I’m about to jump, and there’s a deathly drop below me, allbeit broken by metaphorical deep blue water.
So much to say on the way down, somersaults to turn, velocity to gather, and at the conclusion of this high-dive a point to the whole plummeting business.
Today our tale begins in that most grey-watered East-End-on Sea, Margate.
But it begins far from the madding crowd, in the rarified atmosphere of a privileged family indeed.
Annie Winnifred Ellerman was the daughter of a man who was later, at the time of his death in 1933, declared to be the richest Englishman who had ever lived. She travelled extensively as a child and young woman and was able to choose her company. In Paris in the 1920s she sought out Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein: among her correspondents were Sigmund and Anna Freud.
She named herself Bryher for the purposes of writing, after the Scilly island.
An extraordinary woman who deserves a novel, she wrote several. And one was based in a Greek city which was built north of Cliento, near the Italian coast, in the years following the death of Alexander the Great.
It is in writing about the position of women in history that Bryher excels: but so often her central character is a young man. No so in ‘Gate to the Sea’. Her story surrounds a Greek priestess who must flee the city: Paestum.
Bryher must have met the city on her travels: and it’s still there today. Paestum: three great temples which have lain sleeping since the middle ages; great strong city walls with round defensive towers; and tombs.
On one tomb is a wonderful example of the freefall. A young man, diving with all the abandon of a dolphin, full of youth and vigour and vitality.
I speculate when I venture that the body of a young man inside the tomb might be he.
Life is so fleeting. The Tomb of The Diver, discovered in 1968, was basically five limestone flagstones creating a small chamber about one metre by two metres, and and less than a metre high. Four flagstones made the sides: they featured figures having a debate; but the fifth is strikingly different.
It features a diver, who has launched himself from a great temple pillar, and is hurtling at speed into the waters below.
We can almost feel the wind whistling past our ears in this picture, watching a vital, seminal moment in the life of a young man who may very well have died too soon. From a distant age – around 470BC – the painting shouts life at us: take a risk, it sings, for tomorrow we may not be here. Life is for living wildly and with abandon.
Which brings me to gannets.
Monty Python had a lesser-known sketch about gannets. Some anorak walks into a bookshop and asks proprietor John Cleese for all manner of impossible, non-existent books. Typically, Cleese gets more and more wound up as he realises the man is just a time-waster: until, finally, the man requests a book he does stock. ‘Olsens Standard book of British Birds’.
Delighted, he springs to the shelves: but too soon. The man has added a rider.
“The one without the gannets,” he says.
“The One without the gannets?” Cleese explodes, “It’s the standard book of British Birds! They’ve all got gannets!”
“Well, I don’t like them.” the anticustomer rejoins. “They wet their nests.”
I have no idea whether they do. But I do know that they are the most superlative divers: and that they take a very similar joyous, foolhardy dive to our friend the Greek diver, whose name we shall never know.
They can begin from anything up to 30 metres above the water and reach speeds of 100 kilometres an hour: and so they can fish deeper then any other seabird.
This is all very well for the experienced adult gannets. But for every member of the young population, there must always be a first time. A fledgeling’s first dive may not always end in success.
So while the blue tits round here jump a few feet and then sit there looking gormless until their parents can put enough explosives behind them to motivate them to flight, the young gannet gets one chance. It’s initial leap is life or death, a vital moment of exhilaration where the risk is everything and may end in a tasty meal: or oblivion.
Tomorrow, my fledgeling leaves her nest, and I would class her as a blue tit rather than one of those edge-of-life gannets. She has her secondary school uniform; hers is not a plummet into the ocean. Phil will drive her into her new school for orientation at nine, and pick her up at 12.
But to her, the night before her jump: she must feel a bit like the plummeting gannet.
Life is a cycle of risk and growth. You have to jump to move on.
So I tell her, with heart thudding unnaturally fast.
Here goes.
Kate Shrewsday 
Wonderful free fall, Kate ~ from ancient divers to Monty Python to fledglings leaving the nest . . . to soar!
When we are not willing to risk anything . . . we risk everything.
Good luck to your Secondary Schooler!
Here goes!
Thanks for the well wishes, Nancy 🙂
Good luck to Maddie, and her Mom and Dad, who take a parental plunge as well when their first fledgling moves to the next level.
Gannet. Exactly what I felt like on my first day of high school.
Thanks Penny. I’ve woken up very nervous. Still, these days will soon become routine, I suppose…
You got me! I have tears! Soar, indeed! Debra
Thanks Debra 🙂
A wonderful tour de Kate!
Here’s hoping Maddie’sfirst day brings experiences of the good variety and maybe even a few lifelong friendships beginning point!
I’m sure it will, Sidey: thanks for the well-wishes 🙂
I don’t like all or nothing scenarios, Kate, and fortunately they are few and far between. Sometimes parents worry more than their children – more often than not, I think. Many of my classmates from junior school went to the same high school as I, because it was recommended that schools in the area in which one lived were given priority. Is that not the case there? ‘Good luck, Maddie,’ and especially ‘good luck’ to Mom and Dad!
The schools in this area are not great, Denise: ther’es one god one and its oversubscribed, so Maddie’s going further afield to a college in the nearest big town. It’s a wonderful school and we’re lucky to have found it. It doesn’t stop me fretting the night before school begins, though!
Poor Kate! I’ve done it twice and it is HARD. Then you send them off to college. Then uni. Eventually they get married and move away.
See what you’ve done? I’m sobbing here.
She’ll be fine because you’ve done a good job. Hold onto that. If all else fails, buy a tracking device.
A Maddiecam! I’ve considered one for Macaulay I confess, but perhaps I’ll leave her to make her new bonds on her own….lovely, lovely comment, Tilly 🙂
🙂
oooh, a big day for everyone indeed.
Mine is a year away from this, but has all the trauma of transfer tests (11+ type academic selection for grammar schools) to go through first. She’s getting stressed already. Uuugh.
Those tests tense up MY stomach, let alone my childrens! All the best: a good teacher will prepare them for whatever tests are to come. Fingers crossed for your transitional daughter 🙂
I think what I love about your posts is the way you have a central subject and spiral round it coming back to it at the end.
Good luck indeed to Maddie. The first few days in a new school are so important.
Thanks for those well wishes, Earlybird 🙂
Best wishes to Maddie – she will be fine with her secure background. It happens all over again when you have grandchildren – you just want everything to go well for them. I have been to Paestum, but I missed the diver – it is a beautiful image.
It is 🙂 I shall go to look at it if ever I am in the area. It is one of very few images of human figures that exist on Greek paintings of that period, I believe. But what a cracker 🙂
Let’s hope the orientation morning is a good one and she comes back fired up for more! In my experience my two have enjoyed senior school more than the junior school, so I see this is a very positive step for Maddie who will thrive on subject-based teachers who really know their stuff, and new openings in many spheres she hadn’t even thought of before.
Lovely positive take on the whole business, and very near the truth of the matter I suspect. Onwards and upwards!
Aw, I hope the day went well for you all. I can’t remember my first day at secondary school… I think I did go… However, Kate, the day’s done now, so it’ll be easier tomorrow. 🙂
It sure will: thanks, Tom.
Rites of passage, Kate, and great new cliffs from which to dive – new friends, new experiences – enjoy, Maddie 🙂
Stunning post, Kate… full of life and exhiliration. All the best to Maddie in her new school!!
Many thanks, Naomi. So far, so good.