One Channel Mind

One Channel Mind

When the cliffs receded until they were no more, like the white dot on the late evening telly (there was only one channel then), sternly my Dad told me about the old song: fog in channel, continent cut off.
Now, with a whole continent ahead of us we moved to the prow.
Dad told me of how when he first tried to land here a group of people were shooting at him.
I asked him why, he said there was a war on.
As the Sealink moved closer and you looked beyond the blue you could see the concrete boxes – nests they were called – where the guns were.
I’d never seen walls so thick and windows so small.
It seemed quite peaceful now.
I said, Dad what is a war. He replied the war was one group of people fighting against another group because this group were doing terrible things to another group of people.
I asked him why people got into groups and did things against others – aren’t we all people? He didn’t have an answer and became as silent as my mother who stayed at the stern facing back , her hands gripping the rail as white as the cliffs.
Today the continent is no longer cut off, you enter through a gap in the rock, submerged in years, parentless. It’s not so easy to sing though the song remains the same.
Flashing by I saw the last of those pill boxes or nests – I always hoped they were for kingfishers – and thought of the deep deep layers of concrete my Mum must have placed to prevent the memories of those from her group ( their continental names I’d unearthed in an archive) who – choice less – travelled on different trains east.