Rest Bay

For all my nostalgic meanderings of late, one place above all else serves as the perfect portal to my childhood. Even the name alone conjures up a spell in my mind’s eye, a concoction mixed in a cauldron of reminiscence and yore. For a spell to be so powerful, to elicit such a sharp and clear reminder of what was, the ingredients must be both abundant and potent. They are.

 The rocks that once seemed like the foothills of a subcontinental zone of orogeny formed by a madman’s hands, now bring only delight to the eyes that never tire of this sight. The unclimbable sheer black cliff face, a wall of no more than twenty feet that towered above me, reaching the clouds and beyond when I was six, now stands as an exposed bogeyman. What childhood couldn’t comprehend as achievable, even this tired old frame could conquer now.

 These rocks, revealed fully at the lowest of tides are home to tiny pools of life, miniature worlds in their own right, where crabs and starfish rest under pebbles and seek shelter from the heavy footsteps of oblivious children, armed with fishing nets and vagabond, toothy grins. Anemones and limpets cling to smooth water drenched potholes, with a tenacity and daring reserved only for the bravest most adventurous of rock hopping bipeds. Who knows whether in these tiniest of ecosystems seeds are being sown in the most fertile of nature’s environments, the imagination of the young? Could there be a young Bonnington or Hillary in the making, who will trade this most miniature of mountain ranges for the Eigers and Everests of their adulthood.

 Above these rocks lays the smoothest of roads, a road that leads past the lifeguards hut and to the tired old car park, where all my favourite childhood, formative adventures once began. You will not find the tat merchants here peddling their plastic buckets and branded thimbles. No amusement arcades or chip shops, no burger van with their overpriced calorie overloads and dogs that are luke warm but rarely hot. There is just one small café. Sidoli’s still stands, serving ice creams loved by three generations and more in flavours that time cannot dilute. Strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. No doffing of the modern cap to such frivolous tastes as rocky road and praline truffle.

 This is nature at its most pure, at least for the 21^st century. A day spent on this stretch of shore is spent for the love of the ordinary, making it extraordinary, in a society that blots the landscapes of beauty such as this with behemoth buildings to house tourists whose very presence destroys what they came to see. Only a mile up the coast sits Sandy and Trecco Bay and the funfair at Coney Beach with its hot, sugared doughnuts and carousels. A harbour wall and a tourist trade, where caravan parks flush out their occupants each morning with pockets full of change and worsening hangovers. Not here though, not on my beach, not at Rest Bay.

 A golf course straddles the coastline but this is no mere pitch and putt for an overweight family from Crewe. History has unfolded here with cups, both Solheim and Walker competed for. The flag above the clubhouse flutters proudly, boasting a royal decree. This wind shaped links once gained a monarchs patronage and deservedly so for it is a true gem, hidden from all but the most knowledgeable of golfer.

 I sit on the hard sand, with my back against the rocks and a view that familiarity could easily usurp from wonder to contemptuous ignorance. Dead ahead of me lays the English coast but far enough away that it seems truly to be a foreign land. Enough of the sea separates these two shores that the naïve and uneducated could be forgiven for mistaking the undulating, dark mass on the horizon for an island land. A westward rotation of the head brings Swansea and its surrounding hills into view, the hills tapering away into the Mumbles and beyond that the start of the Gower peninsula.

 The waters that lap these shores are pure and clean, a convivial host once more to dolphins and basking shark. I watch the surfers, their wetsuits rolled own to reveal tattooed torsos, fulfilling their own spiritual servitude amongst the crashing of collapsing waves. White froth churns relentlessly around their fibreglass steeds, creating a frayed hem where water and sand collide.

 Light ricochets off the surface of the sea, dazzling the eye and confusing the brain as first glances are betrayed by truth. Battleship grey waters suddenly come alive with vivid flashes of greens, blues and yellows, all dancing with the longevity of a heartbeat. These are the things I see, and I can never allow myself the luxury of complacency that could allow me to substitute my awe for apathy. You see this beach and everything about is something I can see in all its glory even with my eyes wide shut. This stretch of coastal delight is more than just a piece of land, it is part of me.

