This weekend’s walk took me to Emsworth, a town with a history going back to medieval times. The local museum’s website details several historically significant maritime trades and activities, including oyster dredging, smuggling, ship building, rope making and sail making.
Fisherman’s Walk (below) gave access by horse and cart to man-made oyster storage ponds on Fowley Island. Having been stored temporarily in the ponds, the oysters were brought to Emsworth along the walk and prepared for market.
However, despite the history, this is the second time in a couple of days that a bird has shaped the arc of the narrative and what follows…
Pious bird of good omen…? [Image © John Callaway 2020]
Perhaps you can see where this is going…
“The Pious Bird Of Good Omen” was the title of a compilation album released in 1969 by Fleetwood Mac…that would be the Fleetwood Mac…with Peter Green on guitar, who sadly passed away yesterday on 25 July 2020 at the age of 73. Suffice to say, the early Fleetwood Mac albums have been a constant companion, both in terms of my listening to the blues, and as a blue-print, (or should that be a Green-print), as to how to extract the maximum amount of emotion from the briefest flurry of notes. I’m still learning…
So, when looking through my photographs, the image of a bird seemingly following the boats out of the harbour, suggested the narrative of this post…
For ‘completists’, the ‘pious bird of good omen’ comes from a footnote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to his ballad “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”. Being followed by the bird (an Albatross), was thought to bring good luck…so maybe…just maybe…its a sign… 🙂
Remains of oyster storage ponds. [Image © John Callaway 2020]
And if that isn’t your thing, Oh Well...
There’s always the local history to reflect on. The remaining outline of the oyster storage ponds show how important the oyster industry was up until 1902. The ponds enabled the oysters to feed off the nutrients flowing into the waters in the form of sewage. At a mayoral banquet in Winchester in December 1902, the Dean of Winchester and two other people died after eating contaminated bivalves. Consequently the oyster industry in Emsworth suffered an almost overnight collapse…
Emsworth Harbour [Image © John Callaway 2020]
Stones In My Passway… [Image © John Callaway (2020)
Ideas & images from Portsmouth and beyond 
July 26th, 2020 at 19:16
Thanks, John; interestingly, we have just watched today’s Countryfile which was centred on Chichester Harbour and they had a piece about Emsworth Oyster beds, virtually word for word as you’ve set it out here. Coincidence or what? Sad about Peter Green who, incidentally, was born two months after me. Long-time fan of FM
Paul
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