Creative writing – the winner and runners up in our inaugural creative writing competition

Creative writing: Inspired by Pegwell Bay

Courtesy of Jaron James

WINNER

Welcome to our inaugural creative writing section! It has been brilliant to see what different stories, ideas and scenes just the words “Pegwell Bay” prompted. We had poetry, dialogue, prose, some fictional and some autobiographical – including dialogue between an estranged couple meeting up to talk after one had been released from prison, a story about an affair in the Pegwell Bay Hotel, another about burying a beloved pet, a poem by a mother watching her young son explore his independence and a glimpse into Mary Shelley’s childhood visit to Ramsgate. Here, we celebrate our winner and runners up. Sadly, there isn’t space to print each entry, but every one merits an audience, and so we have compiled them online for you to have a read at your leisure linktr.ee/ramsgaterecorder. Congratulations all!

RUNNERS-UP

Behind Frankenstein by Katie Pope

Mary lies paralysed on the flagstones, the back of her head pressing painfully into the crook between the hearth stone and the floor. There is no blood, just the beginnings of a rounding bump beneath her greying hair. Her tears are pooling in her bottom lip, the wetness stinging the painful cracks that split each winter. She is stuck.

Yet she travels, through the stillness of her weeping to catching tendrils of salty hair in her childish mouth. She sucks them in sharply before releasing them to the wind, letting herself catch the breath that she lost, running down into Pegwell Bay. Her chaperone is a smudge behind her: Mary has raced to meet the departing tide and won.

She cradles her left arm instinctively, the cracked red skin climbing unevenly from the centre of her palm up and over her elbow, ending at the tide mark around her upper arm. Mrs Godwin believes she is getting better and it may be true – the poultice seems to help. It helps and it hurts but for now she doesn’t mind it, her eyes are trained on a boat in the distance, her thoughts on further shores.

At the sound of the chaperone’s voice, sharpened by the sing of the wind, she slumps down onto the sand. Her skirts pool around her while the sand’s wetness climbs up her socks. She remembers the day’s grievances, they trail after the woman’s voice and fill her mind until she no longer cares for the boat, or its journeys.

She harumphs, pulls at her shirt sleeve crossly, trying to stretch it to cover the worst of her monstrous arm. She is grateful, fleetingly, that Mrs Godwin doesn’t make her attend lessons here – her fellow boarders’ stinging laughter in the corridors was bad enough. She feels a flush rising within her and hot tears threaten, as her chaperone grabs her by her armpit and stands her up.

Mary doesn’t hear what the chaperone says, a door closes and her son is home. She feels her head against the hearth and the warm relief of his voice flood her silent body. He will be upset when he finds her, but no matter. What matters is that she will be found.

Pegwell Bay by Sam Slattery

For unfathomable flotsam and jetsam Human tick-tock time- This shallow inlet has borne the flash- fickle-full bodied fleeting whims of mice and of men and of women, and birds and insects- everyone and everything. From the campaigns of imperial armies- To gnats and sand fleas jumping and pumping amidst Sea shells, plastic bottle caps, ring pulls and rotting seaweed- rusting moped organs, car parts- Motorcycle emptiness- The tide going outThe tide coming in. Oh Gaius Julius Caesar- to the cackle of giggling gulls Once may have cotched with cross channel belly, a copy of Roman Weekly-and logged- Pondering- The tide going out- The tide coming in- The tide going out- The tide coming in- Why did no one see the ghosts of dinosaurs? Pegwell beach was always haunted… So they sayDon’t get stuck down there on the last day of the yearSo they sayTo witness what is blowing in on the dark winter windSo they say- and has been playing… On repeat- So they say- For a century at the very least- In 1811, 13 year old Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, later Shelley, boarded in Ramsgate for several months to receive treatment for a skin condition on her arm. Five years later, she wrote Frankenstein, the first science fiction novel, and several years after that, wrote the first dystopian book, The Last Man, about a pandemic that nearly wipes out the human race in the 21st century. She died in 1851 of a suspected brain tumour, after experiencing temporary paralysis for several months.

