This poem was originally a contribution to Tania Kovats' film COTIDAL - but we thought it and its film deserves a place of its own.
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.
Photographer Mark Kerton (whose YouTube channel is here), got up early to take these beautiful images of the Mablethorpe bell.
Pete Moser's playing of the bell at high water springs brings out its extraordinary harmonic properties this month.
The website Climate Central came in for a bit of stick from the BBC R4 programme More or Less on 1.7.21. It shows maps of the world together with their liability to flooding from sea level rise. On the site it looks as if most of Holland and surprisingly large areas of the UK will be under water on one of its default maps, 'Land projected to be below Annual Flood Level in 2050'.
We would be the last to want to understate the potential impact of sea level rise, but there is a lack of clarity here. The explanation lies in the fact that outside the USA, the site does not take account of existing or planned sea defences. However, that is exactly the situation in Par - it has no such, merely a low-lying beach, and there are no plans to build any; too costly. So although it is simply computer-generated from elevation data in Google maps, this image, taken from the site, may well be a reasonably accurate forecast of what will happen in due course given the coincidence of a storm surge and seas rising at 4.5mm per annum - or more.
Photos from throughout May.... One of the unusual features of the Morecambe Bell is that it only rings due to the waves at higher tides, those either side of springs.
The team in Par, among MANY other things, have put work into designing a logo for their bell. It follows our national approach - the same outline, but with colour ways chosen locally, for historic or other reasons.
At the centre of this design is the white cross on a black background, the flag of Cornwall.
It turned out that it would cost a great deal to create the foundations for the bell at the first site we looked at, on the spit of sand, shingle and mud that emerges at low tide.
On April 16 2021 a group visited all the most promising sites around the town. The most promising, extremely promising in fact, looks to be just off the Low Lighthouse - a location rich in history. The video shows its current name - the Maritime Museum.
Pete Moser and friend celebrate the highest tide in December 2020.Wrapped up warmer than in August , and with less wind. Thanks, all!
