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    Father Thames
    Father Thames
    Father Thames
    Ebook122 pages1 hour

    Father Thames

    By Roger Williams

    ()

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    About this ebook

    CONTENTS

    1. The Ferryman
    2. The arrival of the English
    3. The Hansa merchants
    4. Island of the Dutch
    5. The Chaplain's tale
    6. At the sign of the Turk's head
    7. The Huguenots
    8. Seaman Pjotr Mikhailov
    9. Poor Palatines
    10. The Herring
    11. Hanoverians in a fog
    12. The Honourable East India Company
    13. Crossing into womanhood
    14. Marlow's last voyage
    15. The East Enders
    16. Bomber
    17. The death of Amy Johnson
    18. MV Empire Windrush
    19. The hunt for Princess Pocahontas
    20. An illegal immigrant

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRoger Williams
    Release dateApr 18, 2012
    ISBN9780956741646
    Father Thames
    Author

    Roger Williams

    Roger K. Williams has spent over 20 years in retail, more than 18 years in IT, and in excess of 12 years in leadership roles at Fortune 50 companies. He has also earned numerous certifications including ITIL® Expert, PMP, COBIT® 5 Foundation, HDI Support Center Manager, ISO20000 Foundation, and Toastmasters Advanced Communicator Bronze. He has spoken at international conferences and panel sessions on ITSM and navigating the future of computing. His writings on managing attention and harnessing technology trends at the RogertheITSMGuy blog and on Google+ have garnered praise from a diverse audience.

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      Book preview

      Father Thames - Roger Williams

      FATHER THAMES

      20 short stories

      from the incoming tide

      by Roger Williams

      ISBN 978-0-9567416-4-6

      Published by Bristol Book Publishing at Smashwords

      www.bristolbook.co.uk

      Copyright ©Roger Williams 2012

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      __________

      For centuries, invaders, migrants, royalty and refugees have travelled west, chasing the sun across the North Sea and up Britain’s liquid highway to the city of London.

      These are some of their stories

      ________________

      CONTENTS

      Song of the North Sea

      1. The Ferryman

      2. The arrival of the English

      3. The Hansa merchants

      4. Island of the Dutch

      5. The Chaplain's tale

      6. At the sign of the Turk's head

      7. The Huguenots

      8. Seaman Pjotr Mikhailov

      9. Poor Palatines

      10. The Herring

      11. Hanoverians in a fog

      12. The Honourable East India Company

      13. Crossing into womanhood

      14. Marlow's last voyage

      15. The East Enders

      16. Bomber

      17. The death of Amy Johnson

      18. MV Empire Windrush

      19. The hunt for Princess Pocahontas

      20. An illegal immigrant

      The Song of the North Sea

      I am the Celt on the cautious edge of the unfrozen swamps.

      I am the Roman, bringing bridges, laws and lamentations.

      I am the ferryman, laden with the souls of the departed.

      I am the Frisian, Angle, Saxon, Jute, my blood mixed in a common root.

      I am the Viking who will slaughter men to make them saints.

      I am the Flanders weaver, the Hansa hawker, the Orange prince of Protestants.

      I am the plague, the oysterman, the captain of the herring fleet.

      I am the opiated Chinaman, the Russian Jew.

      I am the road to riches and the hungry scum of Dickens' tales.

      I am the Dreadnought on the Dogger Bank, the flightpath of the incendiary Blitz.

      I am the Windrush and the Polish plumber, the trafficked child, the oligarch.

      My mouth is wide, my banks are rich,

      My bed is warm and waiting for anybody drifting west…

      Back to Contents

      1: THE FERRYMAN

      'I have been told by countless people (though I find it hard to believe) that Brittia, lying opposite the source of the Rhine and inhabited by Angles, Friesians and Britons, is the home of dead souls. At night the inhabitants on the coast row the dead across the sea to Brittia. For this task they avoid paying taxes to the Franks.' — Procopius of Caeseria, 500–565 AD

