THE PARADE, PARKGATE, WIRRAL
Because the Dublin packet’s draught was too great
for it to moor, irrespective of tides,
beside the quay, it would anchor in the roads
of the estuary. Passengers and goods
would be ferried to and fro by long boat.
Where the ship hoved-to a lagoon has been cut
among the fields of reed beds that thrive
on the rich silt accumulated, over
two centuries, this side of the river.
When sea-going vessels could no longer
sail the narrowing channels, when only
shrimping boats could find open water,
but the sandy beach was not yet overgrown
the place became a seaside resort.
The Customs House on the sea wall was razed.
A donkey stand was built on its foundations.
And there we sit today, contemplatively,
enjoying our Caesar Salad wraps,
watching a little egret on the lagoon –
and imagining George Frederick Handel,
for example, embark for Dublin
and the first performance of ‘The Messiah’,
and Dean Jonathan Swift returning home
to compose ‘A Modest Proposal’
concerning the children of the Irish poor.
Down river, too far to identify,
a raptor is circling; beyond, like
nets cast, flocks of waders rise and land.
On the horizon – where the river
and the Irish Sea mingle out of sight –
is the suspicion of white wind turbines.
Clive
January 31, 2025Not my more usual ‘literary’ comment, David. Just what you already know: that Irene and I have fond memories of this place from the years, now long ago, when we lived at Gayton and I worked at Woodchurch – those memories, and also particular memories of a more recent visit. I remember, too, that Irene’s four-times great-grandfather, Barnard Railton (1764 – 1809), was a pilot on the Dee and was among those serving the Packet Boats connecting Georgian Dublin to Wales and thereby to England in just such a way as your lines describe. (I think you perhaps have a copy of my poem alluding to this piece of family history). Barnard’s grandson, Joseph, became a pilot on the Mersey, by which time Parkgate had become more or less inaccessible from the sea.
Annabel Honor-Lissi
February 2, 2025Another wonderful poem!!! Parkgate – a place that houses so many legends at sea and on land. Thank you!!!
Jeff Teasdale
March 16, 2025Thank you, David. Several times I have been on Parkgate ‘promenade’ and heard people complain about ‘the horrible mud’, they not for a minute thinking or linking the facts that all the sediment being brought down from the Welsh hills suspended in the River Dee until it drops here, is all part of a process of change. And, as with packet boats, egrets, jam butties, wraps and geology, the landscape around us imperceptibly alters during the brief afternoon we view it, from what it was, to what it is, to what it will become.
In my childhood, even New Brighton was a seaside destination, with a beach and deckchairs and helter-skelter. The water apparently so clean that I once saved my cousin ‘from certain injury’ by preventing him from picking up a dinner-plate-sized jelly fish he had found and dropping it on me as I was digging out a sand castle (not injury incurred by the picking it up you understand, but incurred by the planned act of dropping it on my head). He also was slow to learn about cause-and-effect and the law of unintended consequences, sadly!
David Selzer
March 16, 2025New Brighton is, again, a seaside destination – though neither as grand as it originally was or as popular as when you and I were growing up.