STRANGER ENCOUNTERS 2

LOCATION: Llanddwyn Island. 3pm July 2011

GIST: Sitting on a stone wall outside the Pilot Cottages Museum, enjoying the breath taking scenic views and watching visitors enter and leave the two tiny buildings at the end of a row of four small cottages which were built for the pilots who helped boats navigate into the ports along the Menai Strait.

 

These guys were heroes back in their day. As well as guiding commercial shipping, the pilots crewed the Llanddwyn lifeboat until its withdrawal from service in 1903. The little museum houses information about their lives and beautifully re-creates the cramped, but cosy, one-up-one-down living conditions in which they had to live and raise their families.

Lots of people passed through in the short time that I was there. Suddenly a happy holidaying couple tumbled through the exit door with their three young children. They paused for a moment of contemplation after the museum experience.

HE: It must have been dreadful, having to live in there during the winter.

SHE: Yes, really hard.

HE: Imagine ... No Play Station ... No telly ... No mobile phone 

... Just the sound of the sea bashing on your window.

SHE: Terrible.

NO BIG SPLASH ... BUT THE FUTURE IS HANGING ONTO WAVES

                                                                                                                               copyright hangingontowaves.com

LOVE THIS PIC

Day trippers ... just look at the clothes ... the facial expressions ... the personal effects ... these things I think of when beachcombing.

This was a great day for everyone on board the steamship La Marguerite, but not so good for the passengers of the decrepit paddle steamer Rothsay Castle back in August 1831.

It just wouldn't happen today ... 150 middle class city folk boarded the rotted timbers for a fun day out on the coastline between Conwy and Beaumaris and only 23 survived to tell the tale.


The captain was drunk in his cabin when the old steamer hit hard on Dutchman's Bank, and the rest is history.

It had been a rotten journey - 10 hours to progress thirty six miles (sounds a bit like the A55 on a Friday night) with a helmsman who didn't actually know how to steer.

My finds bag is full of crumbling pocket watches and winders, clay pipe heads, belt buckles and hat pins. I guess they must have been the property of people like this - using their belongings my artwork starts to feel like something of a privilige.





www.beeadmasart.co.uk

St. Peter and the Waves

Beaumaris is packed with Peters. The town has a Peter for every occasion: Pete-the-Feet; Pete-World; Prof-Peter and Peter-Peter.

Peter-Peter (practical in every way) has, this week, been raised to sainthood after performing a minor miracle on my Fisher M-Scope. Yes, she's old, but I love her. Might not be linked to a satellite, but she's come up with some fantastic stuff over the years (anyway, the Penmon postman says that you can't beat an early Fisher M-Scope - and that's good enough for me).

My fault entirely ... Got a huge bleep on Lligwy beach ... Got over excited .. Got careless, threw her down and she hit a rock. Disaster. I found a lump of lead (not a gold sovereign from the Royal Charter) and my little Fisher-friend had bitten the dust (sand in this case).

But sometimes things do happen for the best. I just discovered that I've probably been relying on electronic assistance for far too long - beachcombing with my eyes definitely has its benefits: I walk longer distances and bend over a bit more ... too much information. Good news is that my metal detector is up and running again thanks to the genius of Peter-Peter (and the promise of a couple of pints in The Bull)

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BEACH

Some things come out of the sand as found treasure - this little beauty was a lost one.

First thing I saw was the date: 1603. 'Wow! A 17th century medal', I thought. But no, it is in actual fact a sports medal awarded by the David Hughes Grammar School, Beaumaris in 1936.

HILDA OLIVER
THREE LEGGED RACE
UNDER 16
1936

Hilda would have been so browned off when she discovered that her precious sports medal was lost in the sand on the Menai Strait - it must have been a hard won battle as she struggled to victory across the playing field tied to another schoolgirl. Perhaps someone knows where her family are now?

PICTURE THIS ...

How cold was that day in 1886? These guys are perching precariously close to the shoreline, but they seem to be perfectly comfortable with their proximity to the wreckage of the White Diamond steamer Missouri .  It can, apparently, still be seen in shallow water at Porth-y-Post.

HISTORY~MYSTERY

What’s this all about then?
A sprinkling of pre-history across the Welsh sands, or just a collection of sea tossed rocks? It has been suggested by some local people, in the know, that there has been a flourishing tourist industry in Wales for thousands of years and Neolithic gift shops may have been spread across the coastline for an undeterminable period of time. I tend to go along with this theory as these little stone objects resemble standing stones seen at Bryn Celli Ddu (the mound in a dark grove) and elsewhere on Ynys Môn.

