This item was written for a writing workshop in Marlow library. We had a selection of photos to choose from. We had to choose three and weave them together into the opening of a novel. See if you can guess what my three photos were!
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She had been dreading it. But she had promised, and her mum had been looking forward to it for months. Now it was upon them both. A week at the seaside, the seaside as Helen’s mum knew it – the Irish Sea coast – steel-grey waves, angry with foam. The salt spray stung Helen’s face as she wheeled her mother up and down the promenade. She gazed blankly at the faded grandeur of the Victorian hotel-fronts, the stalls selling colourful tat and the local council’s brave attempt at decorative flower beds.
They faced another evening of a traditional meat and two tinned veg meal followed by a well-meaning singer belting out patronisingly slow cover versions of boring 1950s ballads. Helen would sit through it. She would try to make conversation with her mum. Occasionally, she would smile and nod knowingly to other daughters in the same situation.
Tomorrow, there was hope. The hotel was offering a trip to bingo in the one saving grace of this bleak resort – the enormous art deco Odeon. It had been a temple to the movies and its lines and curves and Ancient Egyptian motifs were still attractive. When television eclipsed the big screen, it became, and still was, a bingo hall. And, may the god of bingo be praised, it acted as a kind of creche for the elderly. Helen was leaving mum in their capable hands and driving out of Northern English seaside bleakdom to give her brain a boost.
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Helen showed her membership card to the volunteer at the gate. After a few steps along the path to the ruin, she let out a sigh. It was just a pile of old stones, like hundreds of others scattered over Great Britain. A much-loved pile of old stones, of course. But it would be so nice to have a bit of reconstruction, rather than just a tired, weather-stained information board. It was too much to ask visitors to imagine the majestic splendour of this place before its destruction. Nevertheless, she determined to enjoy her few hours of freedom, and she wandered around the refectory, the kitchen, the infirmary, the chapter house, the church, the cloister and then the dormitory. She lingered here. What had it been like, for the men who had slept here, to be dragged out and made to watch the glory of God, their place of devotion and their home, burning as if Hell had broken through the crust of the earth to claim it?
Helen sat down on a convenient lump of stone, and closed her eyes to say a prayer for the souls of those poor monks. As she muttered “Amen” to herself, she felt a waft of unexpected warmth which alarmed her and she jumped up, eyes wide open and darting around. So silly of her! It must be nothing – just the sun peaking through a break in the cloud. Then she turned round.
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The photo shown here is the ruined Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. It is a National Trust property and a World Heritage Site. There are dozens of ruined abbeys to visit in England. Not all of them are as iconic as Fountains Abbey.
