Here Come The Swans

I must’ve been about nine or ten years old when I first started to go to football matches with my brother. He was a regular at Roots Hall, home of Southend United football club. They were a perennial third or fourth division club back then, bouncing between the two divisions.

He had a bunch of friends who he went to the football with. They had their rituals, one of which involved counting the empty milk bottles in the street that led to the entrance to the south bank, which was the part of the stadium they stood in. These bottles acted as a prediction for the match result, but I forget the specific details of how that worked.

Of course many people reading the above paragraphs might be asking themselves what the third and fourth divisions are, then wondering what milk bottles were and then questioning why people were standing at a football match. But none of that matters, trust me.

One of those early matches I went to involved Millwall. Millwall are a London based team, famous for their supporters who on the whole don’t have a great reputation. To get to Southend from Millwall was easy enough and there were a lot of their fans at this game. The south bank of the Roots Hall stadium was a sort of neutral area – the hardcore home supporters were to be found opposite in the north bank. Away supporters were usually segregated in an area at the bottom of the east stand.

But geography isn’t important. What was important on that day was that we were in this neutral area when the Millwall fans broke through (or out from) the part of the ground they’d been housed in. They were looking for a fight and doubtless Southend fans interested in fighting had made their way out from the north bank. Bottles were being thrown between the two opposing sets of supporters – and we were somewhere in the middle of all this as bottles sailed over us in both directions.

That was what football was like in the 1970s. Although not all football. Most of the time nothing much happened and Tim and his friends carried on whatever esoteric conversations they were having and occasionally some football broke out on the pitch. Everyone went home happy. Especially if Southend won.

Coming back from that Millwall game, we found ourselves herded in with the Millwall supporters. There was a big police presence and to ensure no trouble spilled out into the town centre, all the Millwall fans were being marched straight on to trains out of Southend Victoria station and back up to London. The police tried to put me, my brother and my sister Chris on to a train to London – despite our protests that we were locals whose route home just happened to be taking us past the train station. This didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere until Chris had the smart idea of producing her library card. This turned out to be the vital piece of proof that we needed.

Because of course, Millwall fans wouldn’t even know what a book was, let alone a library, let alone be in possession of a library card. 

No, I’m kidding. 

But being a member of Southend library was proof enough that we were indeed locals and we were then allowed to continue our journey. Otherwise who knows what might have happened.

*

Forget football. Forget the 1970s. Today I’m reading a book of ghost stories by Jeanette Winterson. After finishing the latest story I get up to leave. I’m by the river. Across the bridge on the Devon side of the Tamar. Saltash Passage.

The river has a right side and a wrong side

That’s a line from a song by Australian band The Lucksmiths. The song is not, as far as I know, about the River Tamar. Both sides of this river are fine.

I get up to leave, but there’s a vehicle blocking the route back to the road. A worker emptying the bins. So I have to wait until their job is done and the path is clear.

That’s when I see them.

Three swans flying north up the estuary. You can hear them too. The beating of wings against the air. It's a distinctive sound. Swans in flight are amazing. Mute swans are one of the heaviest flying birds on Earth. They fly low to the ground and their long necks point straight ahead like an arrow that indicates direction of travel. You never normally see their necks straightened like this, you don’t realise how long they are.

The curved swan neck is a trademark. It’s their signature. Nature created it and we as humans have adopted it in the design of our lamps and other items.

The swans split up, one continuing north while the other two circle back on themselves as they lose elevation and prepare to land.

Swans are fiercely territorial. Our local pair have no young this season. A fallow year. Perhaps they tried. Perhaps their young were lost. After last year’s young briefly returned and were eventually repelled, the local pair have been living a quiet life. They spend the majority of their time beneath the café next to the slipway where boats can be launched into the river. Here they are fed daily. It seems a simple life.

Today is just another ordinary day for them until the three swans fly past. Two have turned back and are now encroaching on their territory. The local pair are swift to react. They set off from their base by the slipway, slowly at first, but with purpose. They pick up speed. The male takes the lead, its mate following in the slipstream. Halfway across the river they travel, and then beyond.

Once the male is close enough to the intruders, it takes flight, wings beating furiously as it gains more speed. This is how these territorial conflicts play out. The opposing males, one in attack and the other in retreat.. The retreating swan will land and then try to sneak back as close as it dares get to its rival. These skirmishes continue, an ebb and flow, like rounds in a boxing match.

Not all parts of the estuary are accessible by foot. Part of this conflict takes place out of my sight. At some point the female following her mate is roused to flap its wings and take flight too. I can’t see much now, but there’s an inlet further round the river at Kinterbury Creek. I make my way here, following the road, and then climb down steep steps to get back to ground level. At the water’s edge I stop to record what I’ve witnessed – and then in the distance the swans are sighted again.

Battle is rejoined. The beating of opposing wings is louder when witnessed at close quarters. The sound of males in conflict. Their mates watching at a distance, ready to involve themselves only if required. There’s no clear victor here, although the raiders eventually appear to have been corralled at the far end of the inlet. Left to lick any wounds, to groom themselves after their exertions. A trail of discarded feathers drifting on the incoming tide.

These riverside confrontations doubtless occur more often than I’m aware of, I’m present here for only a fraction of each day. It’s exhilarating to watch, although I do not condone conflict or violence. The swans wear no colours beyond the orange beaks that signify their status as fully mature adults. One set is hard to distinguish from the other, unlike football supporters who always proudly show support for their team.

The two visiting swans, survivors of this morning’s conflict, step out from the water and climb up the riverbank to stand in front of me. There’s no sense of menace or threat, but it is as if they are aware I am writing about them and they want to ensure I tell their tale honestly.

They are the watchmen, sent to hold the author to account. They are the life and I am just a camera, a machine sent to record all that I see.

*

Twenty-four hours later the swans are back in Kinterbury Creek. Three swans. Presumably the three I saw flying in previously. The one that initially headed on north has rejoined the other two. All seems calm. They bathe in the shallow water. They dip their long necks under the surface and then tip them back to drink.

The sun is out. There's a modest breeze. Territorial rights have perhaps been established, a borderline running somewhere down the middle of the river. 

But remember when you're wandering alongside/ The river has a right side and a wrong side.

With nothing to report, the correspondent is sent home. But first there's time for one more ghost story.