Midwinter Solstice: 21 December

Highbury & Islington Station: 14 October 2010,
drawn just after dusk   ©Heather James

In a couple of days it will be the Winter Solstice and where I live in the northern hemisphere that means it will be the shortest day of the year so I thought you might like to read a ghost story to chime with the time of year. So if you are sitting comfortably I will begin.

The Crier of Claife
It was around the time of the Reformation (in the 16th century). On one stormy winter's night when the wind howled up Lake Windermere (in the Lake District in the north of England) and the waves rolled northwards a party of travellers were staying at the old ferry inn beneath Station Scar. They had postponed their crossing until the next day and sat together in front of the roaring fire telling stories and jokes, the ferryman among them. Outside the bare branches of the young sycamore trees moaned and whistled in the blast while from time to time squalls of rain beat against the windows. The ferry boat was securely tied to the landing stage opposite Crow Holme, a small island nearby.

The sound of a voice suddenly wafted across the lake and the ferryman heard it first as he had an ear open for travellers through long practice. It was a prolonged wailing sound and only just audible above the wind. "Holloa! Boat! Holloa there! Boatman!" The long O's sang through the night across the stormy water, at times merging with the wind, at times rising above it.

"Listen!" the ferryman cried. "Somebody's calling!" The chatter stopped and the room was filled with the sounds of the storm.

"I can't hear anything," someone declared.

"You've drunk too much ale ferryman," said another.

"No, listen! I can hear it again!" the ferryman persisted.

Everyone fell silent and then faintly the sound of a voice was heard.

"You can't go tonight" someone exclaimed as the ferryman drained his mug and rose to his feet.

"There's someone waiting, I'll have to go" he replied "it may be a matter of life or death if there's anyone abroad on a night like this."

He made his way to the door and some of the travellers accompanied him to the boat to see him on his way. Once outside the blast of the wind caught them suddenly. Through the interlaced trees the scudding clouds were dimly lit by the intermittent glow of the moon over the far shore. "Expect me in half an hour" the ferryman called as he cast off and took to the oars.

The ferryman steered by keeping the lights of the inn in line with the hill above. At other times a lantern was kept burning at the landing on Nab End but tonight it had blown out. And still that voice called out: "Boat, boat. Halloa there!" as if the traveller could not discern the vessel was creeping slowly over the water towards him.

"Alright, I'm coming, blast you!" the ferryman cursed as he pulled on the oars his temper growing short. The voice had a mournful note about it which fitted in well with the dismal weather.

At length the ferryman gained the lee of the Nab and came alongside the tiny stone jetty looping a line through one of the iron rings set in the stone work. He stepped ashore peering about in the gloom for his mysterious passenger.

"I'm here," he called. "Hallo are you there?" He walked a few steps up the road, his eyes searching in vain for some sign of his impatient fare beginning to think that the fellow had given up hope of a boat and gone away.

A tall shape suddenly materialised out of the darkness before him. "Ah! There you are. Thought you'd given up sir. Have you across in no time..." But the words froze on his lips and the breath choked in his throat. For a split second the ferryman stood stock still and gazed in horror at the abomination that leered at him in the moonlight.

Then uttering a scream he turned and rushed to the boat and pushed panic stricken into the lake. For what stood at the water's edge, claws upraised to the sky, wailing and shrieking in devilish rage was neither man nor beast but some loathsome creature from the very blackest depths of Hell.

The guests at the inn were becoming impatient for the ferryman was long overdue. Just as they were getting ready to go out and see what had happened there came a sound at the door. The ferryman stood at the threshold and for a second there was a deadly silence.

The fellow was scarcely recognisable as a human being. His face had aged 20 years and his hair had turned completely white. He was unable to speak and he was put to his bed and a priest was called who could do nothing for him.

For three days he lay in bed with a high fever, his face contorting with terror when anyone approached, shrieking aloud at times like a soul in mortal torment and then he died without once becoming lucid enough to relate what had happened at the stone jetty at the Nab.

This story is an extract from Tales and Legends of Windemere by Peter Nock, Orinoco Press

My ongoing drawing project

My ongoing drawing project that involves me traveling to every station on the old North London line and drawing at least one picture when I get there now has its own blog and you can find it here. I began it in 2005 and hope I finish it this decade!

It's taken me five years to get to West Ham!

I'm wearing my denim skirt, flat suede shoes with bare legs and I've just done what I've been trying to avoid and that's get stung by a stinging nettle. It reminds me of when I was a little kid and my parents banned me from exploring some rough ground near where we lived. I just had to go and see this place for myself and my legs got stung from top to bottom.

Anyway, today I am exploring East London Cemetery and trying to find a way of getting to the Memorial Park which is next to it without having to go the long way round via the main entrance to the cemetery and the road. I am out of luck and have to retrace my steps. Along the way I gawp at the elaborate memorials that a lot of local people see as a fitting way to remember their loved ones and I ponder that some of these marble and stone fantasies must cost as much as a house. It strikes me that selling memorial stones might be a good business to get into.

