Trains and boats and frames...

So, on Sunday we were in York, at the RNLI's Presentation of Awards Ceremony held at York Racecourse. A sweaty affair given the glorious weather. It was very nice and they gave us (the theatre) a crazily disproportionate citation, a nice reception and an even nicer framed award for the fundraising that took place during On A Shout. Director turned to me and said, "It's been quite a journey, hasn't it?" And it has.

We - M and Finn and little old me - spent the evening and the whole of the sun-soaked day that followed in the city that feels like our spiritual home. We took Finn to see trains at the NRM, although it was probably all lost on him. Especially the Shinkansen he's pictured in front of.

Theatre business...

Cast went to extraordinary lengths and rolled into town today for a read through of the play (actor Ed went to the additional trouble of baking cakes!). Everyone was extremely enthusiastic and all went very well but, of course, there's still a lot of work to be done. Then we shot up to Spurn for a team excursion on the lifeboat, which was as fun a way of getting to know each other as can ever have been dreamed up. A very good day, wrapped up nicely by the theatre's Christmas party, which was our first night out of the house together since the arrival of the famous Finn.

On board...

Coxswain Dave gave an impressive display of his trim-tabs, demonstrating how the pitch of the Pride of the Humber can be adjusted to suit the conditions (given that the water was ridiculously calm, there were not a lot of conditions to deal with but I got the idea), and showed off his echo sounder, which, as it provides a readout of the depth of the water, allowed him to nuzzle her right up to the Spurn beach without running aground, a move which baffled a few people fishing there, I think. Dave's a feet and inches man, the readout's in metres, which means that, as well as looking at this dazzling array of equipment and pondering on rescues about to take place, he also has to do a swift mental conversion. It struck me that to grapple with all that goes on here and amid the adrenaline rush and confusion and the constant battle with the elemements that must accompany a shout, that Dave and his crew must have to have co-processors installed in their brains.
"This," says Dave, surveying the array of stationary vessels in front of him, "is the Humber's car park."
An hour later and that was that. We were sat having a cuppa outside the cafe that Dave's wife runs, met a couple of the young children that live here too and Dave did a nice monologue about the importance of his pager, how his clothes are always ready to leap into at any minute and how that, if they're stood at the checkouts in a supermarket and a bell rings, they always jump thinking it's the bell back in their house on Spurn. This, quite obviously, is a job that never stops for these heroes. Although it does have to fit in around domestic chores. "We do all that. Ironing, laundry, we're all just having new dishwashers installed. Which probably means they're closing the station."
I have, of course, kept the best bits to myself. For now.


On A Shout opens at Hull Truck Theatre on January 24th, 2008.

Tags: On A Shout, Spurn Point, RNLI, lifeboats

On a pleasure trip...

Down to Spurn Point to experience the ride of a lifetime. We were blessed with ridiculously calm waters and, of course, some amazing company. Impossible not to admire these men and I apologise in advance if anything that follows seems flippant or disrespectful. But, I can vouch, these men are also 'ordinary' blokes too, who survive the rigours of the job with heavy doses of black humour. In comparison to what they do, writing seems such a lightweight occupation. Strange, then, that they live in a place - isolated, dangerous and incredibly unique and inspirational - that would be the ideal home for a writer.
We were on board for about an hour and given a full tour of the Tardis-like Severn Class Pride of the Humber; a mircaulous craft, make no mistake, and the wheelhouse a technical extravaganza. A mesmerising explanation of the electronics - radar, GPS, laser chart plotter, echo sounder and other mysterious devices, accompanied by a cup of coffee ("a lot of time when we've plotted the course and are heading out to a shout, all we can do is drink a cuppa until we get there") was followed by a below deck inspection where we got a sneaky peek at her gleaming ("we can instantly spot a leak") twin 1600 bhp Caterpillar engines, the unfathomably large seating area ("we can strap people in down here") where 61 people were once accommodated on a rescue, and the toilet ("we don't use it, it's a cupboard for the vaccuum cleaner. Unless someone really needs it. We just go over the side"). Then it was back up top, for the hotly anticipated but, frankly, rather scary "I'll chuck it about a bit" moment. In reality, the chucking it about a bit moment was much more fun than it had been made to sound and an impressive display of what the Pride of the Humber is capable of. As I battled to keep my stupidly self-inflicted the night before going out with a lifeboat crew hangover in check, coxswain Dave demonstrated how quickly you can bring her to a full stop when you're belting along at 25 knots. He then told me to take the wheel, but only with one finger ("the steering is incredibly light, eh?" It was, I must say, a damn sight easier to handle than the beat-up broken-down Citroen ZX I've been driving of late). But I was in fear of breaking this piece of blue and orange kit, given that it's worth around £2m, and feeling inadequate given that I was in the immediate company of a highly-decorated genuine contemporary superhero. I was at my most vulnerable when the immortal words sprang forth: "This play, then. Are the lads gonna enjoy it and will it be a good crack?"

...to be continued

I'm into wide open spaces...

This is my view, yesterday lunch. At least when the opera gets too much, I can sit in a big wide open space just up the road - Millennium Square, Leeds. Harry Gratian was on the big screen, whittering on about the history of Leeds and, given what was on the Hull screen the other day, I guess there's some big "you've never had it so good" propaganda at work right across the country. 20 minutes in to Harry's very exciting film and I got a call from a lifeboat coxswain. As much as I've been putting it off, I guess the ride of a lifetime on a Severn Class lifeboat can't be avoided forever, can it?

