Hoare - RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR

Contents

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Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant

Nol Coward: A Biography

Wildes Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy and the First World War

Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital

Englands Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia

Leviathan or, The Whale

The Sea Inside

We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest, Act IV, Scene One

Image: Mick Rock, 1972

Chapter initial illustrations by Joe Lyward

Editor: Nicholas Pearson. Copy editor: Robert Lacey. Text design & layout: Richard Marston. Cover design and line illustrations: Joe Lyward. Picture research: Jordan Mulligan. Publicity: Patrick Hargadon. Marketing: Tara Al Azzawi. Representation: the late Gillon Aitken, Clare Alexander, Lisa Baker.

Cape Cod, New England & New York: Pat de Groot, Dennis, Deborah and Dory Minsky, John Waters, Mary Martin, the late Frank Schaefer, Jen Bradley, Sacha Richter, Laura Ludwig and Stormy Mayo, John and Marilyn Gullett, Elspeth Vevers, Elizabeth Bradfield, Jonathan Sinaiko, Chris Busa, Jessica Strauss, Jo Hay, Sebastian Junger, Tom Thompson, Albert Merola and James Balla; Mark Dalombo, Todd Motta and John Conlon at the Dolphin Fleet; Robert Tarr Edmunds Jr; Jim Bride; James Russell, Christina Connett and Robert Rocha, New Bedford Whaling Museum; John Bryant and the Melville Society; Peter Gansevoort Whittemore, Jim Bride, Concord Free Public Library, Andrew Delbanco, David M. Friedman, Mick Rock. The Azores: Serge Viallelle and Joo Quaresma, Espao Talassa. The Netherlands: Jeroen Hoekendijk, Ellen Gallagher. Mexico: Laura Logar, Isabel Crdenas Oteiza; Alfredo T. Ortega, Centro Universitaro de la Costa. Catalunya: Claudia Casanova and Joan Eloi Roca, tico de los Libros; Francesc Sers, the Faber Residency, Olot. Ireland: Peter Wilson, Ann Wilson and Jim Wilson; Mark Wickham, Tara Kennedy, Eoin Wickham and Sinad N Bhroin; Aengus OMarcaigh, Barra Donnbhin, Alicia St. Ledger, Paul ORegan. Scotland and the Western Isles: Roddy Murray, Ian Stephen, Julie Brook; WDC Scottish Dolphin Centre; Scottish Seabird Centre, North Berwick.

United Kingdom: Joe Lyward, Adam Low, Martin Rosenbaum, Jill Evans, James Norton; Andrew Sutton and Rachel Collingwood; Angela Cockayne, Alison Turnbull, Gareth Evans, Olivia Laing, Viktor Wynd, Iain Sinclair, Horatio Morpurgo, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Edward Sugden, Alex Farquharson, Volker Eichelmann, Marc Rees; Claire Doherty and Michael Prior at Situations; Tim Dee, Chris Watson, Duncan Minshull, Mark Cocker, Robert Macfarlane, Cillian Murphy, Tilda Swinton, Neil Tennant, Michael Bracewell, Brian Eno, Nicolas Roeg, Merlin Holland, Rupert Everett, Hugo Vickers, Paul Kildea, Andrew Motion; Peter Owen, Jane Potter and the Wilfred Owen Literary Estate; Stephen Hebron and Helen Gilio, The Bodleian Library; Susan Usher, English Faculty Library, Oxford; Hal Whitehead, Luke Rendell; Torquay Museum; Fr Claro Conde, Mary Hallett, Anna Eades, Katherine Anteney, Nick Moore, Clare Moore, Sam Goonetillake, Nigel Larcombe-Williams, Clare Goddard, Michael Holden, Pamela Ashurst and the late Ron Ashurst; Geoffrey Marsh, Victoria and Albert Museum; Louise Simkiss, Amy Miller, National Maritime Museum; Harriet Williams, Jane Fletcher, Mehta Bhavit, British Council; Damon Teagle, Millie Watts, National Oceanographic Centre; Dan Brown, Will May, Rebecca Smith, Stephanie Jones, Carole Burns, Matt Kerr, Karen Robson, Joel Found, University of Southampton. And my family and friends: Lawrence, Stephen, Christina and Katherine; Oliver, Cyrus, Harriet, Jacob, Lydia and Max; Mark, Ruth, Lilian and Freddie; and Tangle.

Philip Hoare, Easter 2017

www.4thEstate.co.uk/RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTARsources

and at www.philiphoare.co.uk

, image from John Im Only Dancing video, Mick Rock 1972, 2017.

All other images from the authors collection. While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material, in some cases this has proved impossible. The publishers would be grateful for any information that would allow any omissions to be rectified in future editions of this book.

Not long ago but long enough, I looked into the old cupboard in my bedroom and at the back, among the piles of floppy discs and peeling spines of my childrens encyclopaedias, I found a notebook. It was in an old-fashioned imperial format, half-bound with blue cloth and shiny paper, its fore-edge delicately spattered like a blackbirds egg. It came from the cable factory where my father had worked all his life. Inside, on feint-lined pages intended for notes on amps and electrical resistance, were writings and drawings Id done when I was about fifteen years old.

On each left-hand page was a picture, in bright poster paint: a futuristic city, art deco designs, lithe figures out of some space opera or Russian ballet; fantastical images Id collected in my teenage head. Halfway through the book Id painted something Id really seen: a leaping killer whale, slick with clear nail varnish to mimic its black-and-white skin, as if it had jumped out of the sea, rather than a concrete pool in a suburban safari park.

On the right-hand pages Id composed lyrics and prose, the things I couldnt say out loud. Looking at this parade of longings forty years later, I realised that the fifteen-year-old me had mapped out his life along those pale blue lines. As if Id already lived in reverse. Everything that came after had been entered in that blue notebook, balanced on my knees while I watched television in our front room, waiting for whatever might come next.

The wind howled at my window like a wild animal, a snarling beast demanding to be fed. The house held fast against horizontal rain that threatened to find every crack in the walls. The air was full of water, driven directly from the shore. Between the falling trees and the pounding waves, it seemed that the sea for all that it was a mile away or more was reaching out for me in the darkness. The newspapers and the television and the websites warned us not to walk near it, as if our mere approach might be dangerous, as if its tentacles might reach out and drag us in.

Growling and yowling, ranting and rocking, falling back to catch their breath before their next assault, the storms kept on coming, and there was nothing we could do. The world had become turbulent with its own temper, its air sweeping over oceans in a tropical fury. If we ever felt guilty, we felt it now.

At least the sea is visible in its rage; the wind is an unseen monster. You dont hear the wind; you hear what it leaves behind. It is defined by what gets in its way trees, buildings, waves. Perhaps thats why it preys on our imagination so disturbingly. The spinning of the globe seemed to have become audible the sound of a world out of kilter. For what sins were we being punished? What had we done wrong? In Caribbean hurricanes during the seventeenth century, Spanish priests would toss crucifixes into the waves or hold the Host up into the wind, for fear that their sinful flocks were responsible for Gods displeasure.