Swan Song

Further Info

This story was made on a five-day training workshop for staff from the City Museum and Industrial Museum, who aim to become digital storytelling workshop facilitators, led by Dani Landau, Liz Milner and Alison Farrar.

The course took place during Aug 2005 at the City Museum and Art Gallery and was supported by Bristol’s Museums, Galleries & Archives.

Transcript

[Flute music]

I arrived by train into Temple Meads Station. Living in London had been a disaster, squatting in a house in South London without a job. I gave it two weeks before heading west.

Sleeping on the floor of a friend’s damp basement flat and going to meet him as he finished work, washing dishes at a restaurant in Clifton. I played the fiddle as the last customers paid their bills and filtered out. The guy who owned the place paid me in beer and whisky – I though I couldn’t have been happier.

After a month or so of living like this, the basement floor began to lose its charm and I moved into a house owned by a guy with a hook for a hand. He’d lost it on a building site, moving a scaffolding rig. 30,000 volts later, and a pin-prick on his palm was all there was to show for his injury. Over the coming months his flesh slowly died and rotted on his arm. When people said “I’d give my right arm for a house like that.”, he’d say “I know what I’d rather have.”

Around this time my granny died. I was left enough to put down a deposit on a house: mortgage, job, settle down. But this was not for me.

One day, when I was walking along the docks, I saw what I was looking for. The sign said “For Sale” and, underneath, the phone number. I’d never considered living on a boat, but instantly fell in love with the red and green happy looking narrowboat.

That was twelve years ago. I never really meant to stay in Bristol. I’d only meant to come here for the weekend. I still own “Elsie D” but my love affair with her, like the paint, has faded. She now has another “For Sale” sign on her, and a different telephone number.

[Flute music]

Credits

All media not otherwise credited created by the story author, or permission obtained, used under copyright licence.