Fantastic to think that some one might have actually carved these pieces for a living. The flow of tourists hasn’t diminished over the centuries, it seems that during mediaeval times pilgrims flocked to these shores en route to salvation and predictably a healthy industry was in operation, providing souvenirs and hat badges for the pious punters - but more on that later.

This particular selection comes in a variety of local stone types, from granite to red sandstone. They measure approx 10-12 cms. Some questions spring up out of the geology e.g., How did pre-historic man carve the granite shapes?

Now there’s a history-mystery for you.

ROCK FACES

BEACH OUT OF REACH

Blue heaven and golden sands - the tourist season's in full flow and my treasure hotspots are definitely out of reach, so I head inland. Digging over sun hardened soil in July is tough, but the promising sound of an electronic bleep in the undergrowth will supply me with enough resolve to endure the inevitable grind. It's going to take some time and I'll probably walk away with a rusty nail, but I've started - so I'll finish.


Too much sun and hard graft .. escaping the discomfort of stinging perspiration my mind wanders back to past expeditions carried out under severely cooler conditions ...


All wrapped up and walking the lonely windswept beach in January a whole world of imagined possibilities unfolds. Thoughts of shipwrecks and ancient cargos colour my intent; but on stooping to retrieve an interesting looking object from an icy clear rock pool, it becomes instantly apparent just how cold the sea is at this time of year. As the bitter bite of the freezing water snaps at my fingers, I often wonder how the stricken sailors of yesteryear ever survived the treacherous waters of the North Wales coastline.

January is the cruellest month and history returns a grim picture. Yet it seems that our forbears were definitely a hardier breed - some people did actually survive the sub zero temperatures of the bitter seas. On New Year's Eve 1845  a brave young lad from Anglesey's Holy Island, single-handedly saved the ship ALHAMBRA and all its crew from certain disaster. Legend has it that he saw the ship heading for the rocks at Rhoscolyn, and knowing the coastline well, jumped into the icy waters and swam out to a rock. He tore his jacket from his body and used it as a flag to wave to the men onboard the ship, directing them around the peninsular to the security of the bay. It's hard to imagine that anyone would be brave enough to do that today - we'd be more likely to film the disaster on the mobile.

BRAVING THE STORM

On the night of October 25th 1859, the coastline saw the worst night in Welsh seafaring history. In what has become known as the Royal Charter Storm, 223 vessels were wrecked and almost 800 lives were lost, but it's probably the luxury steam clipper the Royal Charter that remains the most haunting wreck of them all. That fateful journey from Melbourne to Liverpool should have been a triumphant return for the entrepreneurs who had made their fortunes in the gold fields of Australia - instead, 450 souls perished, along with their money, on the rocks near Moelfre. The Royal Charter carried a bullion cargo of £322,440 in ingots and bags of gold dust, and it's believed that she may have been carrying a further £150,000 in sovereigns which belonged to the passengers. Stories abound of gold coinage scattered far and wide, like seashells, over the foreshore at Lligwy Bay; and to this day Anglesey folklore tells of local salvagers who stored large amounts of sovereigns inside soot blackened kettles, which were hung inconspicuously over the fire, so as to avoid being spotted by HM Customs and Excise.

No-one knows just how much gold from the Royal Charter still remains at the bottom of the sea, everything from cabin doors to candlesticks have been turned up from around the northern shore of Moelfre Head. Clay pipes and coins, glass bottles and shoe buckles are the stuff that dreams are made of - these are the tantalising treasures that will keep you warm when you're wondering why the hell you're out on your own braving the elements. 　　　
　

Blue Island

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell,
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave,
Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave. - LORD BYRON.



This is a journey. It's all about history really, and the fact that we feel somehow driven to express our relationship with the sea. Not to paint its glittering surface or plunder its depths, but to seek out a new nature created from the debris deposited by human disaster.

Here's the fun .. we  are searching for hidden treasure and then we find it.  After the folly and desire of forgotten ages there's little left to ponder, save an occasional piece of driftwood or a faded pottery sherd washed up on the seashore. Fantastic and enigmatic, these corroded fragments from the past are mine and yours - they are immediately our finds - the relationship has formed, the bonding with a bit of wood and clay is instant. Reconstructed by decay and the passage of time they are thrown up by the sea for our discovery and subsequent use in some creative medium, and this is where the journey begins .... we are artists now and this work is about to become our own man-made history.