by Antony Hurley
In the wake of my parents' divorce in the late nineties, my dad
bought Yvonne of Bewley, a four-berth yacht built in 1938 with faded
tique decks, a long mahogany bowsprit and a pokey galley kitchen. In
the summer of '99 my dad sailed the boat around the south coast from
Bristol to East- bourne with an Irish skipper simply known as 'Bob'.
One remarkable effect of a divorce on children is the places they're
forced to call home after the separation. For a child every home is a
new world, its surroundings are new places to roam and explore, their
emotional memory taking endless and everlasting snapshots that never
fade. Dad arrived on Yvonne of Bewley in Eastbourne early that summer,
albeit without Bob who had headed back to Bristol. Eastbourne marina
was underdeveloped at that time; the surroundings outside the town
were mainly council estates and early sites of flats to be built
overlooking the sea. It was a far cry from the rolling fields of rural
Kent where we had been raised. I was nine years old at the time, my
younger sister Laura seven and my older sister Annette eleven. Annette
and Laura slept in the forecabin at the front of the boat. I slept
opposite my dad on benches in the main hull. I remember we all had
sleeping bags to crawl into at night. Though it might've felt like a
holiday initially, we all knew we were having to adapt to a new and
turbulent life. There are no photos of us on the boat, no holiday
snaps with ice creams, crabbing off a pier or making sandcastles on
the beach. It was survival mode. But most importantly, we were all in
it together.
My days that summer started by waking and determining which way dad's
mood was going to swing. An instinctive barometer instilled in
children is the ability to sense the state of play with a parent under
stress. Wishing that it would be one of cheer instead of stress,
relief would pour in with the morning sunshine when I heard my dad
whistling and pottering about with the radio on. On those days,
everything felt like a weightless adventure. With a 'neap' tide, the
beach near the marina extended beyond the pebble shore to a long
stretch of sand. I can still feel, under my feet, the slick green
seaweed that attached itself to the wooden breakers, scattered with
urchins and seashells. My sisters and I would balance on the breakers
until a rogue wave knocked us clean off and into the sea. After we
swam, we would wander up to the scrubland by the beach, roaming the
long grasses or hurtling down the sand dunes. On the boat we would
read or paint; I would listen to my Diskman or walk the long pontoons
of the marina labyrinth. Other days weren't so easy; arguments among
my sisters and I resulted in Dad flying off the handle. His thespian
tendency to enjoy projecting his voice, mixed with a few drinks, could
result in some fierce moments. The residue of these tellings off would
last through the evening quiet, punctured only by dissonant chimes of
shackles against masts as darkness descended.
One morning towards the end of the summer myself and my sisters were
on the usual traipse over to the showers with my dad some way behind.
All of a sudden I noticed my little sister Laura had disappeared. I
don't know how long it took to realise she had fallen off the pontoon
and into the water below. Behind us, I felt my dad reach down and
heave her up from the murky depths. She came up like a spluttering
mandrake in a wash of freezing cold water, looking as surprised as
myself and Annette, my dad ranting and raving, all of us trying to
work out what had happened. Later that summer Laura fell badly off her
bike on a local estate and was covered in nasty gashes and scratches.
We carried her back to the boat where she was nursed back to health
like a sailor after a battle at sea. Moments of deep tenderness like
this were what made such intimate living so memorable. Her falling off
the pontoon showed us all that we had to be careful and to hold hands
on any journey along them.
During the years on the boat, the landscape of the marina transformed
around us. The wooden breakers we would dive off on summer mornings
were replaced with concrete girders without any weathering or shape.
The sand dunes we would run down were replaced with industrial-size
levels of shingle that backed up onto the looming housing
developments. The scrubland by the beach was pasted over with concrete
and roads, chocolate box flats popped up. Even the wind seemed to
sound different. Dad sold the boat and moved into a flat on the marina
which he eventually gave back due to bankruptcy. He now lives happily
in a converted billiard room in Hever, Kent.
This year I released my debut album, Quiet Rooms, on-vinyl. A customer
at the bookshop I work at bought a copy and stopped by a week later to
tell me what she thought. She remarked at the nautical themes running
through the album. I was immediately conscious of the lyrics directly
referencing water but she referred to one song in particular called
'Sheets'. She reminded me that, in boating terms, 'sheets' are the
ropes that control the sail and direction of the vessel. The opening
lyric of the song is:
Unfold us from our sheets,
where we were pressed together,
into the morning sun,
I hope this isn't forever...
This line perfectly sums up my experience of living on the boat with
dad and my sisters: the pressure of cramped living in a new setting,
the summer mornings of excitement tinged with the hope that somehow
things would go back to the way they were, but deep down knowing that
everything had changed permanently. Life on the water came at the most
difficult moment of my childhood. However, it somehow sheltered me and
gave me an invaluable perspective, the influence of which goes deeper
than I can understand. It gave my dad a chance to start anew and, for
his children, solid ground from which to grow.
Summer 2022
An extract from the Zine titled "On Water" published by Loose Associations
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"Morning Sun"