In the summer of 1974, I was twenty years old. A lot of things happened that summer. I covered hundreds of miles through hitchhiking. I made some money working at a Butlin's holiday camp and later on at a raspberry farm that overlooked Beauly Firth near Inverness in Scotland. I attended The Cambridge Folk Festival and I also visited Ireland for the first time, carrying everything I needed in a weighty rucksack - tent, sleeping bag, camping stove, extra clothes, toiletries, everything.
On June 12th in Dublin, I bought a little notebook which I used as a journal for the rest of that summer. I was pretty good at keeping up with the days. Fortunately, I kept that notebook and rediscovered it a few weeks ago. It is the diary of another me - a sapling. A young man in search of things - for understanding, wisdom, happiness, new experiences and of course love.
By June 29th I was on Cape Clear Island off the coast of County Cork. This is what I wrote that day:-
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There is a castle on an island promontory which looks out from the very edge of Europe. Years of gales and human neglect have caused its walls to crumble, so that instead of towering nobly above the mother rock, it has, rather like a chameleon, taken on an appearance that blends in with the cliffs and the rocky islets that cluster around it.
Ah, but in spite of this decline, the ancient fortress has not yet surrendered its history which the jealous rocks watched being formed. Still, still midst the tenacious rock plants in the crevices, standing there without motion you can sense times that have gone... A pirate called O'Driscoll, on those decaying stone stairs, his footsteps padding, a tankard of Spanish wine in his right fist. He stops on the parapet above that frothing sea, hacking his throat clear. He looks out through the moonless night to the horizon and his gaze stumbles upon distant torchlight upon one of his wooden ships returning from the Americas.
On that very same horizon two centuries later it's the blue and white spinnaker of an elegant French yacht which reveals itself to the island and the now crumbling castle. Oh that that man of the sea with lice burrowing in his scalp and food stains on his raggedy beard could see his proud fortress as it is today.
Perhaps standing with me in the soft summer grasses on the clifftop, his hard shell would crack and at last words would rise from his hidden heart: "I didn't know. I didn't know" and we would walk along the island's rim watching seabirds gliding to their ledges and O'Driscoll would survey it all then lean over the edge searching for his reflection in the waves below and having failed to find it he would renounce his days of power and plunder and see like me a world of waiting and wondering - not rushing to pursue foolish dreams.
Seagulls, rock plants, yachts, cliff faces, a distant lighthouse - I missed it all loading my camera.
You've been a writer for a long time then. I was too busy going to bars and dancing to think deeply at that age, sadly. If I could turn back time, if any of us could.
ReplyDeleteWritten words have always been very important to me.
DeleteDid you take the photo at the top? It's beautiful! I've kept handwritten journals for years, but I must say... your entry sounds much better than anything I produced at that age. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteNo I did not take that picture back then. I didn't have a camera Kelly.
DeleteYou seem to have been very self-assured at the age of twenty.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is that I was me.
DeleteA Sapling on Cape Clear Island.
ReplyDeleteAnd the wraith of lice-ridden O'Driscoll, bristling the back of your scalp.
Shiver me timbers, I bet O'D offered you a tot of his Creole rum.
Or rhum agricole, the French Caribbean: tastes like Black Bun + Wheesky.
Blistering barnacles, ye even have a rain-spotted Treasure Map, like young Jim in Treasure Island.
Long John Silver only cut throats, O'Driscoll would skin ye alive-alive-o !
The photo could be on the cover of Melmoth by Sarah Perry or its predecessor by Charles Maturin. This is not the place to spent Hogmanay alone, is it?
Since we're near Hallowe'en I shall ask Miss Pennie to read you a poem.
I'm sure you had a weakness for Redheads when you were 20.
*Miss PunnyPennie reads Rantin Rovin Robin by Robert Burns.*
Scottish Poetry Lib. YouTube.
H.
Well I wouldn't mind meeting Miss PunnyPennie to discuss the poem in detail. It was a little disarming for me as my older brother is called Robin!
DeleteOnce a poet, always a poet, my dear. Even in prose.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked that Sister Donna.
DeleteYes tasked is right
ReplyDeleteTasker is usually right.
DeleteI have drawn a few maps in my journal over the years and love the process and looking at them later. I always say I should do it more often but never end up doing so.
ReplyDeleteLike you I am a cartophile.
DeleteI hope that many people have written when they are young. It really shows how we have matured. One entry seems to bring back the whole day.
ReplyDeleteI am rather embarrassed about some of my entries Red.
DeleteYour imaginative engagement with history is a constant.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great piece of writing. I wonder if you can still remember the view?
I have been looking at Google images of Cape Clear Island. Even after all these years it seemed so familiar.
DeleteYou have always been a talented wordsmith, as this journal entry proves. Very evocative reading material! Will you transcribe more for us from that notebook?
ReplyDeleteIn 1974, I was six and started school, like any average six-year-old in Germany. I already knew how to read and write was quite excited to finally get started on what my sister already had been doing for an entire year before me.
I am pleased that this entry sparked some of your own memories of 1974 Meike. I imagine that you were a well-behaved and studious little girl... but I could be wrong!
DeleteSo, you have always been an intrepid explorer then YP.
ReplyDeleteYes I have. It's in my bones.
DeleteIt is a bit melancholy looking back but your notebook brings back memories. I went to Ireland with a friend and my mini van when I was about 20. Lots of memories, the young lads, with homemade trousers and no shoes demanding money off me because I took a photo of the donkeys they were walking along with.
ReplyDeleteDid you give them some or tell then to **** off?
DeleteDid not know the word then! But probably gave them something.
DeleteIsn't it wonderful that you had that time as a young man to explore not only other worlds geographically but thoughts and emotions, too?
ReplyDeleteThat's a nice way to put it Mary.
DeleteIs O'Driscoll a real historical figure, or a creation of your imagination? You definitely evoke a gray, wind-whipped Irish landscape! (That's how I'm picturing it, anyway.)
ReplyDeleteThe castle is known as O'Driscoll's Castle and this family were indeed prominent on the island for centuries.
DeleteA beautiful place.
ReplyDeleteI was about to congratulate you on an excellent photograph, and mention that you had an eye for a good picture even back then. Reading your answer to Kelly's comments I see you didn't have a camera in those days. Fortunately, to our advantage, you've made up for the lack since then.
Maps fascinate me, and I used to pore over them for hours - planning holidays any journeys. Now of course it's so easy - with the click of a button we can summon up Google Earth and actually see where we're going beforehand. Sometimes I think it takes the mystery and some of the pleasure out of travelling to new places. On the other hand it can save making a big mistake!
Did you have any trouble with cows on that holiday?
Oh! I remember one night near Athlone. I had failed to get a lift and darkness was falling so I climbed over a wall and quickly set up my tent. I woke in the morning to the sound of munching dinosaurs. Upon unzipping my tent, I saw that I was surrounded by milking cows!
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