“Reuben! Reuben come back! Reuben! REUUUBENNNN! Reuben, make a good choice now! Reuben, you need to make a good choice!”
I'm not convinced that Reuben was ever going to make a good choice, and while I'm fully committed to the concept of the will of the people, I couldn't help feeling that here was a moment when a hefty dollop of parental autocracy was needed. Reuben was only just three. Not much older than my tiny little grandchildren. I know this because his mother, who seemed to be placing an inordinate amount of faith in Reuben's grasp of the concepts of action and consequence at such a tender age, had already pointed the fact out to him loudly enough for everyone on the right hand side of the beach to hear. Meanwhile, the small boy's eyes followed the older children up the cliff; the fifteen year old, pursued by the nine year old, next by the six year old, and then our little crusading sherpa with a death wish. Reuben was desperate to climb to the top as well, and after all attempts to reason with him had been ignored, was plucked from the sheer rock wall before he could escape. I wanted to make the short ascent too, but I was waiting until I could have it to myself. I hoped my eighty year old mother wasn't going to suddenly appear out of nowhere, yelling in my general direction at three thousand decibels when the moment came. It seemed that Reuben hadn't made a good choice. Later, he tried again, as I watched and wondered at how he’d given Mum the slip and trotted halfway across the stony beach to Base Camp Zero once more. Soon she hot footed it over after him, still trying to appeal for common sense, and managing to thwart his progress before I, or anyone else present felt the need to get involved. Modern parenting. Something tells me Reuben’s going to be a mountaineer when he grows up. Either that or a tree surgeon.
I wasn't sure whether I'd made a good choice either. Clevedon is undeniably lovely, but wasn't I just playing it safe by coming here? Earlier, on the long drive south from Cheshire, the Malvern Hills had briefly filled the distant horizon with a semi mountainous haze under an azure sky. I hadn’t visited Great Malvern in thirty-five years. I could have stayed nearby and walked up to the top for golden hour, to enjoy views towards the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains on the border with Wales. Later, phone snaps came from home, where clouds had gathered to absorb every last drop of pink from the setting sun. Here at Clevedon the sky was completely clear, save for a mass of burning cloud that hovered over the Bristol Channel a long way to the west. And we don’t like clear skies do we? Not when we’re taking pictures we don’t. Well it was too late. Here is where I was, and once Reuben and all of his associates had finally abandoned the scene, I clambered up to the raised area of rocks beneath the pier. I was soon followed up by a gang of adolescents, but Clevedon is an easy going sort of place, where people seem to be very chilled - at least in my experience they do - and they were perfectly peaceful as they waited for the sun to set somewhere over the Welsh coast. Hell, they were even playing some quite agreeable sounding music. I’m not sure what it was, but I was getting gentle overtones of early seventies progressive folk rock, which I far prefer to much of the banal noise we generally associate with young people these days. My goodness I’m starting to sound like my dear old Grandad who’s been gone for more than thirty years now. They were nice kids. I shall move on. Where was I? Oh yes, I was on top of a small cliff, setting up the camera in the direction of my favourite pier. Now I come to think of it, I’m not even sure if I’ve ever photographed any other piers.
Once I was up in this rarefied atmosphere, an entire fifteen feet above the pebbles, I began to wonder whether I was too close to the pier, almost looking along it as I was. If I'd stayed at the bottom I could have opened up the angle a bit and experimented with some variations to the composition. But I wasn't looking forward to abseiling back down the cliff, at least not until I'd watched those kids make their descents first. Everything looked different from the top, and I couldn’t even remember exactly what route I’d taken up here. But then again there was an advantage to this elevated viewpoint that I hadn't enjoyed in previous visits. A slightly different angle in fact, and in addition to this it was easier to lose the untidy foreground rocks that were being revealed by a rapidly falling tide.
Then came the glow, the green ironwork catching the golden sunlight against the clear blue sky as the clock moved towards six. Maybe I was in the right place. Maybe I'd made a good choice after all. Behind me, the strains of something soft and soporific came from the group of youngsters. Fairport Convention? Probably a modern reboot, but it fitted the mood well enough. They climbed down. I climbed down after them and watched an orange band of light slowly fade across the estuary above Cardiff’s waterfront. Reuben was probably at home, trying to smash his way out of his bedroom window and onto the roof by now. There was a pub just across the road and I wasn't driving anywhere until the next day. It was time to make another good choice and find a pint of something warm and hoppy. And then maybe another one.
