A sound that sticks with me. Middle of the night, waiting alone on the Devonport side of the Tamar for the Torpoint Ferry to come back across. It's a chain-ferry. Low tide - long lengths of chain lying limp on the long concrete rampway. It's cold and very calm. The chain begins to creak, imperceptibly move, lift itself and stretch. Then a sudden deafening scrape as it shifts a few feet to the side, the tide pulling it. Creak. Scrape. Creak. Scrape. then the distant sound of the chain running through the bowls of the ferry with a faster and faster rhythm -clank clank clank, gradually drowning out the creak and scrape of the chain on the ramp, now fully taught and glistening in the light of the lampposts from the car park.
Cheers Robert
Tim
On 18 Oct 2014, at 16:14, Hampson, R wrote:
I have always associated this line with childhood memories of walking beside the Mersey and seeing chains hanging from dockwalls being moved by the tide… but this might be a false memory.