Almost as old as the oldest civilisation is the myth of the flood. The story of a few who survive the waters through divine intervention, and the help of a boat… but the flood we face is not a myth, and we have no one to save us but ourselves….
…the opening line of this spectacular performance event held on the beach at Cemaes close to the Time and Tide Bell with the extensive sands and the sea as a backdrop. Cemaes likes boats and the rise and fall of the sea is the daily experience for many – the work could have been written for us. Entertaining, moving and provocative in equal measure, the event was created to jolt locals and holiday makers alike out of their complacency with a profound reflection on the future.
Sunday 24th July 2022 was stormy, following a day of indoor workshops on a showery Saturday. The lovely group of young performers set up the scaffold construction on the wet sand as the tide receded and we all stared at the sky. An ad hoc performance in the drizzle ahead of the main event attracted some curiosity. Who are these guys? But by 3pm the tide turned, the sun came out and the crowds assembled. In the background of some of the photos you can just see the sandstorms blowing across the very exposed beach – it was indeed blowing a gale. Highly experienced performers they didn’t flinch and carried it all off perfectly, together with an interlude from the doughty band of kids showing off their movement techniques. They absolutely loved being part of it.
The powerful soundtrack of spoken word and music was an essential part of this moving theatrical event, created to highlight the growing and now inevitable threat to coastal communities from climate change. Passionate about a call to action the visiting group brought in local climate change experts Robin Grove-White and Frankie Hobro from Anglesey Sea Zoo to stimulate discussion amongst the audience.
Take away points: Personal action to reduce one’s individual carbon footprint does help for starters but collective initiatives and lending our voices to campaigning groups are vital both for morale and for influencing political decisions. If there was any hopeful message from that call to action it was the transition to renewable energy in which Anglesey is at the forefront. Right behind the beach at Cemaes is one of Wales’s first wind farms, over twenty-five years old now and there are many new wind, solar and tidal renewable schemes either built or in the pipeline. Clearly the way to go – ‘we have no one to save us but ourselves’.
Photo credits: Gareth Jones, Helen Grove-White
It was thrilling to be part of the beginning of Marcus Vergette’s Time and Tide Bell project, as right from the start it was clear it would be a major new artwork. It brings together art, sculpture, the environment with the rising sea levels, and music. A true innovative artwork! Even the Bell itself is breaking new water, in that it rings chords! Appledore has had strong links with the sea because of its boat and shipbuilding heritage, and just at a time when all of that is in transition it is important for our community to find new ways of connecting with the tidal sea. We have the highest tidal range in the world and the Bell speaks to us about that in a beautiful idiosyncratic melody.
Sandy Brown, ceramicist
This poem was originally a contribution to Tania Kovats' film COTIDAL - but we thought it and its film deserves a place of its own.
This month Pete used a new clanger, in memory of his friend Tim Fleming. Sadly there will be a pause in Moser's tour of bell sites, as he has upcoming operations on his knees.
Pete Moser's salute to high water springs on March 4 2022. His grand tour has been delayed a bit - but it will definitely happen.
Here is Jon Best's contribution to a number of poems written by the Poetry group in Par.
Saturday March 5th 2022 saw much fruitful work by Richard Parks, chair of the Friends of Par Beach. All to the backdrop of a half-bell just delivered by Marcus Vergette, currently in Cornubia, the local venue encouraging social enterprise, encouraging creativity and promoting healthy living.
The first of the tour. Shame about the baseball bat.
One of the key things about the Morecambe bell is that your feet stay dry no matter what the state of the tide. That applies to the London one too. But the others....
It seems I have undertaken to play all of the bells this year! Oops!
I live in Morecambe and for the past 2 years I have played our Tide and Time Bell on the
highest tide of every month. I love it ! We started putting films of these improvisations
online and there are now thirteen on the Morecambe Artist Colony (MAC) you-tube
channel, played in all sorts of weather.
Random musical adventures like this are such fun and so this plan to travel the country on
train and bike seems like a great idea…
Will the bells sound different ?
Who will I meet in each place?
How will it help to highlight the issues around the climate crisis that are at the core of the
whole programme ?
Today the tour started on our Bell at the 12.47, 10m high tide with my friend Ben McCabe
from More Music, filmed by Graham Dean from MAC.
Now I am planning a trip in two weeks time to Camaes on Anglesey to play their Bell at
12.22, a 6.72m tide. I am going a few hours early to play it when I can actually walk across
the sand and rocks because at high tide I will have to swim out to climb up onto the
structure to play the bell. The first adventure!
Then Appledore, London, Aberdyfi, Mablethorpe and … the Isle of Lewis ??
These are the mallets!
NASA has made a rather weird video of the tides from a global perspective, based on data from satellites. The fact that the UK is squashed into the top right hand corner is frustrating!
