Hooray! Slept through the night J
So today, we hopped on a little boat and went overseas! It felt
odd enough yesterday to be able to see
Scotland – seeing another country from the shore, definitely out of the
ordinary for Kiwis. But to jump into a (really very) small boat to actually go to another country was quite unreal!
We drove from Belfast up to Ballycastle on the north Antrim
coast, another really pretty seaside town (and apparently voted the happiest town
in the UK). Although it was a beautiful day it was VERY cold on the boat, and
quite choppy, so after the first 15 minutes or so we all – producer, director,
cameraman, sound guy, Levi and me – ended up huddling in the cabin to avoid the
wind and the spray. It took an hour or so to get to Port Ellen, a picturesque
village built around the harbour and one of several towns on the island of
Islay (“Eye-la”). The island population is about 3 ½ thousand – and it’s home
to 8 distilleries, including Ardbeg and Bowmore as well as the famous Laphroaig.
Once we arrived, to warm up we popped into a café for tea
and scones (in preference to a single malt!), and then we made our way to Dr
Margaret Storrie’s house a mile or so up the road. Margaret’s house is on a section
facing the sea, with lovely gardens both front and back. She was disappointed
the gardens weren’t in full spring flower, but they were beautifully planted
and well-kept nonetheless. The view from Margaret’s lounge and back garden is out
to Rathlin Island and the North Antrim coast behind it, over to the left you
can see the Kintyre Peninsula (of ‘Mull of Kintyre’ musical fame), and in
between you’re looking straight down the North Channel, the strait between
Scotland and Ireland which links the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Stunning
on a beautiful day as we had, and I can imagine stunning also, in a different
way, on a wild winter day.
It was quite overwhelming to meet Margaret. William Bald
first came to her attention when she was a young academic geographer and she
came across one of his early maps, from the first decade of the 1800s when he
was still a teenager. She was struck by the quality and detail of his work, and
decided “I need to find out about this William Bald”. Her research uncovered
that he’d moved on from surveying and cartography, and become a Civil Engineer
undertaking many and varied projects, with the Antrim Coast Road being considered
his greatest lasting achievement, the masterpiece of his engineering career. When
in the early 2000s my dad started to look into the veracity of the story his
father had told him, that an un-named grandfather had built the Antrim Coast
Road, it was a reference to Margaret’s 1968 paper that proved the story was
worth following up. So for me today meeting Margaret, who has been interested
in William Bald for such a long time – before Dad really knew of William,
before we knew he was “ours”, since before I was even born – was actually quite
emotional.
We spent some time talking, more or less chatting, on camera
in Margaret’s lounge. One of the most striking things was the level of effort
she’d had to put into the William Bald research. This was in the 1960s, all the
records were paper-based (oh we’ve got it so easy now with the internet!), and
there weren’t even photocopiers – so she had her husband, mother, sister all
helping her transcribe records and notes. In an attempt to trace descendants,
she wrote to every Bald in the UK phone book, but to no avail – a few
rellies-by-marriage, but no-one as directly descended as us Balds and Goodwins.
After the main conversation we walked up and down the garden
a bit for the camera, still chatting but just for us, not being recorded; plus did
the requisite listening shots, and Margaret describing the fabulous view to me filmed
from 3 or 4 different angles. Gavin (director) interviewed me a bit more, and also
Levi, about what we’d learned and how we’re feeling about William and his work
and the experience we’re having. (It’s remarkable how quickly you can get used
to wearing a microphone and having a TV camera on you.) Once Gavin was happy he’d
got everything he wanted for the documentary we went back to the Sea Salt Café for
lunch, then it was photos and farewells before we got back on the boat for the
return journey to Northern Ireland.
The highlight of the return trip (cold again, but not so
bumpy) was the skipper taking us in close to the northern side of Rathlin
Island to see the birds – lots of them, floating in the sea, flying around, and
roosting on the cliffs. I’m sure guillemots and razorbills are quite
extraordinary, but what seemed the most exotic and exciting to me was to see puffins!
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