his vessel toss on the Bar with the
outward-turning tide.
D'you hear the seas complainin', and complainin', while
it's rainin'?
And his vessel has never crossed the Bar from the purple seas outside;
And down the shell-pink sands,
Where we once went, holding hands,
Alone I watch the Doom-Bar and the rising of the tide.
One day--'twas four years after--the harbour-girls, with
laughter
So soft and wild as sea-galls when they're playing seek-
and-hide,
Coaxed me out--for the tides were lower
Than had ever been known before;
And we ran across the Doom-Bar, all white and shining
wide.
*Twilight.
I saw a something shinin', where the long, wet weeds
were twinin'
Around a rosy scallop; and a gold ring lay inside;
And around its rim were set
The words "Can Love Forget?"--
And there upon the Doom-Bar I knelt and sobbed and
cried.
I took my ring and smoothed it where the sand and
shells had grooved it;
But O! St Petrock bells will never ring me home a
bride!--
For the night my lad was leavin'
Me, all tearful-eyed and grievin"
He had tossed my keepsake out on the Bar to the rise
and fall of the tide!
D'you hear the seas complainin', and complainin', while
it's rainin'?
Did you hear them call in the dimorts, when the surf woke up and sighed?
Maybe it is a token
I shall go no more heart-broken--
And I shall cross the Doom-Bar at the turning of the
tide.
