Peak 3 (Stillborn)

I’m currently writing a piece for my trip around the Shipping Forecast areas set in the Tyne region. It’s along the same lines as the Alderley and Avebury pieces, elsewhere on this site in that it’s a mix of curated recollection, history, poetry, etc. It takes place between Whitby, Robin Hoods Bay and Ravenscar, three places that absolutely fascinate me for various reasons. The final piece will contain elements of Dracula, Bram Stoker’s history with the town, Whitby Abbey and the homegrown supernatural tales that have been usurped, Abbess Hild, Constance, Marmion and Walter Scott, smuggler, meteorological anomalies, Ravenscar, HP Lovecraft, David Bowie, Roman Soldiers, John Constantine, King George III and generally falling into madness. And, ultimately, not getting any work done.

The final segment is a poem lamenting the things that didn’t happen in Ravenscar, a town that never really existed, per see. You can see a map of it above and the poem below.

Stillborn 
 
There isn't a band to welcome  
the holiday makers that never  
arrived, by the railway line,  
 
now closed for lack of use.  
Nor promenades one could walk  
out with a beau against an apron  
 
of sticky rock and bunting.  
An absence of augured guest-house  
ma'ams – suspicious of the sharp  
 
influx of nervous ‘Mr and Mrs 
 Smiths’ - that cannot scowl at  
a secret seaside tryst while serving  
 
a Full English through gritted  
dentures and tart-rouged cheeks. 
Unaware of the might-have-beens,  
 
the intrigues or joy, hardy ungulates  
wear their hooves down on shy  
kerbstones, that hide and cringe  
 
beneath wind-cowed, lank  
and shivering grass, remembering  
their erstwhile future in the remains  
 
of a still-born town.