The Wick: 3

The Wick: 3

20/4/2026

No wake up call from Morse the crow. This sunny morn it's Gary Davies coming at me through a builder's radio the size of Sizewell. It's a harsh blare. Next door is having new windows put in, putting my Victorian metal frames to shame. Installing double glazing in a fisherman's shack exemplifies the gentrification that the village is currently attempting to resist. Beyond my Crittal window the outside world is creeping in on 'The Wick'. Looking south down the coast Sizewell B looms large on the horizon. Sizewell C is well on its way. 1000 hectares of new 'infrastructure'. The benefits will be undeniable: low-carbon electricity for 6 million homes. The downside? It's going to take 9 to 12 years to construct. The railway crossing at drowsy Darsham usually signals 10 minutes from the Walberswick turnoff.  When I drove up on Friday that home run took me 50 minutes. A labyrinth of bypasses and roundabouts has reduced/elevated the sleepy A12 to a cauldron of chaos and concrete. What was once dozy is now buzzing.

The 7 o'clock news interrupts Gary's breakfast show blather. Iran is resisting peace talks as the US attacks their cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, an Israeli soldier attacks a statue of Jesus Christ with a sledgehammer. Netanyahu reassures us that "Israel is the only place in the Middle East that adheres to freedom of worship for all." Perhaps that soldier mistook the statue for a Red Cross worker? It's easy to confuse Jesus with a doctor. 

I currently want for nowt but the world directly outside my Walberswick window. Even The Wick's parish pump politics can be intrusive. I came here for retreat. But it's hard to ignore America's advances. 

Trump's bellicose bravado is as nauseating as it is transparent: there's money to be made. And nothing distracts from domestic dilemma like a war on foreign soil. As Trump punches the air, his feverish followers continue to fall at his feet: supplicant believers become dumb disciples. He can do no wrong. Modern American 'politics' eh? Nothing seems rooted in reality: it reads like a fiction that you couldn’t make up, let alone believe. Debate has become more about abuse and mockery than open minded discourse and authentic argument. Now politicians shirk responsibility and point the finger of blame randomly, spitefully, whilst smugly lining their pockets. They don't’t even blanch when caught out: just shrug it off as though self-interest and mendacity was part of the game. Galbraith nailed it: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”

Where are the ‘strong and forceful voices’? It’s been a while since we have seen a youthful US politician of vision, integrity and charisma. Trump's support is bewildering mass myopia. Emboldened, he knows no shame and is thus shameless: his sins unquantifiable because they simply don’t count. If Donald is the answer then what on this flat earth is the question? Beyond a confirmation of their tribalism, beyond enabling his self serving adventurism, beyond mindlessly nailing their colours to his mast, what course are DT's cowing crew expecting him to plot? What’s in it for them? Trump has sold short the value of caution and care: politics aren’t meant to be dramatic, exciting, thrilling or emotional, but that’s the shit-show they’ve become, and Don the Con's your toothsome, loathsome host. Without coherent character he has no cogent conscience, and as such, he exists in a moralistic void. His vulgar vapidity has shrouded what was once bright and beautiful: an American independence of thought and vision that enabled and demanded genuine, authentic inclusivity. 'We the people' means everyone! Doesn't it? Trump has dulled his toadying tribe into reverent, slack-jawed acceptance: a blind faith that precludes logical assessment or judgment. And so it goes; he has effectively elevated himself above the regulations and restraints of law and truth; of dignity and duty. Regardless of those disdains, what does his popularity say about America’s moral compass? It's terrifying to know that his trembling pinkies hover over the Big Red Button. It is truly terrifying to recognise that the world's fragile world order is in Trump's sweaty hands, and his hands are shaking. He plays golf whilst we hold our breath. The Doomsday Clock is currently set to 85 seconds to midnight; that symbolic apocalypse has never been closer. Perhaps the 11th hour is perfect timing for derailing the orange juggernaut? Cometh the hour. But where’s yer man? Who will finally take up the mantle and challenge the madness? Meanwhile, above the law, effectively unchallenged, an unprincipled Donald J. Trump continues to live in his own little world, determined to make it ours. We couldn’t be dumb enough to let him. Could we?

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want."

Hannah Arendt

As morning progresses, that builder's radio buzzes ever louder. Jeremy Vine's due, signalling high noon. So I set out, shore-bound. It's wild and windy, but a gloriously sunny spring day. As I saunter south, next the gunmetal grey of North Sea, the famous golf ball silhouette of Sizewell B beckons gloomily. Regardless of my admirable legwork, it seems to remain the same size; undiminishable: undeniable: ever-present. I refocus. My destination is The Ship in Dunwich. They do a decent Scotch Egg and pickle. Their chips are thrice cooked. I always seem to arrive minutes before the kitchen closes. Best look alive.

The Wick: 2

The Wick: 2

19/4/2026

Tappety tap-tap. Morse is back. 6:30am on the nose. He’s nothing but punctual. There’s something in his timing that’s too rhythmic to be random; it’s almost as though he’s conveying a coded message from up the coast, or perhaps from the past. Maybe Morse is a reborn carrier pigeon who just can’t deny his past life’s innate instincts? A crow in the know? I look forward to getting to know him.
Up. Porridge and coffee. Walk to the beach, find a spot and read. A routine in the offing. This morning it’s Wallace Stegner’s 'Crossing to Safety’. It’s a novel primarily about friendship, love, loyalty and the places that we hold dear. A sentence leaps out at me. “There it is, the place where during the best times of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.”