So they say- Pondering- The tide going out- The tide coming in- The tide going out- The tide coming in- And it seems that it was always autumn then- Sleepy Sunday afternoons, picking like Pipers For fossils amidst the nooks and crannies- Walking through the mud with them clutched Overflowing- In arms and pocketsEyes watering and nose running and wind blowing Straight in the ears- Always to end up cold, and cutand plastered In silt and pebble dust- Pondering- The tide going out- The tide coming in- The tide going out- The tide coming in- Run fingers along Initials long displaced of their initial identities- Carved in soft chalk- Of smugglers entrances- Or peep through binocular hands at distant bait diggers- Mining for lug worms. (You don’t see them there now-) Tilling the mud back With knives and folks and spoons- To Drop the wrigglers in big buckets- And earn an extra few quidbeyond just beer money- In the days when – Pegwell Bay Beach was often my playground.

Pegwell Bay by Anys Lovell

It is a winged plover. Mark it down in a notebook. A score by its name. Ready for the next. Bird watching is largely just curating a collection of specimens arriving on shore in search of food and shelter.

Early morning is when you can really hear the place. The grass’s friction over distant waves and shocks of birdsong. It sounds like peace. No wonder the birds flock here.

Tenderly gliding across the sky, landing wherever they please.

A nearby twitcher sits on a bench and imagines where they’ve come from, and where they might be going. I wonder if the Terns know their breeding grounds will be full of waders come winter. And do they mind?

Today the wind skims your cheeks in rough bursts off the estuary. It feels like change.

For it is always changing. Sit for long enough and your eyes will be pulled out to sea. To the freighters and sailboats. The little boats will be out there somewhere. Vessels full of hope. Travelling miles in search of better. How many will be picked up today? Written into books, scores are put by their names and the places they came from. Why are they not welcomed as the birds are? Are they not just birds now too? Migrating along with the currents, moving on each season? Is it their lack of feathers? Or the tempestuousness of their migration patterns that alarms so many? Maybe we should be paying more attention to our birds after all? Perhaps some sort of passport would make sense. To ensure that only the birds who are wealthy enough or skilled enough can graze here. The rest we can lock in cages and return to other islands, whilst boasting that here we have the very best birds.

The salty air is grounding. Humbling. It says:

“These are not the problems of the land. But the problems of man.”

The plover lands. The twitcher leaves. And the bird continues to explore this new shore, oblivious to its freedom.

The Land That Time Forgot by Geraldine McMahon

Take me back to The Land That Time Forgot Where the hulking cliffs loom over the sweeping bay below Where the birds compete for the loudest song And I feel sand, rock and shells where I belong

When life shrinks to tasks and deadlines and more, more, more And I wonder who I am and what it’s all for I can escape for a while and just be me Pause and remember my soul is still free

Get back to the core of what matters and what does not The only girl in the world, of The Land That Time Forgot

We hope you've been inspired to give it a go. Here's a reminder of the rules:

Each issue we will set a Ramsgateinspired theme and invite your written entries. From prose to poetry, dialogue to journalling, a section of a novel-tobe or a completed short story; if it’s the written word we’ll read it.

Email your submission of up to 500 words info@ramsgaterecorder.com with Creative Writing in the subject line. Please include an email address and phone number so we can get in touch. All submissions should have a Ramsgate connection, however loose – we are a hyper-local publication after all – and our prompt should help. While we will be reading all submissions, we may not have a chance to reply to everyone. If your work has been selected for publication we will contact you.

For our winter issue the prompt is “Ramsgate’s hidden treasures” and the deadline is 7 October 2022. With thanks to our judges, writer and journalist Christabel Smith, and writer and actor Nicola Wren. Join Nicola for one of her monthly writing workshops at Ramsgate’s Union Café @nicolawrenwriting

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