My reason for swanning around this part of London is that it is very close to West Ham station and it is the next stop on my continuing drawing project following stations on the Silverlink/North London line. I began this project nearly five years ago. I have 23 more stations to cover and if I want to finish this project in my life time I had better get a move on.

The drawing above is from Memorial Park facing the line of trees beyond which is the cemetery. My mother-in-law made me a present of some watersoluble sketching pencils which I haven't used before. I found working out how much water to use both tricky and intriguing and I've ended up with a drawing which is more lively than the park actually is. I'm off to Paris next week so I'll have another go with them then.
Au revoir.

This station is so devoid of interest I can't find anything to hold my attention

I chose yesterday to carry on with my intermittent drawing project. I noticed that the date of the last sketch was 11 months ago so it's time I got on with it and if I don't get a move on I won't finish it during this lifetime!

For those of you have been reading regularly you will remember that I have awarded myself a travel bursary with the intention of travelling by train along the length of what was, and may still be, known as the North London line from North Woolwich in the east to Richmond in the west making sketches at every station along the way. Since I began this project the line has been truncated and now begins at Stratford which was a bit of a drag. Anyway I decided to stick to the spirit of my original decision and follow as close as possible the route of the old line until I get to Stratford and then all will be simple. Won't it?

So just like a proper train spotter I packed a sandwich and a flask of tea and headed towards the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). This should have been a straightforward journey to West Silvertown but instead proved to be a trek on foot round various building sites. When I was finally on the move the chief thing there was to look at en route were more... building sites. It was so dismal that even though the sun was out and I could see a few yachts sailing on the Thames with the water all sparkly it did nothing to improve my mood.

So I arrived at West Silvertown and it seems to consist of the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery and the Akzo Nobel Nippon Paint factory and a very large road with hardly any traffic. The station is new, enormous and was practically empty and it was so devoid of interest I couldn't find anything to hold my attention. But to fulfil my self imposed task I forced myself to draw something very quickly and that's the result above. I quite like it now I'm away from the subject.

Then I moved onto the delights of Canning Town. Canning Town station is similarly new and uninteresting except there are more people around which was an improvement and it also has a bus station which was also very large and mostly empty. I had the choice on leaving the station of taking the walking route to Excel where the great and the good will be gathering for G20 to sort out the world economy in the next day or two - none of them are going to be distracted by the views that's for sure. Instead I chose to turn left in search of something interesting to draw in downtown Canning Town.

This is a depressing town that appears to have been thrown up during the Victorian era and looks as though it could be blown away by a strong wind. I ended up in a very 21st century branch of Macdonald's nursing a cup of coffee despairing of finding anything of interest. I walked back to the station slowly and then spotted an interesting looking building which might well have been the town hall when it was built. It was more substantial than anything else neighbouring it and chimed with the public library next door to it so that view won my star prize.

On my way to Silvertown

It was great to have a day in the middle of the week to devote to drawing. I wouldn't spend the whole day grafting away but doing the drawing was going to be the focus of the day. I made a flask of tea, packed my rucksack and headed towards Hackney Central. I didn't have long to wait for a train and I knew it would stop at Stratford where I expected to pick up another train to Silvertown because that's what I had done three years ago.

In no time at all we'd arrived in Stratford and to my surprise there was no connecting train to Silvertown. I thought I must be wrong so checked the timetable. No, Stratford is the end of the line. It didn't use to be but it is now. I do vaguely remember the mayor, Ken Livingston, announcing on the tv news that this line had been absorbed into the 'overground system' but it hadn't occurred to me that they would chop the last five stations off one end of it. However, had I paid attention I would have noticed that the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) had been extended to cover much the same route as the one that had been axed.

I decided to travel to London City Airport on the DLR which is fairly close to where the old station of Silvertown was. So instead of just stepping onto another train at the platform I had arrived at I had to go upstairs and run along a passage and flap about until I reached the DLR platforms. Once I'd worked out which train to get on I then had to change trains once again before I was sure I was heading in the right direction. I began to enjoy the journey as we left the docklands behind and traveled through a developed landscape that I didn't know even existed. When we stopped at Pontoon Dock I spotted the Thames Barrier in the distant. As I've always been intrigued by this river defence I decided I would get off at London City Airport and then walk back from there to get as close to the barrier as I could.