Apart from home, The Wick is home to my happiness and is already resettling my bones. Some places can do that; find harbour in your heart and drop anchor. There’s a kind of reverberation that aligns itself with you and aligns you to it. Similar to enduring friendships, there’s something recognisable in the frisson of discovery. I’d consider myself ‘wordly’, so there’s sweet-relief in the recognition of new experience that isn’t filtered through an ‘all knowing’ prism. I can still see. I can still feel. It’s not always about adventure and movement. Sometimes a moment will find your static bones and nudge you towards enlightenment. But you have to pay attention; the epiphanies are fleeting; often caught on the edge of view, in plain sight but in the corner of your eye. Even if imagined, they’re worth studying. Here in The Wick the days are reduced to a slow parade of possibilities. I know that there are those who poo-poo ‘self regard’ as indulgence. Their loss. The unexamined life... etc. Self-regard is what I’m here for. I walk. I talk with strangers. I read. I reacquaint myself with the hope of hope. And that is hope enough.

Whole Day of Hope

With the moon on my back I follow my shadow
Towards the light of a better day
I try to resist the straight and the narrow
In search of the hip and hooray

You ask me ‘why’ and I say ‘because’
I think I’ve been lonely too long
I am what I am, I’m not what I was
Let me cast my bones in this song

Maybe I know that you know
But sometimes things have to be said
There’s a shadowland deep in my heart
Where I am too easily led

I once had a whole day of hope
Happiness came and was seated
I once had a whole day of hope
But the moon rose upon the defeated

Beautiful burden, solid and sure
Yours is the path I am choosing
Perish the truth, love will endure
But I can’t seem to win for the losing

The things that keep moving us forward
Are the things that keep holding us back
I want to be shaped by intention
But I’m shaped by the courage I lack

I once had a whole day of hope
Happiness came and was seated
I once had a whole day of hope
But the moon rose upon the defeated

The Wick: 1

The Wick: 1
18/4/2026


I woke with the lark. Or should I say, the crow. Its silhouette was ratatat-tapping on my window early doors: 6:30am. I’d forgotten to draw the studio bedroom curtains and my new corvine chum was clearly enamoured with his own reflection. Or he was seeing off the competition. I stumbled down ever steepening stairs to confront my own reflection. I recognise that smiling whilst brushing one’s teeth is an odd habit. It made me think of Dr Love, the long-gone father of a rugby teammate. He’d retired early to make violins, only coming out of his shed on Saturdays to watch his son Simon play. On one of those days, as I removed my gum shield to shake his congratulatory hand, he offered me this wisdom: “Folk don’t trust people who smile too much Trevor. Your teeth were too white.” This medical advice was clearly prescribed for a budding narcissist. That was nearly 50 years ago. And this morning I gurned a grey smile as I flossed. Too much coffee and red wine. I pushed my teeth into the back of a grimace and cursed Dr Love. After porridge, I took Raymond Carver’s ‘Cathedral’ to the sea, found a dune, sat and read.

The first story ‘Feathers’ reminded me of peacocks. Which in turn reminded me of Betty. My mum loved peacocks; collected their feathers and fed their young. The rest of her village hated the things; they screeched like beaten babies; “mayawe, may-awe” their dawn chorus as they scratched and shat on everyone’s cars. My dad’s cherished Skoda ‘Octavia’ testified to that. Terry hated the peacocks too, but his children were sworn to secrecy. Apparently peacocks personify immortality and renewal; an irony likely not lost on Betty; even in her deepening dementia. I hope that she still dreams of their iridescent beauty.
A flash of turquoise as the sun found the offing; a young American couple with two baby twins sat close enough for me to sense the need for diaper-duty. Spell broken, like a blinking tail disappearing into the blue, I made my way to The Anchor for an early pub lunch. A minuscule battered loin of cod, with chips and broccoli was washed down with a half pint of alcohol free ‘Ghost Ship’. No amount of citrus and hops could atone for its mean spirit. Two elderly ladies on the next table were rattling: something about a ‘roving rector’ and asparagus. The more decrepit of the two had invited the rector back for dinner but had forgetfully duplicated her previous offering: “And didn’t he tell me so! Didn’t stop his moaning until he ran out of breath, and that took a while…” The offending crispy duck pancake (“with piquant plum sauce”) sounded tasty to me, but our picky parson simply wasn’t having it. “How was your cod?”, asked my waitress. “Poultry!” I replied a little too hastily. The decrepits glared: they’d clearly caught me listening in. “Get down Gus!” one of them barked as I offered their humungous dog a conciliatory chip. As I beat a retreat past their now sleeping wolfhound, apparently ‘Asparagus’, I pushed my tongue into the back of my teeth and gave them a smile that Dr Love wouldn’t have trusted, but would surely have understood. I shuffled back to the studio to write this blather and snooze, only to be awoken by, you’ve guessed it, the ratatat-tapper’s return. He’s out there now, scowling back at me like a roving rector who’s been offered one crispy duck too many. I’ve even named the upstart. ‘Morse’ of course.