Just the other day weather and chance found me contemplating our wonderful Norfolk coast. The tide was out and the- much depleted in recent year's- bird migration had been pushed back, virtually to the distant horizon.
Being interested in nature and most things nature-wise (as well as many things less so) I would have far preferred that the tide were bustling fully in, the waves angrily rearing up, before pounding down with unholy force upon the trembling shore, whilst birds in their thousands slipped the peaks and troughs, winging their ways to pastures new, in preparation for the changing season. But, as I have already made clear, this was not the case.
Instead I happened to find myself contemplating the marvellously weathered groynes, in speechless awe of the manner in which nature is able to quietly work its undeniable magic, subtly reclaiming these meagre defences against the stealthy depletion of our sand. I watched, from a distance, as a wizened salty sea dog, some thirty metres away, worked loose an embedded stone, from a sand smoothed crevice in the timbers.
So fascinated was I, by his patient determination, that I allowed myself to drift into one of those other-worldly trances, where time most certainly slows to a crawl. I have not the faintest idea for how long I stood in entranced observation, neither, I am sure, would science have been able to enlighten me further as to the duration. Outside, in the fuller world, probably no more than a dozen or so silky rippled waves would have had time to snake their meandering ways across the sodden sands, yet, encased inside my skull, I had been free to wander back and forth in history, conversing animatedly and at length with several significant characters, even drinking deep into the night with one such, in a tavern that common sense tells me had almost certainly nestled not more than a strong-armed stone's throw from where I presently stood. That there is no longer any sign of such a place, nor any reference to such in any unearthed historical document, does little to convince me of the error of my unswerving certainty, from my conviction that there it once rose, proudly from a nook in the cliff's pinnacle.
Perhaps at that very spot, mesmerised still, I would have remained, had I not been rudely startled back to the present by the suddenly close up and more confrontational face of the self same sea dog. Perhaps he was right to have enquired of me what the blazes I was doing- it matters not in the grander scheme of things- rooted knee-deep in the North Sea, gesticulating wildly, as if in conversation with another.
Upon rejoining the present I was initially somewhat relieved to have been redirected, albeit rather too late for the satisfactory salvation of my best pair of Testoni, hand-made shoes. Fortune is not always the most companionable of colleagues, but it transpired that he had, this time at least, chosen to deal me a mixed hand. My shoes may have been ruined- the cheque for replacement is already winging its way over seas- but the sea dog was not, as I had earlier presumed, in the slightest degree confrontational. On the contrary, he was- mistakenly, I can assure you- more concerned for my mental health. The deeply creviced face, as deep as if rivulets of flood water had been eroding the same for decades, presented as a delta of life's experiences. And I again risked more hostile challenge as I stared in amazed embarrassment- like a Victorian gentleman at a thankfully-now-discredited freak show- when the features before me softened, morphed and realigned themselves in to what I still like to think of as some sort of a smile. I had inadvertently amused the character, I think, by disclosing the precise sum of money paid for my unsalvageable shoes.
Had the aforementioned tavern still been present I am certain that we would, by now, have become regulars; highly likely the best of friends. Instead, we had to settle for the warming tipple- actually rather fierce for my tender and sophisticated palate- that issued forth from a curiously battered and misshapen hip flask, shared upon the very spot where the certain tavern had once stood. Few could be so fortunate as to have shared such enriching conversation with one so generous of opinion and anecdote. Few could be so fortunate as to have been gifted such life-lessons, gleaned from such hard-earned and pained experiences. It is indeed one of life's more valuable lessons to have expended so much energy and so many words, over such deeply vital and learned topics as I was privileged to have done that afternoon. This was tempered only slightly by my own poor memory, with regards to many of the finer points discussed, and not helped in the grander scheme by the cruel and thudding headache with which I still find myself. Undoubtedly such an intellectual workout will make heavy demands upon the unaccustomed brain.