Feeling like a bit of a fraud I joined other passengers at London City Airport and took the escalator towards check-in. I had a quick look round this tiny airport which was built on the old King George V dock and concluded that it's just like Gatwick or Stansted airports but fortunately it's too small to also serve as a full scale shopping centre. Having traveled as far as I was planning to I chose a spot outside to draw which you can see on the left. I was attracted by the concrete and the different planes of the walls, the train bridge above and the curve of the glass passage through which I had just walked. I didn't realise until too late that I'd chosen to sit in the smoking section until I was covered in cigarette smoke and that is what eventually drove me away. By this time I'd felt I'd done as much as I wanted to and so headed back towards Pontoon Dock. I had to guess the route since I couldn't see the next station or the Thames Barrier. I trudged along a main road, navigated my way round a very large roundabout reassuring myself that if I got lost I could always retrace my steps. After not very long I could see Pontoon Dock and the most striking thing was that there were so few people and cars around. Finally I saw sign posts for the Thames Barrier Park and even better, signs for a cafe. There were hardly any people in the cafe either and I enjoyed a cup of tea while looking at the Thames Barrier through large picture windows. The park does look a little like an architect's drawing with the type of trees you see every where surrounding office blocks but it is tranquil and peaceful and does provide a green frame for the massive engineered blocks that make up the barrier that protects London from flooding. I gathered, from an old geezer who buttonholed me while I was leaning on the parapet by the river edge and subjected me to an extensive monologue, that there is a small exhibition about the building of the barrier in a building on the south bank of the Thames. We were on the north bank and after my long winded journey earlier in the day I didn't feel like trying to reach the south bank that afternoon.

Drawing project continues!

As I mentioned in a previous post back in February I planned to pick up the threads of an old drawing project, and a few days ago I did just that. I'm just beginning to realise what an enormous undertaking this is going to be if I'm to finish it.

Back in 2005 I decided to award myself a travel bursary and travel along the length of the North London railway line which runs from Richmond in the west and North Woolwich in the east. These locations are completely unlike each other and the only thing they have in common, and which links them, is the River Thames running through them.

The stations in between provide a variety of views ranging from transport hubs to Victorian housing and industrial landscapes. My plan is to do a drawing at or near each station. The view may well be mind numbingly mundane or might be full of interest - it does not matter. I also aim to go off at any tangent that might take my fancy and so the completed project will be a highly subjective view of one route around a large part of a very large city. Since I'm not a train spotter I won't be including train times or makes of carriages but, like many a train timetable, my timings will be sporadic and occasionally I might end up in an artistic version of railway sidings (in other words completely stuck).

Some people like to go on pub crawls and stop for a pint at every stop on the Circle Line on the tube (that's the yellow line on this map) and this project of mine is my version of a one-man pub crawl.

Revived drawing project

July 2005 was a demanding month for Londoners. I don't mean it was particularly hot that month although it might have been but I can't remember. I do remember watching the tv at work on 6 July when we all stopped what we were doing to find out which country was going to be awarded the 2012 Olympics. I can remember the astonishment and mild hysteria (in the office) when London was announced the winner and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair said that hosting the games would be 'momentous and tremendous for the capital'. There was major hysteria on the tv. I think the decision was broadcast towards lunchtime because soon after the announcement I left the building in search of food and, as I was wondering how long our elated mood might last, the Red Arrows swooped overhead in a celebratory flypass over the capital.

The elation ended around 9am the following morning on what is now known as 7/7. This was a time of great confusion. As is my wont I set off for work somewhat late. I suppose I got to Mile End tube station at about 9.30am. There were two trains waiting in the station but going nowhere and there were many people milling around the platforms. Before I had too much time to wonder how long it would be before the trains would start moving we were ordered up the stairs and out of the station. This was weird. I hadn't been involved in an evacuation since the IRA bombings and they'd ended some years before. Fortunately there are few steps at Mile End because the tunnel is so shallow at that point but even so progress up the stairs was slow as there were so many of us trying to leave. The mood quickly became silent and sombre and this was before any of us knew that three underground trains and one bus had been blown up by terrorists. So much has been written about that day there is little point adding to it so I won't.

Two weeks later on 21 July there were copy cat explosions on the tube executed by a different group of bombers and the only reason they are serving prison sentences and no-one was killed was because their bombs didn't so much go off but fizzled out. By now an all pervading feeling of anxiety was well established and there were police (some armed) patrolling every single railway station in London. This was just at the point when I was starting a new drawing project.

You might well wonder what terrorism has got to do with me drawing. Well nothing really but this project I had devised meant travelling to railway stations and drawing what I could see. I had decided to award myself a travel grant and my plan was to visit each station on what had been called The North London line but I think is now called Silver Link (this is an overground line not underground). I was to start at North Woolwich in the east and eventually finish at Richmond in the west and take in north London en route. Depending on how interesting or dull each destination proved to be I would either do one or two drawings. The plan was that all the drawings would be in mono (tones of black and grey). I would be able to work in pen and ink, or draw using graphite, or sketch in watercolour so long as there was no colour. The resulting work would fill one sketch book reserved for the purpose and when complete would be a record of a journey.

I was happy with this self-imposed structure and did begin the project on 1 August 2005. I travelled to North Woolwich and produced two sketches. The one shown here is of the Woolwich ferry which ferries people and lorries and cars back and forth across the river Thames and I was fascinated just watching the ferries come and go. What I wasn't too thrilled with was seeing so many of Her Majesty's police force prowling around every station I passed through. So I stopped this project almost as soon as I had begun it for this reason.

However for the moment things have calmed down and I'm ready to pick up my pen again and make my way to the next station on the line which is Silvertown. If anything interesting crops up during this visit I'll be sure to let you know.