Pete Moser ringing the bell on a chilly day at High Water Springs, January 5 2022.
In October 2021 we presented a half-bell to the Mayflower School, which is near where the bell will finally be sited at the Lower Lighthouse. Much enthusiasm!
On a windy day in Morecambe, Pete Moser rang out the bell for COP26. The same day that Barack Obama arrived in Glasgow....
With grateful thanks to Sue Atkinson here is an impression of the bell to be installed to the West of the Rotunda (itself hiding a sewage pumping station). It isn't installed yet - it just looks like it.....
Here's the view in the other direction (taken on a sunnier day).
This month Pete Moser is accompanied by Ben McCabe. For the non-initiated, Springs (the opposite of Neaps) is the highest tide of the month.
The wonderful performance we commissioned from Prodigal UPG has been touring to a few locations, including the Eden project, during the summer of 2021. The aim is that it should be performed at as many bell sites as possible in 2022. Here is a brief trailer.
Everything is connected. In May 2013 Transition Town Louth held the Louth Festival of the Bees, an art exhibition, conference, operatic concert and more, which connected bees and wildflowers, arts and science, to promote aspects of the environmental crisis that humanity faces. The Festival brought us into contact with sculptor Marcus Vergette who was looking for an east coast site for another Time and Tide Bell. Soon Marcus was with us, scoping locations along the Lincolnshire coastline.
Our beaches are a contrast to the other Bell locations, wide open expanses of sand and big skies, a deep history of shifting coastlines over centuries and millennia and a future whose only certainty is deep uncertainty. The Time and Tide Bell produced an opportunity to start conversations about our relationship with the seas, back into unfathomable time and forward to the time from which we have no evidence, not so much as a stone tool or bone fragment, because it has not yet been.
The past is the history of ice ages and sea level changes, to which people have adapted. The future will be the product of human influence, global heating and sea level rise. Our ability to adapt will be tested. The Bell looks out over Doggerland, the vast plain that, in Mesolithic times, was home to countless people, its lakes, rivers and shores, providing rich resources. The uplands of that plain are once again being built upon but now with wind-farms, substituting fossil fuels with renewable energy.
The gas pipelines that cross the beach near the Bell are now shut down, the southern North Sea gas fields emptied of their methane, burnt in our homes and factories, the carbon dioxide vented to the atmosphere. This has contributed to changing the air’s composition from 280 to 415 parts per million of carbon dioxide. We need to revers that. It is not enough to reduce our carbon emissions; the damage must be undone.
To install the Bell on our beach we formed the Lincolnshire Time and Tide Bell Community Interest Company, but that was just our first objective. Our continuing task is to create a programme of art exhibitions and events that engage people with aspects of the natural environment, fusing the arts with the sciences and using the arts as a tool to promote mitigation and adaptation to the consequences of global heating.
Our major events so far and planned:
- May 2018 Across the Seas. Art exhibition at The Sam Scorer Gallery, Lincoln, investigating migration, past, present and in the future.
- August 2018 #200Fish. Art exhibition at The North Sea Observatory drawing attention to the over 200 species of fish found in the North Sea.
- November 2018 By the Sea. Art exhibition at The North Sea Observatory inspired by the coastal environment.
- June 2019 Installation of the 7th Time and Tide Bell on the beach within the Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe National Nature Reserve.
- August 2019 Warming Bells. Art exhibition at The North Sea Observatory, drawing on the cultural heritage of bells to sound a warning about the climate emergency.
- March 2020 Faces of Climate. Art exhibition at The North Sea Observatory, portraits of climate scientists and activists.
- November 2020 Doggerland. Symposium and art and archaeology exhibition at The North Sea Observatory, exploring the flooding of Doggerland and future sea level rise.
In winter the site is very exposed, with enormous seas during storms; the clapper is disconnected for the season, to avoid damage
The unusual installation of this bell took place in challenging weather in February and March of 2019. After extensive engineering work to the Stone Jetty, undertaken by VolkerStevin, the bell was hoisted into place and final adjustments were made by Marcus Vergette - shown in the photo.
This is a project of the Morecambe Artist Colony. Much of the work was undertaken by Sian Johnson, to whom profound thanks.
More photos of the installation:
In mid 2009 Marcus approached me with his wonderful idea to locate his bells at suitable waterside locations. As Trinity Buoy Wharf is dedicated as a home for the arts and creative industries we were pleased to welcome the bell as a piece powerful of sculpture. Particularly as each rising tide would activate the bell and mark the natural rhythm of the life of the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf.
Marcus’s concerns about climate change are highlighted and particularly focused at TBW as the Thames Valley in London is at clear risk from rising water levels.
The Thames was the mainspring of London and is vitally important to everyone.
The bell helps to attract visitors interest while ringing out a warning that we should not ignore.
Eric Reynolds, Founding Director, Urban Space Management