      I ASKED the soldiers and I asked the shopkeepers. I asked the fishermen ' and the net menders. I asked the carters and the brick makers, the herdsmen and the reed gatherers; I asked the priests and the law-givers. Some of them laughed at me, some threw fish at me. Many shook their heads and turned their backs on me. Some demanded money. A few said they had heard the tales of boats taking the souls of the departed, following the dying sun west across the water to the island of the dead. But nobody could tell me who the ferryman was or where I might find him. Then, on the fourth day, a boy tugged at my tunic and led me from the settlements, across the marshes of frogs and snakes, of motionless herons and mewling gulls, to a hut by a brackish inlet where a barge thick with pitch was tied. Its sails were furled and its silhouette was sharpened by the sun that was sinking through the mist to the end of the sky where it met the end of the sea. The hut was a gloomy space, lit by a lamp that smelled of fish oil. On loose reeds crawling with insects sat a figure of unimaginable age, whose voice was high and insistent, like a gnat. The whites of his eyes were fresh and clear, his lips were wet and his face was hairless. His garment was woven of sheep's wool and a leather helmet was tight about his head, hiding whatever hair he might have had. The boy stood beside him, and I asked if this was the ferryman who took the souls of the dead to their resting place across the water. Before he gave me a reply, the figure held up his hand for money. The palm was soft and white, and looked as if it had never hauled on a rope or been blistered by an oar. Perhaps he, too, was a boy, though he had no teeth. Perhaps he was a hundred years old and had not aged, or had aged and was now aging backwards. I sat before him, and took coins from my purse. He gripped them tightly in his white fist for a moment, then his hand moved up to his eyes and his fingers opened like the petals of a flower at dawn. A thin thumb and index finger picked up the coins one at a time and put them into his mouth to test with a press of his gums. With a satisfied sigh, he dropped them into his lap, and in his dry, scraping voice he began to tell me about the journey with the souls. It took several days, he said, depending on their temper, if they encouraged a sweet wind or threw up a storm. Sometimes, if a tempest did not abate, or if the boat was becalmed for more than three days, he would throw the souls into the thick soup of sea and leave them to their own devices, to hitch themselves to the teaming beasts that flowed with the tides, which would sweep them up the estuary of a turbulent river. This was the entrance to the island, the passage towards the beginning of nothing, which is the end of everything. But if all went well, said the ferryman, he would carry them there himself, travelling several miles up the broad estuary beyond the marshes, where the current began to subside and the banks were green with willows and grasses, with meadow flowers that were always in sunshine. It was both purgatory and paradise, depending on the eyes of the dead, for this was where all the souls of the world ended their days. I told the ferryman that I wanted to know if he had taken my father across the water, and I gave his name and said where he came from. He looked heavenwards, studying for a while the hole in the roof of the hut through which smoke escaped, and stroking his thin, vulnerable throat. When a hand stretched out for further payment, I gave him more coins and he told me to describe my father's soul. This was not easy, I said, for I had not seen him for thirty years, since I had left to find my fortune in the sun, but as I recalled, it was in the shape of a pear, being thinner at the top, and wider at the bottom, by which I meant that there were many things in his past, though he always seemed settled in his thinking; also that the skin of the pear was rough and unwelcoming to the touch, and the flesh was not juicy or sweet, and could be bitter. Bruises and scars that had been caused by other souls had healed over, though they had left an uneven shape. The seeds were withered and the stalk was short. My father's soul smelled of the fungus of the fruit, of damp dust, though in my memory it was firm and not rotten or over-ripe. I also felt I should mention the fact that my father always swore that he was never a boy but came into the world as a puppy dog. As I came to the end of my description, the ferryman closed his eyes and rocked backwards and forwards, and began an incomprehensible incantation. The sanguine walls of his pulsating cheeks made his mouth seem like a vast cave, growing wider and deeper, and I began to think it might have become the entrance to the underworld. The voice flew across the agitated tongue becoming louder until the name of my father came out with such a wild and alien sound that I thought his soul had been summoned back from over the water and was suddenly ejected into the air before me. Smoke from the fire danced wildly. The lamp light trembled. I stepped backwards, fearful, wondering in whose presence I was now standing. The ferryman fell silent and pitched forwards, his

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