Being Harbour Master

I suppose it would make sense to start at the beginning, where I am from is Clovelly, I am a Clovelly man, born to a family sepia rich in crumpled memories, a lineage creeping back through the dusty albums of time, from a cob, cobbled and white washed cottage clinging to the side of Clovelly’s slippery slope, my father fished and my mother paints, my childhood was one of summers and boats, mackerel and marmite, hidden long lost camps and knock down ginger.
I became a boatman more by evolution than by design, my home became my work became my life, slowly I watched as the salt cracked, sea stained, blue jersied fisher folk slept away, one by one taking their place in the ground far from the harbour and the cry of the sea. I edge my way towards the gaps they leave behind, nervously realizing that you are what’s left of what once was a collection of memories. I took the honorarium as Harbour Master more for my father than myself (his short tenure ended after only a couple of years due to his failed battle with cancer). Many may believe that being Harbour Master of a pretty, tired, picturesque, fishing village whose glory days are its heritage and its future uncertain would be stress free and lazy, but that is only true if you have never met its fishermen and never dealt with its boatmen! Men can be worse than children, more complicated than women, more stubborn than politicians where sea and fish and boats are their toys, each in turn needs careful handling, delicate persuasion and copious amounts of tea, coffee and biscuits, my kitchen is my office, my cafe, and my consultation room.

But fishermen are nothing compared to yachtsmen, weather proofed, storm wracked, wind bound, global positioned, sea weeded and bar propped, keen as a sailor, proud as a mother, their yachts their children, their voyages their adventures, their glorious tall tales, lantern swinging hours of drinking, sea shantied and shanghaied, each night is drunken sailored and leave her Johnny leave her, each day is cast off and bound for the Rio Grande. But who could wish for more, I live upon the shore in a dusty cobweb cottage rich in ghosts, too close to the sea for comfort, watching through its salt grimed windows at the constant changing tide, listening to the seagulls, waiting for the day to begin and boats to arrive, I shall probably spend my days here while dreaming of ocean voyages, I shall gather a collection of memories like an old album that one day I can open and remember it wasn’t all bad. But in the mean time there’s a yacht trying to moor up I’d better go and in the finest traditions of Harbour Masters lend a hand and take a line.