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We went to the seaside. It rained and Papa and Mama were not getting on. At breakfast Papa said I could have a croissant or a pain chocolat but not both. So I had to choose. And a funny thing happened. I realised that I was not free not to choose. Even choosing to refuse to choose is a choice. I began to get a headache. But I wanted both so I cried and then I was sick.
The next day I went for a walk on my own. That was an authentic choice, or so I told myself. But can we ever know? And why did an ordinary pebble on the beach suddenly seem so horrible? Is reality a sort of false thing, like a play, with everyone playing parts? I thought these were really interesting questions, so I didn’t mind the rain. And I still want both.
Basil Ransome-Davies/Jean-Paul Sartre
We spent Monday on the beach, which was fairly interesting. The sand was predictably siliciclastic, originating mostly from quartz, I think. A nice boy came and talked to me. He was about ten, and of mesomorphic build, and he offered to show me how to build a sandcastle; it turned out, though, that he did not actually even know the difference between a motte and a bailey. I began to explain to him about late Norman patterns of crenellation, but he went away. I explained to Mummy instead, until she fell asleep. Mummy and Daddy let me stay up very late for a treat, and even let me watch Newsnight, which is a programme I had heard a lot about, because there is a man on it who asks people very hard questions. Having seen the programme, though, I think I could handle him.
George Simmers/Gail Trimble
This year Papa took me to see the sea at a place called the Wash. It was very big. There was lots of sand where boys were building castles with spades and little buckets. I could see what was wrong with them at once. The ones near the sea with wet sand would be washed away and the ones above the tide with dry sand would be blown away. I asked Papa for a big bucket and spade and brought water from the sea to make wet sand above the tide line. The Lord was with me that day and I made a fine castle. I waited until all the boys had gone and then smashed all their castles down. The tide would have got them anyway but it was grand fun. Except the Lord build the house their labour is but lost that build it. Thanks be to God.
Noel Petty/Oliver Cromwell
I invented a new type of sandcastle with a double wall to enclose a moat but when Marco kicked it over I invented a flying machine called an ornithopter that could whirl round and drop in on his sandcastle and wreck it. I drew it on the sand for later but the sea washed it away so I invented a notebook to put it in, and a way of writing that Marco can’t copy. After I’d invented a bridge between our castles and flooded his sandcastle he threw a stone at me but by then I’d invented a mortar shell with fins which would take out all his works when I have time to invent a proper mortar. I also invented a boat with a better pointed end so that next year I can flatten Marco’s sandcastles from the sea.
(PS. Teacher: you will need a mirror to read this.)
D.A.Prince/Leonardo da Vinci
Mother always enjoys holidays sigh the bee so this year father took us to Meston super Ware which was jolly food gun. On the durst fay after a big breakfast of egg on bride fred we all pent out on the weir to fish but the tide was out nearly as war as Fails. Then it started to rain so we bent whack to the hotel and father said ‘Why don’t you bead a rook?’ so I did because I always enjoy a stood gory. Most days were such the maim: it rained a lot, in fact toast of the mime, but we bade the messed of it and tried to look on the sight bride of things. Sometimes I would go for a saddle in the pea and, at the end of each day, after my dead-time brink, I bent to wed and leapt like a slog.
Alan Millard/Spooner
The only possible reason for taking a holiday is that one may write of what one did. Holidays are like maiden aunts: they turn up once a year, and leave one none the wiser. Their whole point is to be pointless. I went to Dungarvan and watched the tide. It came in like a thief, and left like a servant. Between its arrival and departure, we ate a silent picnic — the inscrutable chewing the inedible (I can swallow anything so long as it is utterly inedible).
The sea was everywhere, like bathers, and, like bathers, undistinguished and quite, quite shallow. Really, the refusal of swimmers to drown is very dull: it shows such superficial respect for life. I went fishing with Willie, and caught a crab, but I was only fishing for compliments. Compliments are what parents pay when they refuse to part with money.
All holidays are quite useless.
Bill Greenwell/Oscar Wilde
No. 2592: Mixed Messages
You are invited to submit a poem entitled ‘The Name’ (16 lines maximum) in which each line is an anagram of the name of a well-known (and specified) poet. Entries to ‘Competition 2592’ by 16 April or email: lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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