Unearthed from the wisdoms hiding in the darkened corners of memory I was, I certainly recall, further enlightened as to one fascinating historical point; one which alludes cyclically back to the groynes to which I now feel so deeply indebted. Indeed so indebted do I feel that I am driven to share such, before memory devises yet more cruel tricks upon my ailing brain.
The earliest groynes, you will no doubt already know, were built with a somewhat different purpose to that with which we associate them today. Perhaps what you have not yet learned is that the earliest builders of these magnificently defiant structures were highly superstitious. Why would they not be, what with so much that was happening in their world still largely open to misinterpretation and misunderstanding?
Whilst struggling with the ocean's currents, the power of the waves, the drawing of the shifting sands away from their feet and their attempts at securing lasting foundations, the groyne builders would naturally have had time to ponder the huge weight of seemingly insurmountable forces waged against their efforts. They, naturally, searched for signs and clues as to exactly what they were pitched against and they found these signs, or rather thought that they had, in the conspicuous cormorant.
The cormorant, a bird that they had watched for decades, openly depleting their own fish stocks, darkly watching and waiting until the humans were on the verge of capitalising upon their efforts before darting in and, often, making off with many of the very best specimens. The builders already 'knew' that black was the colour of the night, a time of human vulnerability, one of untold mysterious sounds (not yet understood) and otherworldly happenings. Obviously these birds were not to be trusted; rather they were birds that necessity dictated would need close watching. And, as we all know, when something is watched more closely than perhaps we are accustomed to new, fresh and previously unnoticed observations are sometimes chanced upon.
Thus, it was noticed that the cormorant, contrary to centuries of assumption, was not actually a bird at all. How could it be, with its strange habit of slowly sinking into the very waves that it was pretending to embrace, its bizarre 'dragon-like' habit of standing with its wings outstretched against the drying winds? No wonder so many ships were being lost at sea, what with so many free-moving dragons bobbing upon its surface, or watching its ebb and flow from various vantage points; seemingly hungry birds during the day but, now-understood-to-be, only far smaller shadows of something considerably more sinister of a dark night.
Many of the earliest attempts at groyne building were, of course, unsuccessful. Some, painstakingly erected, and proudly exclaimed to be thoroughly storm-worthy structures, would disappear without trace during the persistent ravages of a winter's night, before even the first signs of seaweed or barnacle were able to set up home, much to many a patron's distress and cost. By this time the builders, by necessity nomadic, travelling on to wherever the next job might be, had long since gone, taking with them the full and unjust payment for their shoddy workmanship. If only there were some means of testing the stability of these 'finished' groynes, before nature's next destructive visit to the same shores?
Luckily, there was a then cabin boy, quickly to climb to third in command of the Mary Rose (thus prematurely lost on the 19th July 1545), by the name of Sebastian Threaks, who loved nothing more than to fritter away the hours, making observed notes about nature. Had his reputed to be copious notebooks survived the wrecking of King Henry's favourite ship (and had they not in some manner been found to be sacrilegious) it is possible that he may have set the course of natural history forward by centuries and have become as much of a household name as the likes of Charles Darwin. Alas, the fickle finger of fate!
The one and only surviving detail that has travelled down the centuries, believed to have been passed on through word of mouth, via a close colleague and rather more fortunate sailor upon the Mary Rose, was that Sebastian had noticed that no cormorant had ever been seen to settle upon the end of an un-seaworhy groyne. It was almost as if these mysterious non-bird creatures were able to sense the groyne's foundations shifting beneath the sands and, naturally, not being a true and thus confident swimming bird, the creatures were unprepared to risk being cast, still sodden, back into the seething ocean.
So, based purely upon the stated observations of one Sebastian Theaks, a system was devised, whereby no payment for a finished groyne would exchange hands until the patron had witnessed the settling of a cormorant upon this same groyne. If the cormorant settled for long enough not only would it ensure full payment for the builder, it might also find itself on the receiving end of a well-aimed rock or spear, ensuring the builder also a full bounty from the Lord Admiral himself, in gratitude for his efforts at helping to rid the sea of its night-time haunts.
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