Bells

With the exception of those worn by cows and those found on ships, just about every conceivable sort of bell seems to have been written about this week. Do you know what? Sorry cows, I'm going with the ships.

ship's bell - Cutty Sark

Bells have been used on ships for centuries. One of the earliest mentions of a ship's bell was that on the English ship Grace Dieu, in 1485. A few years later it was recorded that another English ship, the Regent, possessed two "wache bells". And that was originally the primary purpose of the ship's bell, to signal the progress of time and the changes of watch. In an era before chronometers, the passage of time would be measured by an hour-glass - or more strictly speaking a half-hour glass. The sand would empty from top to bottom every half hour and when the ship's boy turned the glass over to commence another half-hour, he would ring the bell to signify this.

Over time an elaborate 'eight-bell' system was developed to plot progress through a four-hour period, for all watches were four hours long. One ring of the bell denoted the watch was half an hour through, two that an hour had passed, three for ninety minutes and so on until eight bells signalled the end of a four-hour watch and the changeover of personnel to start the next watch (see below). Everyone understood the patterns and could hear them wherever they were on the ship.

standard table of naval watches

A ship's bell was usually made of brass or bronze and had the ship's name engraved or embossed upon it, and often also the date is was launched. It was traditionally the job of the ship's cook to maintain the bell in good condition. Quite often the discovery of the ship's bell was the surest way of identifying a wrecked ship, as was the case with a Portuguese armada ship found in 2016 on the seabed off the coast of Oman. The bell identified it as the Esmerelda, commissioned in 1498, part of Vasco da Gama's fleet that had been voyaging to India in the early 16th century.

But the ship's bell has always served other purposes than as a watch-marker. In a time before foghorns it was used to sound a warning to other vessels of its presence. In fact some small ships still use it for that purpose today. It is also used for ceremonial purposes. When the ship's captain or a flag officer or an important personage arrives on board or departs, the ship's bell is rung to acknowledge the event. It is also rather quaintly used as a font to baptise children born on board. 

ship's bell - unknown craft

While I was getting to grips with the eight-bell system, I began to wonder if the phrase to knock seven bells out of someone was in any way related. It turns out that as an expression it is naval in origin and means, as you might imagine, to go as far as one can (i.e. seven-eighths of the way) in inflicting a punishment without actually killing the victim. The first recorded instance I could find dates from a British newspaper, the London Examiner of 1850 and refers to an assault that took place upon an emigrant ship to Australia. It reported as follows:
'Mr Bainbridge, on returning to the vessel, was knocked down by Mr Ross, and the Captain wanted him or any of the malcontents to stand before him “and he’d knock seven bells out of them”'.

That leads on very nicely to today's new poem. Not exactly from the Imaginarium this time, it comes welling up from the deeps of the Memorium. I hope that's a word. If it wasn't, it is now. It relates to true events from the summer of 1971 that I'd not thought about for a long time, until prompted by all this writing about ships and bells.

Let's call her Maureen, for that was her real name after all. It was the summer after my A-levels and I had a holiday job washing up at a Berni Inn in Cambridge. Remember them? They were a chain of fairly up-market steakhouses very popular in the 1960s and 1970s. I worked there at lunchtime and again in the evening and because there was only an hour or so between the two sessions, I would sit out in the yard in between shifts and read a book. The work was hot, greasy and sweaty and the waitresses would sometimes buy the pot washers a beer out of their tips to keep spirits up. 

There had been a couple of attacks on women out alone at night (this was several years before the infamous 'Cambridge rapist') and so I offered to escort Maureen home after work as her house was on my own route home. Over those twenty minute walks across several weeks we got to know quite a lot about each other. She was probably twice my age, her dark hair beginning to show signs of grey. There was a sadness about her. She felt she'd missed a trick in life by not staying on at school and going to college as I was about to do. She was married to a trawlerman who was away for several weeks  at a time. They'd never managed to start a family. I suppose it was a lonely existence for her. She wanted recommendations for books to read and films to see. I offered to lend her books, go to the cinema with her, but said she couldn't. If her husband found out he'd come after me. That's when I first heard the expression to knock seven bells out of someone - me.

We'd grown quite fond of each other by the time my last stint at the Berni Inn came around. It had been an incredibly hot day and as I walked her home a huge electrical storm broke. We took shelter from the downpour under some trees at the end of her road. It was the place where we normally parted company and I would stand watching until she reached her front door safely. On this occasion we just stood there. She was sobbing, saying she was going to miss me so much, and apologising for being a mess. It was upsetting and I didn't know what to do except give her a hug, but that distressed her more and she ran off down the road in the torrential rain, lit by flashes of lightning, to her house. Of course I never saw her again. I stood under those trees for maybe twenty minutes until the rain eased off and then walked home trailing the sadness of the world.

Seven Bells

Framed like a climactic scene

from some tempestuous movie

of human love and loss...

the couple standing under trees,

in crisis, in a thunderstorm.

Drain all colour please, 

this should be black and white,

probably silent too, except for

a dramatic score, Morricone

or Mozart maybe, to chime

with the lightning flashes.

Pan in on a tear-wracked face,

make-up streaked. Is it terror

or sorrow behind her dark eyes?

And he so gauche, not knowing

where this emotional outpouring

might be going... though any

lip-reader could guess, for she's 

mouthing "miss you so much.

Sorry I'm such a mess."

Instinctively he hugs her

and distraught she turns to flee,

for who knows who might be spying?

Who'd tell the jealous husband

when he's back from the sea?

He'd knock seven bells for sure

but would the victim be 

the lover boy or wife?

He watches her run away 

through thunderclap and downpour, 

stands still in aftershock

under the trees, 

breathes in petrichor.

Pan out wide 

on a wet and empty world

as credits roll in silence:

The Waitress: Maureen

The Student: Steve

The Trawlerman: unnamed, unseen

The End.

Thanks as ever for reading. Comments/feedback always appreciated.  S ;-)