Uppingham by the Sea: A Narrative of the Year at Borth — John Shaqi
Uppingham by the Sea: A Narrative of the Year at BorthSkrine, John Huntley
History
Uppingham by the Sea: A Narrative of the Year at Borth
Skrine, John Huntley
Uppingham School
Elsewhere the storm-wave had worked more havoc. At Ynyslas, a flock of
one hundred and fifteen sheep were caught in their pastures, and drowned,
the farmer rescuing only eleven. The cottagers were driven to their
lofts, while the tide snatched away their furniture, doors,
window-frames, and tables, and strewed them along the railway banks.
There was flotsam and jetsam on what was now once more the coast-line at
the village of Taliesin, where in old days the bard's cradle had been
washed ashore; here one poor woman recovered her parlour-table of heavy
oak; her chairs had travelled farther yet to the door of a farmhouse in
the extreme corner of the marsh. These people were greater sufferers
than our villagers, but we could only help them by a subscription to
replace their losses.
For ourselves, we suffered nothing except a temporary scarcity of coals
and oil from the interruption of the railway traffic. It was a fortnight
before the next train ran on the stretch between us and Machynlleth, and
in the meanwhile the gap was bridged by a coach service. From four miles
of embankment the ballast had been sapped away, and the sleepers and
rails collapsing into the void presented a dismal picture of wreck.
Yes, we suffered one other privation. It was long before our football-
field rose again from the deeps, and was dry enough for play. Its
goalposts pricking up mournfully through the floods were a landmark which
the boys recognised with rueful eyes in the midst of the drowned and
deformed landscape.
More substantial measures than the patching up of the barricades in which
we assisted must be taken if Borth is to remain permanently in the roll
of Welsh villages. Our storm-wave was but part of a system of aggression
which the sea is carrying out upon these coasts. Older residents
remember a coach-road under the promontory, where now there is nothing
but rock and seaweed, and look forward gloomily to a day when Borth will
be "disturbed;" for so they euphemistically describe the catastrophe
which is finally to wash it away. But an acquaintance of ours, who
claims one of the longest memories in the place, is more confident. He
has known Borth seventy years and as he has never seen it destroyed
during all that time, does not think it will be now. His own house is
safe on the hill of Old Borth, so he judges with all the calm of
conscious security. His conviction, however, is not shared by his
townsfolk, who were soon busy holding meetings, and considering schemes
for the provision of something better than these moral guarantees.
Heartily do we hope that funds and measures will be found to save our
friends from another and more calamitous "disturbance." But a letter
from Borth, a year later, speaks of the sea as again threatening their
security. "We are not afraid of him, though," the correspondent, one of
our landladies, devoutly adds, "for he is under a Master." All the same,
we should like to hear of a stout sea-wall as well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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