The optimist

He was the epitome of optimism.  Either that, or he’d got the wrong day.

Waking on Sunday, I had to go to the window to inspect the unfamiliar view.  Out of the soft greys and greens of early morning, I could see the river and the dark grey cliff opposite with a darker point of the church steeple above.  It’s a pretty village, Newnham-on-Severn and most attractive of all from the opposite side of the river at the Old Passage, Arlingham.

But what really caught my attention was the dark figure standing by a lone car parked near the scrubby grass that leads down to the mudbanks and the river.  He was getting his surfboard off the roof rack.

“There must be a bore…” I murmured.

“No bore,” came the muffled retort from the other side of the room. “Definitely no bore until March.  He’s got the wrong day.  Tell him.  No bore today. Move along there.  Nothing to see.”

I didn’t feel like disturbing the peace by yelling out of the window at 7.30am on Sunday morning or by sprinting down the stairs, out into the garden and across dewy chilled grass in my thin nightie and bare feet like Ophelia possessed to tap him on the shoulder and deliver the bad news. So I just watched.

Actually I didn’t just watch. He just watched. He stood watching the river and  I looked up the Best Bore webpage on my laptop. DT man was right. We’ve had a couple of average bores so far this year – nothing special – and the big one, the 5′ bore, the absolute biggest and best of the year is due to arrive on Tuesday March 2nd.

The lower River Severn doesn’t look much when you stand on the bank on an average day. It’s too brown and boring.  It badly needs to take scenery lessons from the Loire or Itchen or the Wye.  It’s utterly spectacular from the sky – a broad ribbon of shining silver-grey silk snaking flatly down to the estuary but from the bank it’s quite frankly, a bit dull. Which is a shame, because it’s very special; it has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world and a bore.

For those that haven’t heard of it, the bore is a particular phenomenon that happens in the Severn and a couple of other parts of the world. I think the biggest is somewhere in China. It’s a wave of water caused by the funnelling effect of the narrowing channel.   The Severn bore is as intrinsic a part of Gloucestershire as the Cotswolds and Forest of Dean. The wave happens every time there is a tide and varies in height, from a lively ripple to a wall up to two metres high.

People surf, canoe and boat on the four and five star bores – the highest of the year. Thousands of people a year go down to the riverbanks at unearthly times of day to watch it. It’s something you must do if you move to Gloucestershire. Like the cheese rolling, it’s part of the culture. It was a kind of rite of passage for me as a child, newly-ripped from Wales and dumped in Gloucestershire – then seeing the Severn bore.

I remember we all had to get up early and go to a place called Stonebench, about four miles south of Gloucester, which dad had heard was the best place to go see it.  We parked the car on a verge by a field. It had taken ages because there was a long traffic jam of people in cars queued up waiting to park on the verge. And we had to walk in our wellies at about 7am.  Dad often used to get up at 4am to go fishing but it was unheard of for mum to be seen in day clothes at this unearthly hour.  She didn’t possess wellingtons but she had made her customary flask of tea.  I did have wellies becos I was about eight and they were very necessary for puddle splashing.

Scores of people stood about looking intently at the Severn, which was particularly muddy and lazy-looking river  with a tussocky bank that disappeared into the murky waters rather sharply. Nevertheless, people stood all over it, clinging to the branches of overhanging trees, trying to get as near as possible to the water to get a first glimpse of the bore. Some had brought food. There were several motorboats out there on the river with water skiers at the ready. The atmosphere was like a Quaker carnival – quiet and sober with an undercurrent of anticipation with everyone checking watches and taking authoritatively about how long it usually takes to get from Purton to Maisemore. Cameras were poised, small children who almost slid into the water were plucked and rescued at the last minute.

Dad was boringly sensible. He made us stand at the very highest point on the bank.

“But I can’t see,” wailed my brother, “we want to go down there.”

He and I were both keen to venture further down in order to hang from tree branches as other children seemed to be doing.

Then the bore came. I heard the gasps and exclamations from the crowds first and then the splashing and muted roar as the wave moved upriver towards us, a gunmetal grey wall curling into surf at the edges and engulfing the banks.  People shouted and scrambled for dry land but it was too late. Those who had the best view got the wettest and were thankful for trees to stop them being washed away.

Seeing the panicking families and cold, wet crying toddlers, I was pleased Dad had been sensible. It was all over in ten seconds. All we could see after its passing was a great expanse of choppy, lively celebrating river water as the crowd-pleasing bore continued upstream.

So back to the surfer. He waited.  And as tick followed tock followed tick followed tock…. suddenly, he began to run into the mud, and downstream towards the water.  And I saw what he had seen – a frothing white arrowhead of water making its way up the silent river. He plunged in on his surfboard and body-boarded for about ten seconds.  The wave was the lowest I have ever seen in my life.  It must have been the height of your ordinary day-to-day bore. Not more than a foot high, I reckoned but still astonishing – still a force of nature.

And then he stood up, grabbed the board and ran with it until he was ahead of the bore again. And he body-boarded again and looked like he might get up, but I have a feeling the board grounded. Because his second attempt lasted no more than five seconds. Well, I suppose he could have run ahead and tried a third time but I sensed, even from a distance, that his enthusiasm was gone. He realised that far from surf being up, surf was very much down. About as low as surf can go.

He dragged his board behind him through the mud, up the bank on to the grass and trudged back to the car, a lonely dark Lowry-stick figure. Flocks of birds appeared, flying low upstream as though they were following the bore.  The surfer sat in the car for some time before driving away. Perhaps he was practising for March 2nd.

Surfers like Arlingham – it’s the centre of a big oxbow bend in the river.  They can ride the wave all the way around the bend, sprint to their cars, drive like maniacs to Stonebench and hitch another ride there. They’d have to go some to make it to the old Telford Bridge, west of Gloucester where hundreds of spectators gather. I suspect we’ll all be back there at 8am on 2nd March. Us and the surfer plus maybe a hundred or more others.

Rio has its carnival, Gloucestershire has the Severn bore. There may even be a hot dog van selling teas. Things don’t get much more exciting round these parts, I can tell you.