The Lonely Saint

The seasons don’t arrive neatly, unwrapped on a specific date like valentine’s or Halloween. They creep up on you in fits and starts, sometimes prematurely, returning to hibernation like bears that have woken too soon.

Spring announces itself as much in the lengthening daylight hours as in the change in temperature or the arrival of the daffodils or bluebells. For months you shiver in the cold and then a day comes where you realise you could be sunburnt if you stay out too long in the sun.

There are many stony beaches along the exposed estuary shorelines down by the mouth of the Tamar River – the tidal borderlands that separate south east Cornwall and south west Devon. This is my territory. Sometimes I might sleep – doze – on one of these beaches. I keep itinerant hours as a result of my freelance working and my insomnia. Sleep is as haphazard as other aspects of my life. I don’t begrudge it, better to embrace its flexibilities.

Several years ago I was accosted by a policeman who’d found me dozing by the shoreline. I think a transitory proof of my status – a bank or library card – had satisfied them that I was not some passing hobo who might cause them trouble later.

Obviously the police had been on the lookout for someone in particular to have been so far off the beaten track. But I don’t think they’d seen me as that suspect. I was just collateral damage for an officer in a heightened state of awareness. I didn’t ask why they were combing the beach and he didn’t solicit any information once he’d established my bona fides.

Today, in a more remote spot, I have the beach to myself. I could be Crusoe here – that’s the vibe if you lie in the shelter of the trees and don’t interrogate the view too closely. It’s where I shot the cover for my album Shipwreck Songs.

There are some people about. The dog walkers in the fields nearby. But not too many. As though spring has caught everyone by surprise. Tomorrow is St Piran’s day – centre point of the Cornish calendar – but I don’t know much about the saint. I’m not truly a man of Cornwall, although I’ve lived half a life here and my mother grew up here. I have a fondness for Devon too, bred from many childhood holidays on my uncle’s farm out on Dartmoor. Each county has its charms and culture.

I’m a man of the west.

An established member of the borderlands.

The wind is gentle here today. The sun regaining its powers. The tide is turning and spring may finally become a promise I can believe in.