Where I'm at...

I've not been spending enough time at this desk, have I? Actually, a lot of On A Shout has been written at the dining room table. But the more business-like feel of the revisions I'm on with now prompted me to get back to the corner of a room that is my 'workspace'.
Boring, ain't it? And if I'm to do any writing I'll have to remember to lift the lid on the laptop to gain access to the keyboard. To the left of the laptop is part of the latest, scribbled all over draft, while the rest of it's nestling atop the reference books. It's currently 120 pages long.
Ah, the reference books. Rarely peered into Oxford guides to everything someone that deals with language would ever need but neglects to consult, a companion to British history, a whopping Chambers Biographical Dictionary printed on paper that reminds me of that horrible scratchy toilet paper we had at school and an easily dipped in and out of Mojo guide to the Greatest Albums of All Time. There's also the Boys From The Blackstuff scripts to remind me what great writing should be, a cheapo Wordsworth Companion to Literature in English, a whopper companion to philosophy, Robert Graves' legendary Greek Myths, a Halliwell's Who's Who and, of course, it's the law, a complete works of Shakespeare, which gathers dust like no other.
I sit in a hideously uncomfortable seat. I developed some back problems when I worked at the newspaper so we went out and bought a lovely office chair a couple of years ago, and I've never been able to sit in it because M has claimed it as her own.
There are other trinkets. Lots of the main clobber on the desk is inspirational items to remind me what On A Shout is actually about. Historian Jan Crowther's great book about Spurn, a postcard of Lifeboatman legend Henry Freeman, an old RNLI lag giving a young boy what for, a print of a dodgy old lifeboat that's being restored, a detail from a Charles Napier Hemy marine painting and, just in case I really go off the rails, the theatre brochure containing the necessary blurb.
There are other clues about my addled life; a couple of books about J Arthur Rank, a video containing Muhammad Ali footage, a roll of black electrical tape, a Golden Virgina tobacco tin, a box of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series, a pack of playing cards, lots of bottles of ink, a broken watch, a couple of guitars in gig bags trying to get in shot. Nothing special, eh?

Brief sojourn into the city centre. Why? Because we like to walk in the rain. I wish I could stop feeling mad about the money making scam that is traffic wardens. It should all have left me, really, having spent three months without a vehicle and with no new one in sight. But no, these people still get my back up. Luckily, a young chap who had walked out of a JobCentre Plus (Plus what, exactly?) did my job for me when he spotted a warden slapping a ticket on a camper van with Swiss license plates. "Job centre there, mate," he said menacingly, "go get yourself a fucking proper job, yeah?" I was thinking along similar lines but wasn't anywhere close to vocalising it. So well done, young man. Keen to do something and noticing that the warden was taking photographs of the vehicle, I took a picture of the warden because I know they don't like that. But I say, if they can touch our cars, I can store them electronically on my mobile phone. I also thought how pointless an exercise it was placing a ticket on a foreign vehichle - once the van has left the country how enforceable is a parking fine? Do Interpol get involved at some stage? What type of welcome to a city is a parking ticket? Why oh why oh why can't people just park on the streets for free? Surely the only reason the council needs to generate all this income from parking fees and fines is to pay for the army of wardens that patrol the streets? Grrrrr.

Too real?

As a man that literally throws away hours of his time gawping at all incarnations of Big Brother I suppose I better express my thoughts on the recent shenanigans. It's certainly an uncomfortable viewing experience, and Brecht would be impressed with the alienation techniques at work. There's absolutely no doubt that racism has reared its ugly head - the housemates can't blame dodgy, out-of-context editing for their bigotry. But I'm not expecting Davina McCall to give any of the guilty housemates a grilling when they exit the bunker to their deserved chorus of boos. Nah, she'll talk about the important issues. Such as...erm...erm...nope, sorry, can't really think of anything else that's happened. She'll think of something vacuous, though, our Davina, she's a master at that. I'm thinking, though, that the reason CBB is such an awkward, horrendous experience for us audience members this time around is that those people slobbing around on the sofa really are a true representation of the worst, shitty bits of British life. Ladies and gentlemen, this country is home to many racists and, ooh, look, there they are. And when those racists are not called to task over their misguided views, it reminds us of the times when we've not intervened when we should have. Or it does me, anyway, and, as I watch these morons, I'm growing increasingly appalled. I've met the likes of Goody, O'Meara and Lloyd in the real world. Okay, the ones I've met aren't Z-list celebs nor footballers wives, but they spouted the same nonsense, and, like H from Steps, I've failed to confront them. Never again, though, I'm certain of that. For once, reality television is just what it says on the tin. And it ain't nice, is it?

Back to Spurn today, to gather some research and admire the choppy conditions out on the Humber. With Force 10s on the way the crew were all set to head to their second home at Grimsby (they move there when the wind is high, as otherwise it's impossible to launch the lifeboat). But it was the coxswain's wife I'd come to have a quick natter with, and she explained life at Spurn over a nice cuppa. We sat and talked in the control room. It looks like this:

Tomorrow? No Spurn, just J Arthur Rank, which is coming along nicely, thanks for asking.