A continuation of Lemon’s Water theme; thinking of those in deep waters
Michaelmas, 2022
By Eva Griffith
I recently met an old friend from a parish in Stoke Newington, Hackney: the church where I was married. She comes from Nigeria and her name is Mary, famed for saying “How are you?” and to me, in particular, “How is your son?”. On the bus I asked her, “Do you know where Father John is?” Father John was an extraordinarily great man: Irish, from County Wicklow, I think. He would behave equally with everyone, would give money to the homeless if they came to his door saying to us if we wondered about it: “What does it matter what they do with it? It’s none of my business.” The children would gather round him in the sanctuary of the packed church so they could see, close-up, exactly what was going on there. He’d arrange cheap parish outings to the seaside. Some of us went for free out of parish funds. At the time I was a middle-class woman down on her luck. But, nevertheless, when I needed someone to work out how to put together a bunkbed in our home, it was Father John who came in person with the relevant spanners.
Nobody knows where Father John is today. I heard life had been unkind at one point, although talk is cheap. I’d really like to know where he is. The point being that when my father met Father John, he said “Now that man is like my grandfather”.
Praise indeed. Ernest and Emily, my great grandfather and grandmother, brought up my father. This was because, for one reason or another, my grandparents couldn’t. Ernest had a stonemason’s business, inherited from his father, a mysterious figure whose paternity is unknown. Somehow, my great-great grandfather (Edmund) came by the money to set up the stonemason’s business. Perhaps his story should be left for another time.
My father said Ernest was a man who would do anything for anybody. A Methodist, he brought up my father to go to Chapel several times on Sunday, but the impression is given of someone who approached life happily, and communicated, without proselytising, what was right from wrong.
And then things went wrong. As a small child, my father remembered living in some style, with a nurse-type nanny called Lily Phillips, a pony and trap, and respect from the community. But then came the Great Depression, with its cruel consequences for many businesses, and Ernest, once a man to be relied upon, ‘went bankrupt’ and couldn’t meet his obligations, much of the time to old friends and associates in a tight-knit community. I guess this is a story for our currently hurting economic world. Be kind to those around you who are struggling; those with the debt-collectors at the door. ‘Money’ had potential, once, as an idea – how else would we do it? But now, how we trip over it! Solutions: how about swapping and sharing more? Vegetables in our gardens? Skills in sewing and recycling upgraded things we personally need no longer. Sharing the load, at least. Why not?
Emily – my father told us – became blind with the shock and the shame of the bankruptcy, which is hard to imagine. But I guess, with an underlying condition she might have had (diabetes, possibly?), her health could have got much worse with the stress.
Bit by bit they moved out of Tenby to the neighbouring hamlet of Penally. My great-grandparents, along with my father, are laid to rest in the Anglican churchyard there. My father took care to get a fine workman in stone to carve out his respect for them.
At a certain point, my grandfather had a lucky break of sorts. He was employed by the Tenby Town Council as Clerk of Works on a project there: the extension of Tenby’s sewerage system.
Now Tenby is known today for its extraordinarily beautiful beaches, with award-winning clean water. But that’s today.
My father told the situation then like this:
“Tenby’s sewage pipes ran out under the sand from the North Beach and emptied themselves into the sea; but not far enough, as any walker along those sands could see for themselves! An engineering firm was engaged to enlarge the pipes, I think, and then to extend them. First land work and finally work under the sea. And my grandfather was appointed by the Tenby Town Council to be Clerk of Works… he was to be Tenby’s supervisor of the project.” (Kenneth Griffith, The Fool’s Pardon, p.26.)
Ernest must have possessed great skills as a builder. We visited one house he built in Tenby (I think it was the place where my father was born) and, once informed, the owners said that the fact it was built of stone explained why they couldn’t install a picture hook on any of the walls… Well, they were Methodists. What would they do with pictures?
Anyway, my great grandfather was able to wear tweed suits again with an Albert watch strung across him as my father described. He was trusted to inspect and approve the enlarged, extended pipes which were laid on the land portion of the project – the problem came with the sea.
Tenby men, in those days (indeed I suspect this may have been the case along tracts of Britain’s coast) would not know how to swim. Prior to being a wonderful place to take a holiday, the town had been a fishing village, and a marked respect remained for the sea. If it’s going to take you, it will. So, they never bothered to learn to swim. Not my father nor any of his relatives or friends. (Things have changed. The Boxing Day swim is now famous in Tenby! See https://www.tenbyboxingdayswim.co.uk/history/)
When asked if he could ‘sign off’ the pipe work, my great grandfather said he couldn’t. Why? He had seen the land part of the work, but he hadn’t seen the works completed under the sea. Now there is honesty and transparency for you. It would have been the easiest thing in the world just to put his signature to the forms. But that wasn’t Ernest’s way.
Well… we have a photograph of this approximately 60-years-old non-swimmer in a boat off Tenby’s coastline, twentieth-century deep-sea diving helmet visible, smiling jovially at the camera with the other men around him. This was taken, presumably, after he took his courage into his hands and completed his assessment of the pipes under the sea, fitted, as he was, with a knife put around his waist in case he met with a conger eel. According to my father, having been let down into the deep and seen what he had to see, the signal to come up was given and, once up with his headgear unscrewed, Ernest smiled and said he could now sign. My father could report this because he was in the boat at the time.
I know Tenby’s sewerage system has been improved again since then. But with previous generations having set the standard, the beaches remain some of the best Wales have to offer. And free for all, whatever your economic circumstances.
And that’s a blessing, isn’t it?
