Literary Merit.

[Kukri]

I contend that whilst the East Coast lacks the scenic charm of Scotland and the historical associations and grandeur of the South Coast, it has produced better writing.

 

[LittleSister]

You're thinking of Ian Dury and Enid Blyton, no doubt?

 

[Kukri]

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

 

[Wansworth]

Or course the editor of Yachting Monthly in he book about the swatchways which I cannot recall had a descriptive turn of phrase.....Magic of the Swatchways

 

[Poignard]

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

Written by a Pole.

 

[ex-Gladys]

Or course the editor of Yachting Monthly in he book about the swatchways which I cannot recall had a descriptive turn of phrase.....Magic of the Swatchways

Magic of the Swatchways is the ONLY book I've ever read where I read it the first time, and then went straight back to page 1 and read it again...

 

[johnalison]

There is certainly much evocative writing about the East Coast, but it doesn't all qualify as literature, in the sense of having a universal appeal. There is, I am sure, good local writing in the West Country, or North East, or wherever you choose. Apart from the rather variable Britten, I don't think we have done much for music, but Art is certainly something we can be proud of.

 

[tillergirl]

And we don't have midges!

Frances Cooke, Alker Tripp?

 

[Jan Harber]

Written by a Pole.

By the name of Conrad I think?

 

[Kukri]

Who met a passenger named John Galsworthy when he was Chief Officer of this fast passenger ship trading to Australia, and was persuaded to take up writing..,

 

[Poignard]

By the name of Conrad I think?

Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski,

 

[Lucy52]

Or course the editor of Yachting Monthly in he book about the swatchways which I cannot recall had a descriptive turn of phrase.....Magic of the Swatchways

That would be "The Magician of the Swatchways"

Dick Durham, from Leigh-on-Sea

 

[Dan Tribe]

I once attended a yacht club lecture given by Jack Cootes on the literature of the East coast, an excellent evening.
It is too long ago to recall many of the books he read from but I would love to try and re-read some of them.
I wonder if Jan still has his notes or can remember any titles?

 

[Poignard]

Hervey Benham wrote some enjoyable books about the East Coast.

 

[Hydrozoan]

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor ...

A fine introduction, but the action soon moves elsewhere - and I’m not aware that Conrad wrote anything else of great significance about the East Coast or the Thames (especially in comparison with his other writing, naturally).

I’m surprised that nobody has yet mentioned Dickens, surely the writer in whose works the Thames looms largest? (And largely below the river’s tidal limit I think, in case of 'coastal' pedantry.)

 

[Dee Bee]

Not necessarily about the East Coast but I came accross these lines from a 12th Century Norman Poet called Wace:

Very bold,Very gallant was he
Who first built a ship
And set sail downwind
Seeking a country he didn't see
And a shore he didn't know

Rather good,I thought. Quoted in The White Ship by Charles Spencer

 

[ianc1200]

Magic of the Swatchways is the ONLY book I've ever read where I read it the first time, and then went straight back to page 1 and read it again...

You'll like my boat then....

 

[tillergirl]

Wasn't Storm the boat Maurice bought twice?

 

[johnalison]

Our copy of The Magic of the Swatchways is a paperback. On the cover is a photograph of an archetypical East-coaster:




A Wayfarer.

 

[Leighb]

Edward Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, and “Crossing the bar” I believe, an account of the Deben Bar on a bad day.