The Estuary is seldom mentioned in the literary pages of national newspapers so when, yesterday, the celebrated novelist Jane Gardam, gave it and my village of Lympstone a brief mention in the Saturday Guardian Review I thought it might be a good idea that her few golden words should be discoursed upon in my blog.
In fact her article was about posting poems, something that she has been doing in Sandwich where she lives. She was inspired, and she says so, by her friend, and mine, Harland Walshaw, who has been posting poems in Lympstone to good effect, hence the mention. She wrote no more than this but her words brought back to me memories of train journeys along the west bank of the estuary which many must share:
I haven't been to Lympstone. It is the string of lights you watch across the estuary of the River Exe from the train as you travel to Exeter from London.
When I, with my Mum and Dad and my big brother, travelled from Liverpool to Padstow on the steam train for our wartime/post war summer holidays, the Exe was the first decent stretch of water we encountered and to look across to Lympstone nestling between its red cliffs , the name was unknown to us, was to share a magic moment to be followed by more magic: the dramatic tunnels at Dawlish and then, emerging at last, the sea, the sea, the open sea.
Well it is a grand thing to see one's name in the paper. I have always thought so and I am sure the Estuary does too.
"It is the string of lights you watch across the estuary of the River Exe from the train as you travel to Exeter from London"
ReplyDeleteGeography's a bit off, there...
That's what JG wrote but it can't surely be what she meant???
ReplyDeleteMaybe the copy-editor introduced it? Beautiful picture of Lympstone, by the way; I've yet to go there and catch both tide in and good light.
ReplyDeleteIf ever, we could meet for a coffee or a beer.
ReplyDelete