Tide (original) (raw)

Growing up as I did in Whitstable, the tide played an important part in life, especially in the summer holidays which were spent mainly on the beach. At high tide the swimming was good but the time of the high tide changed by an hour each day. You couldn’t just go down to the beach and expect to be able to swim because Whitstable is positioned at the end of the Thames estuary and the retreating tide exposed a vast area of mudflats that stretched back as far as the eye could see towards the Isle of Sheppey leaving behind a landscape of mini rivulets and tiny sand dunes, repeated endlessly on the surface of the mud flats, which the air and sun dried out leaving this vast patterned surface stretching as far as the eye could see.

Horrid tales and dire warnings were given to us as small children to stop us wandering out too far across these tantalising, patterned mud flats. Tales about the dangers of the incoming tide and getting caught up with hazards, deeply embedded in the mud that could trap you, pinning you to the mud as the water from the incoming tide slowly covered you, Or unknowingly walking into an area of quicksand and getting stuck waist deep as the water slowly crept higher and higher until it covered you and you could only breathe sea water. You would be too far out to call for help – nobody could hear you, or even see you – a tiny speck against the mud.
Or worse still, walking out too far, thinking you could walk to the Isle of Sheppey only to find that the tide had turned and however fast you walked, or even ran, the tide would overtake you until you were so far out of your depth you couldn’t touch the ground with your feet and the current would sweep you away and you would be lost forever, swept up drowned on some remote shore.
If you walked out too far, when you turned round towards the beach which was so far away it was difficult to make out any distinguishing or recognisable landmark. Eventually you would get back to the beach only to find yourself in a completely different place to the one you had left. No familiar beach huts, no familiar anything, just the endless stretch of the sea wall. Not knowing whether to walk to the left or to the right. Lost.
The tide: powerful, relentless, unfeeling, deadly. Brought about by the power of the moon, hanging menacingly in the sky, only visible when it was dark and yet powerful enough to have this control over all the waters of the earth : to pull and then to release every day, day and night. The danger from the incoming tide and danger from the invisible currents when the tide was high.

Of course this is not the tide from Phil’s composition. His “Tide” is what I call one of Phil’s sailing pieces. His sailing dingy “the Fox” was a Fleetwind, built with a very tall mast for a little boat and designed to catch the wind when sailing at low tide when the banks of the river Blackwater are high. For me this piece evokes a summer day with beautiful weather and a lovely breeze. In this piece the tide is high, Phil is in open water and he’s sailing! HERM