It Was Once Home
Glittering blue seas surround the small isthmus, crammed with houses on narrow streets and overlooked by a grassy and, equally, rocky promontory. Upon which sits a lone chapel, standing solid in the face of Atlantic storms. This granite edifice is dedicated to St. Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, merchants and peddlers.
The south facing side of the isthmus lies the harbour. A pean to Victorian and Edwardian engineering. A welcoming embrace it offers to fishermen, sailors and pleasure craft. And these days, to jet skis and paddle boarders. Its warmth is felt both physically, mentally and once, for me at least, emotionally. Yet, it has begun to change. Grey buildings becoming less solid, as what was once seen as sturdy is replaced by transparency.
It was the beauty of the sunlight, that once attracted artists as famous as JMW Turner, is becoming despoiled by modern tastes. Pilchard cellars are now cinema rooms. Granite is now prefaced with glass.
So when the tide rolls in, sunlight sparkles on the ripples of the sea. Yet, that same light rebounds, refracts and reflects in every direction. Blinding. The silvery shimmer has been replaced by a spotlit glare from North, South, East and West. There is no escape, when there is glass everywhere.
A seaside town, that I once called home, hides behind its spotlight a darkness that cannot be named.
Faces come to me, as I reflect on the memories that inspire these words. People that no longer live or breath, a final destination for many that have left too soon. Yet, in the midst of these recollections, I cannot deny the beauty that lies within this sun soaked bay, this town that once thrived. However, final words uttered on a Sunday night and lives ruined in the first dawn light, cloud these words I type.
Sophistry is spouted by those that have made the most. Whilst up the valley, far away, ruined lives still reside; forgotten.
Up the valley and away from the beauty of the harbour a small conurbation survives, made of grey pebble-dashed houses that suck in the light. The wind, up there, is a permanent fixture along with the litter, whistling amongst dormant streets and up cul-de-sacs. Along mown lawns, lawns full of children's playthings and lawns grown wild, with car parts, cars, and other mechanical paraphernalia. This is a place where everything happens, but no one observes.
It is at the edge of town and the edge of the West Cornwall Moors. Where no one visits, not even the police.
People who live here are disrespected and disregarded.
Summer months bring visitors and vacationers anew. The warmth becoming intensified as people and cars are crammed into the tiny cobbled streets. Each and every one of them wants to taste a piece of paradise, to say 'I was there'.
Children gaily lick multi-coloured ice creams, as parents scoff pasties in white wrappers, before discarding them at will, even though there are repositories littered along the Edwardian Wharf. On the pavements, trying to attract trade are the peddlers of hair wraps and temporary tattoos, forcing those same children, adults and locals to walk in the road, as giant gas guzzling cars edge cautiously up the promenade, clouding the air with a fug of diesel.
This is modernity, with acrements and people, lost in a vacancy of a vacation.
No longer is this a town that functions. It services the needs of visitors, no matter that those who visit are rude, obnoxious and entitled. Where people on a minimum wage are treated as servants by those who have needs, desires, whims and wishes. And woe betide if these are not met. Holidays are where dreams are made, not where wishes are never sated.
Sunburn and sunstroke prevail more than kindness and care.
Alcohol is consumed in vast quantities, with plastic glasses, glass bottles and cans are strewn across the golden sands of the crescented beach. Where people watch majestic sunsets, witnessing the beauty and power of nature. They wallow in the awe that it inspires, sensing that they and nature are as one, watching the sun setting behind the horizon of the vast Atlantic Ocean.
Where once artists have tried to remember and repaint the tales of those sunsets, imprinting the fantastical scenes upon their mind's eye; people now just fumble in the dark, struggling to their feet on a cooling sand, ignoring the stars that begin to shine overhead.
Money has left this town vacant. Happiness just a dream.
That Edwardian Wharf so empty in the depths of winter, and those tightly packed houses on tiny cobbled streets creating a human black hole, where nothing seems to exist.
Even the ghosts have gone. The spectres of a former life, a former town, that once felt vitality and verve have vanished, never to return.