Floodwater, the Lyth Valley 6.12.2015 Rain fell all through the night. Next morning, the River Kent ran fast and high. No goosander, dipper, or grey wagtail. Yesterday's house martins were gone, until next summer. The river was brim-full but nothing like the morning of 6th December 2015, the morning after Storm Desmond, when the river had shrunk back within its bounds and we scooped up bullheads, sticklebacks and crayfish stranded in the mud beside the Parish Church and threw them back into the turbulent river.
That December, in time of flood, the writer Sarah Hall came home to Cumbria for her mother's burial.
That December, in time of flood, the writer Sarah Hall came home to Cumbria for her mother's burial.
A moment in time. Those floods of December 2015 form the back-drop to Sarah Hall's short story: The Sudden Traveller. I haven't met her, missing her by moments on the day we were both interviewed by Radio Cumbria: she on her new book Haweswater, me on About Scout Scar. Sarah Hall won the BBC Short Story Writing Competition with Mrs Fox. Sudden Traveller is autobiographical and a powerful story. A woman with a newborn infant comes home to Cumbria to attend her mother's burial in a small churchyard not far from Haweswater. Mourners walk behind the coffin to the church, it is the tradition of the place. The story is simple and profound: it's about birth the death and is anchored in this Cumbrian landscape at a time her readers will remember- Storm Desmond and a time of floods. The landscape of home, was hers, is mine.
Last night's September rain was evocative of Sudden Traveller and how the Haweswater landscapes would look after Storm Desmond. Travel was so disrupted she was grateful mourners made it to her mother's funeral. Ironic, perhaps, that Sarah Hall's story should be broadcast so soon after the hottest English summer on record, when the waters of Haweswater shrank to reveal the village which was flooded to make way for the reservoir.
You may hear Sarah Hall's story Sudden Traveller in BBC I player currently
Last night's September rain was evocative of Sudden Traveller and how the Haweswater landscapes would look after Storm Desmond. Travel was so disrupted she was grateful mourners made it to her mother's funeral. Ironic, perhaps, that Sarah Hall's story should be broadcast so soon after the hottest English summer on record, when the waters of Haweswater shrank to reveal the village which was flooded to make way for the reservoir.
You may hear Sarah Hall's story Sudden Traveller in BBC I player currently
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