'The Tide Will Turn'. Horngarth rising at Radiophrenia 2020
The full Radiophrenia Broadcast of "The Tide Will Turn":
https://soundcloud.com/bifocals-2013
Margaret lives in Fylingthorpe, where I'd just spoken to Lol Hodgson, Court Leet Bailiff and the current custodian of the service since the turn of the century, the Court Leet having taken it on in the 80's.
Lol talked me through the routine I'd seen him undertake earlier in the year ; the finding and cutting of the hazel, the meeting with Hornblower Tim Osbourne on the harbour wall, and the planting and the hornblast and the chanting. He talked around the service; you saw him as a kid bemused by it, and felt it arrive in his life through his office and grow into him, he carries his care for it and his commitment to it like muck on his boots that never gets removed. Margaret and her grandson George Cromack - lorist and folk horror writer - talked of their family, and the ambivilance they felt to the service, which was perhaps sometimes just one more thing to do at the end of a days farming. A tape provided by George carried a service from the 80's; a different, reedier sound across the water than Lol's magisterial growl, but in the background the same sounds; rigging against mast, generators, harbourwork and gulls.
The service then was on the verge of disappearing; there were questions to be answered about whether the penance behind it had been paid, whether the land that was supposedly forfeit would be forfeit at all, and if so, who to? The solicitors took it on, said Margaret. And then the Court Leet. She'd never seen it planted, and regretted that. The journey would have been difficult, she said, you'd have needed a horse and cart. She worked on the land with chickens, still does; she described a male world of hard work and market day pub sessions; extended family working together, and every year collecting the hazel.
There's not much in the way of explanation in this piece, and I decided early against any sort of authorial voice, hopefully what comes through is a sense of observing, listening and speculating . George pulled the camera back a little, we looked at the rogation ceremonies absorbed by early christians and then deployed as conditions of tenancy by the Abbey as it moved into the secular realm of commerce and earthly influence. The legend of murder and penance has a sense of the prequel to it...Horngarth; The Early Years, ripe for wickermannerisms and teatowels, its sense sinking under the sodden weight of black bonnets .. but it hasn't happened. There is something to be celebrated in the way the service - a small thing of early spring mornings - has held its own.
Leaving Margaret's house I had a while before I was to meet Pablo and Brownie in Scarborough, so I walked back into Bay, to the Dolphin. It was a saturday. An afternoon sesh was breaking up, and I soon had the place to myself. People were edgy and tired with beer and with serving it. Nobody wanting to be anywhere, already sleeping it off. I like these places in winter; the seasonal scrub-up is beaten back; bones stick up through the ground. Walking up familiar yards to the bus at Thorpe Road there was a sense of night not so much being shut out, but being drawn and shuttered in.
Rain falls and the wind roars,
All the folks are indoors.
The bus out of Whitby turned the bend towards me, yellowlit and warm.
This month,- November 14th, 9.30 - the 30 minute piece I made, called "The Tide Will Turn" is included in Radiophrenia, the International broadcast arts festival, out of Glasgow. The film has featured in online folk festivals and the Folklore society has hosted it too. This month it was supposed to go home, for a screening at the Whitby Coliseum Centre. Maybe next month. Maybe later. I'm glad the audiowork has somewhere to go, Radiophrenia is Light At The End Of The Dial indeed.. something is still standing up to the tides.
Good morning to you, farming man,
Here's to your heart, your family and land.
I'll pay down a ring and a golden band
On a field for a ride around
For a fine fine sparrow fine fine horseman.
Morning likewise maiden and man,
My family's dead, my heart is in the ground.
I have no land: this is no time for a farming man
Nor a fine fine sparrow or fine fine horseman.
Lal Waterson "Fine Horseman."
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