My beloved Mum and the sands of time
As regular readers will know, I’ve just had a month off from writing this column, a month when I simply took some time out from the day job, gave my head a bit of a re-boot, walked the little legs off my new dog, Dudley, and explored – in a bit more depth than usual – some parts of the country that I know well but, in reality, have only dipped in and out of in recent years.
I also spent a few days in my beloved Venice, making a start on organising an exhibition of my late husband’s Venetian photographs, a wonderful portfolio assembled by Gerry (who was a professional photographer) during his 20-year love affair with the city. I mention Venice here because it was on the flight to there that I met Dave, a senior Aer Lingus steward and, I’m delighted to say, a committed reader of this column! Suffice to say that he was most generous in his comments and also knew all about my Venice fixation! (I know, I know – considering how often I reference the place, it would be hard not to know!) Anyway, from my own point of view, it was simply lovely to meet – in the flesh – one of my regular readers, so thanks, Dave, for the great detective work in spotting me (my Aer Lingus booking was in my married name, Roslyn Sandford) and for introducing yourself.
It was a funny old month. Venice apart, I didn’t leave the island, and, following the unexpected death of my mother on March 5, I spent more extended time than I have in many a day back on home territory in the North. It may seem strange to describe my mother’s death as ‘unexpected’ as she was just three months short of her 99th birthday, but unexpected is what her passing actually was. I was glad, though, that not so long ago I had taken her for a drive out around the Downhill/Magilligan area, a beautiful part of the Derry coastline and the place where my grandmother grew up.
It was here that my mother spent endless happy childhood holidays with her own grandmother who lived there in a cottage that backed on to the vast expanse of the strand at Benone as it sweeps past there on its way to Magilligan Point. I walked a lot of beaches in the North last month. Not just a quick, clear-the-head walk, but rather I walked numerous stretches of golden sand for hours at a time. At this time of year beaches are such contemplative places, still fairly devoid of people, and just the kind of spot to clear away the head-cobwebs and give you something of a kick-start. And, of course, in the wake of my mother’s death, places that, for me, are absolutely replete with memories.
So I walked, one early morning, with just Dudley for company, along an empty Portstewart Strand, the tide some distance out and with the two-mile stretch of golden sand disappearing into infinity. Burnside Beach, we locals have always called it, and the memories of happy days there with my parents came flooding back. As a very young child, playing football there with my father; chasing through the sand dunes with my older sister; having family days out there, complete with deck chairs and obligatory windbreaker.
Never much of a walker herself, my mother would organise the picnic (complete with tablecloth, napkins, condiments, proper plates – Marion didn’t do things by halves!) while my father and I would tramp along the beach to the old Second World War army bunker at the end,
just where the River Bann escapes its watery confines and cascades into the Atlantic Ocean. On other occasions we’d cut up from the strand, and, complete with fishing rods and fresh bait bought en route to the beach, and with sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil by my mother, and a flask of tea the size of a lighthouse, we’d make our way through the dunes to the river beyond, and there we’d set up fishing camp for the day. And I’d carry home from there, especially in my pre-teenage years, a bouquet of wild flowers for my mother – sea pinks, bird’s foottrefoil, and all manner of other delicate blooms. Something of an expert on wild flowers, my mother would identify every one of them for me within seconds. Even five or six years ago, when out walking, and flummoxed by the identity of a particular wild flower we’d happen upon, my husband Gerry would simply say– ‘Go on, ring Marion and describe it to her. I bet you she’ll know what it is.’ And she always did.
On the windswept afternoon of the day we laid my mother to rest, my son Nick and I faced out into that biting March wind and headed down, close to where we were staying, to yet another beach, this time the one at Portballintrae. We crossed the wooden bridge that leads from pathway to beach, a bridge that spans the River Bush, famous for its salmon, and a bridge that has been there for as long as I can remember. Again, I could recall childhood afternoons here, collecting shells or stones with my mother and being endlessly warned by her not to swim because of the dangerous currents that still exist there.
On this funeral day, however, it was a far cry from all those summery and shimmering-sands memories. The tide was on its way in as we walked, the only two people on the beach, and, with the wind blowing fiercely and whipping up the waves, we soon found ourselves running to escape the onslaught of the sea. Finally, and actually somewhat reluctantly, we turned back, the sea encroaching further and further into our return path and with our only escape increasingly looking like a climb up the steep and muddy sand dunes that back the beach, almost daring the Atlantic to take them on.
We made it back, Nick and I, without resorting to the escape route via the dunes, and we smiled to think of what Marion would have had to say about our afternoon escapade.
Portstewart and Portballintrae are both beaches that loomed large in my childhood and yet still retain a powerful resonance for me all these decades later. Add into that mix the White Rocks beach at Portrush, Magilligan Strand, and the stunning sands at White Park Bay and you quickly realise that when it comes to the magnificent beaches that grace the northern shores of this island, we are truly blessed.
And what a joy it is to step on to those beaches, and, despite the cold and the wind and the rain, feel myself instantly wrapped in a blanket of happy childhood memories.