On Thursday Vik and I met in town and walked round the Harbour for the Suffragette talk at the Bristol Archives. We were early, so went to the very edge of the Harbour to look at the river, one of our regular walks.
The first thing we enjoyed was this tiny glimpse of one of the silt islands, looking like a whale coming up for air, or a sea monster lurking on the bottom of the river. And an aside – if you look on the maps on Know Your Place, you can see there have been silt islands here since the 1880s, including this one, which I find fascinating.
Of course we went to look at the mud that banks up in what used to be the Brunel lock, one of my very favourite places. There are almost always bird footprints here, but I’ve never seen as many as then. I don’t know if it was a flock on in the middle of migration, or something special had been left on the mud after the spring tide, or it was just that the conditions were extra good for retaining footprints, but it was delightful.
The light was dropping, and looking at the mud from the east to west gives that totally different perspective, where the mud shines silver, bronze, cold, depending on the day. Even in the higher part near the closed dock, there were still so many more prints than normal.
If you want to know more about the talk we went to, it was by Lucienne Boyce, on the 6 suffragettes imprisoned in Horfield Prison for militant actions. It was a great talk, and if you want to find out more about suffrage campagings in Bristol, read her book The Bristol Suffragettes, or go on one of the Suffragette Walks she details on her website.
Avon Stories 