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Black, polished and fiddly, the new camera had a beauty to it, something that I would not find in other modern devices, like laptops and mobile phones. The mechanism was unchanged from the early days of photography: look, hold steady, click. The fundamentals would be as familiar to a nineteenth-century photographer as they were to me. And yet, this digital camera was also magical, and beyond my comprehension. Bytes and pixels, the language of a computer, now applied to what I held in my hand. Did it matter, my woeful ignorance? Probably not. I’d never be the geek at the photography shows spewing out technical jargon to fellow enthusiasts. I only had to know what I was capable of doing with it.
I checked, re-checked everything, then packed the lot in a shoulder bag. The bag bulged and stretched the stitched seams. Weight remained an issue.
The next morning, hoping to escape the house without been accosted by my kindly but chatty hosts, I crept out, gently closing the door behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I was certain I saw lace curtain twitch.
When I’d driven to Bamburgh the previous day, catching sight of the castle, a wash of contentment had lifted my spirits. The evening sun had illuminated the stonework and it glowed crimson, almost as if to remind the visitor of bloody battles. Arriving at the gates, the intact keep signalled something different: Bamburgh Castle was occupied, a home. There were state rooms, an armoury and museums; stuff that informed but left me uninspired. My love affair was with deconstructed buildings; I preferred to recreate them with blocks of imagination and whispers of forgotten people.
The list of requirements was equally uninspiring: shots of this tower, that gatehouse, and several looking up at the battlements from below, especially out by the windmill. I adjusted the mechanism on the tilt and shift lens until the lines of walls were straight, and released the shutter. By now, I’d a stiff neck and aching wrists.
The windmill lacked sails and much else. It was a perplexing addition to the battlements. Presumably, the bleak construct had been dumped on the edge of the escarpment outside the main walls so the wind could harangue it. I ignored the building and looked out to the sea. Brushing a strand of hair out of my eyes, I snapped pictures of the distant isles using my film camera. I had my own requirements: no people, as they added a modern slant to an otherwise purely historic perspective, and certainly no aerials, aeroplanes or vehicles of any kind in the background. I shared those kind of stipulations with Medici. However, whereas my benefactor wanted rigidly architectural images, I extended my shots to include ambiance. I preferred silhouettes without detail, letting the cracks and breaches in the walls vanish into the gloom. Then there was the sea, a perfect backdrop.
The world before me shimmered, blurring a fraction, and I lowered my camera to check the settings. It was then I smelt salt, not the sea kind, but the human kind that came with sweat. I wrinkled my nose and wiped it with the back of my sleeve. Something rippled in the air, and it wasn’t the wind. Air didn’t have substance to it. This was what I had come north, given up my job, to explore and capture, not with lens and film, but with my imagination. I knew what I felt wasn’t real, only my ingenuity created a realism to it, and as I prepared myself, I didn’t care to call it a gift or a talent. What did it matter what it was? For a few minutes I would feel so alive, and nobody need know how I achieved this buzz, this explosion of senses.
I closed my eyes, held my breath and listened to the distant hubbub. I swayed, slightly, buffeted by the warm wind, and imagined what it was I might be hearing. The faint tooting of a piper – was that the real thing, being piped into battle? Drumbeats, which I felt through the soles of my feet, were accompanied by ferocious cries. There was, in my head, an army marching towards the castle. Were these the shouts and caterwauls of the barbarian clans approaching from the Scotland? The lords of Northumberland trapped behind the castle walls had had to face Celtic marauders time and time again for centuries. I smelt hot oil, the kind thrown over the side of the ramparts to smother the enemy. Would I see anything, like I did with the joust? Flying arrows whistled right by my ear. I was moving closer, building a more complete picture. Any moment now, I might see something. I braced, my heart beating faster than the drums, and readied myself... Another arrow shot past me.
I ducked and opened my eyes. I wasn’t alone.
‘You like this spot?’ The man stared at my baggage and tripod, his hands tucked behind his back; a glazed bald patch reflected the sunlight.
I blinked, and like the shutter of a lens, that simple action ended what I’d heard but had not seen with my own eyes. Crouching lower, I pretended to fiddle with the rucksack’s zip before standing up. It would take longer for my heartbeats to steady.
An official, probably, since he wore a uniform of sorts. Was he checking I had permission, which I had in the form of a letter in my pocket? David had helped with permits.
‘I can explain why I’m here.’ I held the letter out.
‘You’re a photographer, I can see that. It’s popular.’ He ignored my outstretched hand with a bemused expression. ‘With artists too. Painters with their easels.’
I stuffed the crumpled envelope into my camera bag. ‘A bit blowy standing here.’
‘Aye.’ He smiled. ‘Doesn’t put them all off. This one man, he came at Easter, painted that windmill for a few hours. No interest in the castle. I asked him why, and he said he had to. Odd fellow.’
I felt a twang of sympathy for the guy. ‘Well, I’m after the castle shots.’
‘Postcards?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘There’ll be for postcards. They update them from time to time in the souvenir shop.’ He scratched his peeling nose. ‘Hope the weather stays fine. They say this summer is going to be a scorcher.’ He ambled away.
What a great idea! From now on, I would tell people I was taking photographs for postcards as it was a better excuse than being a photojournalist.
An hour later I was finished. I checked through Braithwaite’s guide one more time for anything that might have missed my attention. The final page mentioned the windmill.
It took three hundred years for Bamburgh to be rescued from ruins and returned to its former glory. Bankrupting one owner, it was once the home of a bishop in the 18th century. He had grand plans, including the bizarre addition of a windmill for civic purposes, producing grain for the locals. In the end, a family of armament makers acquired the castle in 1890, and ironically the castle was rebuilt using the money made from selling the kind of weapons that had destroyed it the first place.
With such a novel feature, I changed my mind and followed the path out to the escarpment and, using my personal camera, took a few close-ups of the windmill with no sails. Would Medici care for the oddity? In my opinion, it added humanity to the fortifications.
I checked my watch. Since I was ahead of schedule, I had the opportunity to carry out one particular wish before hunger drove me back to the B&B.
?
The thin covering of clouds had largely evaporated to allow the sun to stage a late appearance. The tepid sand, pristine and pale gold, tickled my toes. Sat on the beach, I soaked up the heat rays. The tide was out, and the white tipped waves sloshed back and forth. By nightfall, the tide would race to meet the line of drying seaweed and cover the rippled plateau and pocket rock pools. Voices fought the whooshing wind and waves as children, screeching, built sandcastles. A few had the ability to structure complex designs with moats, while others stuck pebbles and seashells to disintegrating humps of sand. Above the heads of the young architects a real castle beat them hands down.
Ever since I’d first read about the Bamburgh many years ago, this was the view I had craved to see. The idyllic castle was perfect for postcard material with its location adjacent to a long stretch of sand and the backdrop of an azure sky. Armed with my faithful old camera, I made the most of the scenery, but not to the extent I’d anticipated. The view was unchanging; the castle had been locked into that landscape for eternity. A few shutter clicks and I was done.
Or so I thought.
A familiar tingle in my scalp rooted me to the spot. Here? This wasn’t a castle; I was some distance from the outer walls. Perhaps the marauding Scots had fought on the beaches and I was about to revisit the battle. I dared to close my eyes for a moment or two, to calm myself and wait, then I opened them to stare at the empty swathe of sand. What was I expecting to see in this vast openness?
