A memoir of a childhood and the sea
THE Bard of Barnsley – Ian McMillan – is specially known in waterway circles for the poem he penned to coincide with the bicentenary of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.
His ‘ Words on Water’, written in 2016, celebrated Yorkshire’s love of its waterways.
But it is his love of the coast and days by the sea which feature in his new book My Sand Life, My Pebble Life, which is due for release on June 9.
In common with many South Yorkshire families, the East Coast was – and still is – a popular holiday destination and it is his memories of my own home town Cleethorpes which particularly resonate with me.
Ian not only shares his childhood tales and fantasies but brings us right up to date with visits during the pandemic and his elderly mother-inlaw’s excitement at returning to his wife’s family’s caravan post-lockdown.
Although there are poignant memories of his own family holidays with his late father – who had served in the Royal Navy – and mother, there is plenty to laugh at in this book including escapes from marauding wasps, midges and seagulls bent on sharing his fish and chips.
And there are those with which us readers of a certain age can also empathise such as viewing holiday snaps through the medium of a slide show on the living room wall and trying to change into swimming gear while our mums held up a towel to protect our modesty.
Ian does not record his memories in chronological order so each short chapter is a travel in time, some of them interspersed with his poetry such as his seasonal collection and it concludes, appropriately with My Sand Life, My Pebble Life.
One of my favourite reminiscences is April 2021: Almost Forgetting the Pie which tells the story of the ‘great unlocking’ for which his nonagenarian mother-in-law – part of the family’s social bubble – makes her signature ‘meat and tatie pie’ to take with them.
However they have travelled just half a mile before realising they have come without the pie and go back to collect it, everything ringing with metaphor, writes Ian: “We set off, we turn back. We lock down; we are unlocked. We advance a little, we retreat.”
The memoir also takes us further down the coast to Norfolk – ‘the Hunstanton frisbee incident’ – and Suffolk as well as to other favourite destinations such as the Northumbrian coast, Llandudno, Blackpool and the Isle of Skye – ‘the island of midges and wasps’.
Whether you like to binge on nostalgia or just enjoy some light relief this book is sure to bring a smile to your face.
My Sand Life, My Pebble Life by Ian McMillan, published by Adlard Coles (hardback, 176 pages, £10.99).
ISBN: (hardback) 9781472982940; ebook 9781472982957; audio 9781472983091)