Diary 18th And 19th July 2017

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Diary Tuesday 18th July 2017 I went to the community centre to pick up this week’s £2 bag of free-trade food and got quite a lot for my cupboards and fridge. While there, I was invited to a free lunch as one had been prepared for some art students but not many had turned up and there was going to be a lot left over. Several of the regular centre users, myself included, got invited to help eat it all. Diary Wednesday 19th July 2017 I went on a paid for community centre organized day trip to Heysham, in Lancashire today – really nice. We visited the isolated community village of Sunderland Point (cut off by the sea at high tides) – they filmed the TV version of the Philip Pullman novel, The Ruby In The Smoke Here. I met the only lady licensed to use heave-nets for salmon fishing – which amounts to standing waist deep in the water surrounded by quicksands twisting the net to nab fish and battering them dead with a truncheon – I got to lift the net correctly for use (on dry land) It was very heavy. Heysham just had a Viking festival (over the weekend) so Viking effigies are all over the town, just left in shop entrances and gardens. We visited a beautiful Saxon church with its cemetery overlooking the spectacular beach and Morecambe Bay. The saddest sight was the famous Sambo’s Grave, marking the final resting place of an unknown slave (or hired) cabin boy who died at the Point in 1796. Legend declares that he was placed in lodgings while the ship was re-provisioned, but that he was convinced that he had simply been abandoned. He refused to eat and just died. As he was not a Christian, his body was dumped without coffin or ceremony in the sea-shore-side grave. It has now become a popular tourist and pilgrimage place and many people decorate the tiny grave with gifts and hand painted pebbles and notes, personal poems dedicated to the poor boy known only as Sambo (sometimes spelt Samboo). Only Karl Marx’s grave draws more visitors. It’s a great spot to visit to learn about racism and history. An extraordinary day. Thank you to everyone involved. Arthur Chappell