 My oldest friend who now battles demons that childhood never tamed came to this place with me so often. We would tear down the M4 in our sky blue Ford Cortina rocketship, blasting through the gravitational pull of suburban life towards our next exploration of a world alien to SMP modules and comprehension cards, concrete and traffic lights. The windows would be wound down so that the wind would blow our hair into disarray. Our pilot, the perma tanned father of my friend, would sing along to the radio and I still recall the heady mixture of Ambre Solaire and tobacco, faux leather seats and sea air assaulting my nostrils in a welcoming embrace of excitement.

 We would scale the rocks that we could manage when the tide was in and play cricket and bowls when it wasn’t on sea soaked sand. Not bowls of the garden variety but the water filled variety that came in packs of eight with their very own handy carry case. There were four colours to choose from but even then, as now, it was always yellow for me.

 The same colour as my Anchor II inflatable dinghy. We would battle the waves and for hours, avoiding the sharks that were fifty foot long and circling our raft eager to feast upon us. When we did capsize, we would rebound from the sea floor with a snot filled face and the loudest of laughter, the sincere mirth only a child knows.

 There is grey in my hair now where once blonde gave way to brown, a sign of my advancement through life and inability to turn the tides of time, as futile as the huge sandworks we would construct to hold back the advancing high tides. We would never win that battle, but that mattered little when you carry the unbreakable optimism of one who can still count their time on Earth in single figures.

 Even as a teen no hint of magic was lost. My father and I saw eye to eye only rarely but if there was one place that could unite us, make us nuclear, then this serene setting was it, such is the ability of nature to calm the most troubled of us. When we could drive ourselves huge groups of menchild would congregate to compete in impromptu football matches and day long games of cricket. They were never planned for fun was a currency that seemed endless. It wasn’t.

In late August 2005, I stood on these sands once more, perhaps the most poignant day of my life. The teen had long since gone, for now I arrived in the car park with my parents and a family of my own. My father was terminally ill, and the days for miracles had gone. He was coming here today to say goodbye to a place sacred in our hearts for one last time. One last afternoon in the sun.

For my infant children at that time, this was just a trip like any other but my father and I knew this would be the last ever time he made this journey. My wife and I were in a rut, but that day when I rang her at our home 200 miles away I was hoping to draw strength from her to help me get through the emotions this day was bringing. Five minutes later as my father savoured his ice cream, knowing the pain this would cause later but brave enough to taste just one last time something desired and not prescribed, and whilst my children chased their shadows on the sand, I hung up the phone. My marriage was over.

 I hold no anger or malice now, or even then, either in terms of the message delivered to me or the content it held. Time waits for no man and decisions sometimes are easier to make when the truth can be hidden from the eyes that reflect the hurt you deliver. What I Knew immediately, before I even considered the personal impact this would bring to myself and my beautiful young girls, was that the truth had to be hidden from my dad.

 Today was about him, not me. His sons marriage failing was not the last memory he should draw from this place we both loved so much. All around him the reverence of the occasion was clear and the enormity of this realisation, the understanding that this was the last time was an image I could never tarnish. To know I had lost a wife, a family torn asunder was hurtful to me, but for today, just for today, I had to find the strength to smile, to deal with it. A dying man carries with him to the grave the burdens and regrets of a life that is ending, whilst my life was then, and is now, very much for the taking. Today was my father’s day, not mine.

 Perhaps having written these last few paragraphs, I can see with even more clarity why I have such a huge connection with this sanctuary. For all those times I tried to fight the tide, to change things that could never be altered at the most simple of levels, something else was happening. Whilst I tried to make my mark on these sands and lay claim to my immortality, the exact opposite was happening to me. My transience is tantamount and palpable, the passing of time reinforcing that message with every day. It seems only fitting then, that rather than leave my mark on the annals of this most fantastic of places, that indelible mark, that imprint of knowing should be etched into the core of me. It matters little at the end of days who was the one to share and who was the one to receive, only that there was something to be shared.

 My father’s ashes my sister and I scattered over the Wenallt, overlooking my his adopted city. Wherever they were scattered seems inconsequential now however, for if I need to see my dad, to hear his laugh or just remember the good, it is all here at Rest Bay for that is where his soul does rest.