channel crossing – Debbie Young's Writing Life

(My contribution to the March edition of the Tetbury Advertiser, written in the middle of February as we were about to embark on a week-long trip to France, Belgium and the Netherlands)

As I write this month’s column, I’m just 22 miles away from becoming the Tetbury Advertiser‘s foreign correspondent: I’m poised to cross the English Channel. In a Force 10 gale.

This morning, the idea of spending a week in February touring Northern France in our camper van has lost its charm. When we booked our passage in the dark days of December, far-off February seemed comfortingly spring-like. We knew we’d have to pack warm clothes to guard against the colder climate of a continental landmass but did not foresee such storms.

Photo of the HMS Belfast moored by Tower Bridge, London — The Royal Naval vessel on which my father served: HMS Belfast, now moored in the Thames as part of the Industrial War Museum (Photo: Creative Commons by Alvesgaspar via Wikimedia)

Naval Advice

My parents phoned before we were due to set off yesterday, just after the lunchtime shipping forecast.My mother did not exactly suggest we cancel our trip, but I’m sure that’s what she was hoping to hear. My father, a former Royal Navy meteorologist, sounded positively excited on our behalf. The prospect of our trip brought back fond memories of his days serving on the HMS Belfast during the Korean War. He offered us the benefit of his advice.

“Just close your eyes and think of the sea as rocking you to sleep.”

That might have worked when he was in his navy issue hammock, but unfortunately our chosen ferry service, DFDS, doesn’t provide hammocks.

“Tinned peaches are the best thing to settle your stomach when you’re seasick. Make sure you pack tinned peaches.”

We have none in the larder, so I slip tinned pears and pineapple rings into my bag instead.

“We are allowed to postpone the trip to the Sunday when the forecast looks better,” I tell him.

“Oh, the swell will continue for days after the storm,” he assures me brightly. “That’s how it was every time we set off towards Korea, as soon as we were away from the shelter of the land.”

Outlook: (Fun)Fair

My daughter on board the Channel Ferry, late afternoon — After boarding the ferry late afternoon, Laura demonstrates how many cuddly toys she can fit into one small “Wanted On Voyage” bag

My daughter asks what our crossing will be like. I try to frame the prospect as a positive adventure.

“Think of it as crossing the Channel by rollercoaster,” I suggest.

I know she’s just reached the age where she loves rollercoasters.

“Will we go upside down?” she asks eagerly.

“I sincerely hope not!”

I’m thankful that the journey will be relatively short, until my husband recollects a memorable Channel crossing from his distant past.

“Once we had to wait outside the port for four hours because it was too rough to dock,” he remembers. “We just had to ride the storm out at sea.”

I try to banish images of the final scene of the movie The Perfect Storm.

So if my copy for this column turns up a little late, that’ll be because we’ve been shipwrecked and I’ve resorted to old technology to submit it. But not to worry, I’ve got an empty Cotswold Spring water bottle in the van that I can use to send my message. I’m just hoping it has a homing instinct.

Postscript: Our scheduled 10am departure on the Saturday morning was delayed till early evening. DFDS bumped us up to the 8am crossing instead – which left around 4pm. The reason for the delay? The ferries had been stuck out at sea for not four hours, but 10 hours, awaiting conditions sufficiently calm to let them dock. By 4pm, thankfully, all was calm. And my tinned pears and pineapple stayed in their tins. Phew.

More posts about our February trip coming soon! Here are the first two:

A Question of Priorities – about a strange encounter on the dockside as we waited to board

A Theme Park By Any Other Name – a theoretical tour of prime European theme parks, resulting in our visit to, er, Plopsaland

The first in a series of posts about our half-term trip in our camper van to France, Belgium and the Netherlands

Debbie and Laura at TIm's house — Sometimes only Mummy will do. Me and Laura, when she was less than a year old.

On the first Saturday morning of the half term holiday, Dover-Dunkirk ferry departures are running seriously behind schedule, following a night of Force 10 gales in the English Channel.

Slowly our camper van edges through immigration control, where we learn that the ferry we’re due to catch has been marooned outside the harbour for 10 hours as the sea was too rough for it to dock. In those circumstances, I’m happy to wait the predicted eight hours before we can expect to board.

In the meantime, we have needs which must be attended to. As soon as our camper van reaches its allocated parking space to await departure, my ten-year-old daughter Laura and I nip across to the port’s Food Village to use the loo.

Disappointingly, the enticingly-named Food Village turns out to be exactly like the inside of any British motorway service station. The upside is that we can easily find the Ladies’. Our mission accomplished, I’m just waiting for Laura to finish washing her hands when a wide-eyed lady, aged about 30, dashes in crying “Where can I put my baby down?”

The little girl in her arms is about nine months old. Wearing a plum-coloured hand-knitted jumper and a pink hat shaped like a flower, she looks like an Anne Geddes photo. Someone’s Grandma loves them.

The lady’s eyes become even wider when she realises there’s no playpen or baby seat in which to secure her little flower while Mummy uses the facilities.

“Here, would you like me to take her for you?” I offer, thinking wistfully that it’s been a long time since I’ve held a baby that small.

Without a moment’s hesitation the lady thrusts her baby into my arms and dashes into a cubicle. After a moment, she starts talking loudly to me through the door, and I realise that she’s seeking reassurance that I’m still there. I answer immediately to make it clear that I haven’t fled with her baby and leapt on a ferry to parts unknown.

Baby Laura reading a grown-up book, aged less than 1 — Laura, seeking wisdom from books at a very early age.

Her baby, meanwhile, is unperturbed, responding to the unfamiliar setting as if it’s a giant activity centre. She turns her little head towards the source of each new sound, open mouthed with wonder – roaring hand-driers, fizzing taps, sliding door bolts and slamming doors. She is too preoccupied to notice that I’m not her mum.

After a minute or two, the lady emerges from her cubicle at a more relaxed pace than that of her arrival. Then on catching sight of me with the baby, she goes rigid with horror.

“Oh my god, I’ve just realised what I did there!” she gasps. “I just gave my baby to a total stranger! I was that desperate!”

I smile indulgently.

“Don’t worry, we’ve all done things like that,” I tell her, nodding towards Laura to indicate that I’ve been there, done that, and that my baby lived to tell the tale.

Laura on the Dover-Dunkirk ferry at last, pulling out a few stowaways from her bag

But I know very well how her heart must be pounding, as mine did one day when Laura was tiny, and I left her outside a shop in her buggy in the care of her father. When I came out, they were gone, and I fell into a wild panic. Logically I knew that nothing terrible could have happened – they hadn’t really been kidnapped by aliens and there was a rational explanation for the empty space where I’d expected to find them. Even so, I started running tearfully from shop to shop, stopping only when I found Laura safe and sound a few doors down. She was cooing happily in her buggy in a men’s clothes shop, overseen by the shop assistant, while her Daddy was calmly trying on a pair of trousers in the changing room. I was horrified. It was at that moment that I realised the full force of maternal instinct and the power it had to overwhelm reason.

In Dover’s Food Village, the flowery baby, perhaps suddenly realising the enormity of the situation, starts to cry. I’m relieved to return her to the familiarity of her mother’s arms and to lead my own child back to the haven of our camper van.

Coming next: how our lack of forward planning means we end up in Belgium instead of France.

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