Gareth Craddock – Winter Solstice On A Kentish Marsh

This past winter solstice, I dug some worms from a local wasteland; it backs onto a series of old Regency buildings, some inhabited, some not. When I was a child, an illegal rave was held in the woods here, one midsummer’s eve. As I dug, I thought about our need to mark solstices; we’ve celebrated them since before we walked upright. Today, they go largely un-noted in England. But worldwide, particularly in the southern hemisphere, solstices are a national event- and the best ceremonies pay tribute to the elemental forces: sky, earth, water, sun and moon.

On a good day, angling contains all five elements.

This past December, I decided to fish on the Friday when the winter solstice fell. Rising at the sociable hour of half past eight (I’m a dusk angler) I opened my curtains to reveal a grey, sullen-looking day. I sizzled some bacon and eggs before brewing up a thermos full of sugary PG Tips. I aimed to fish from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon; the last hour would be in twilight and then darkness. Before I left my flat, I grabbed a pair of binoculars, a perch rod and a corn-yellow bobber.

I split my day between two marshland streams; both are a few miles south of my home on the Isle of Thanet and both run directly into the Kentish Stour not far from the estuary at Pegwell Bay. The first and closer river I’ve nicknamed ‘The Bosh’. I like to keep its real name a secret, even though it’s not that great in fishing terms. But it’s wild, free and runs through a secluded valley that used to be part of the ocean. Moreover, I like having it to myself- as does the resident buzzard; there is only one here which is unusual in this small part of the world, where buzzards stick together like graveyard crows. However, this one flies solo. Well, ‘floats’ would be a better word than ‘flies’; it can glide both up and down the valley without a single beat of its wings. I’ve spent hours watching it when I should have been watching my float.

This solstice morning was no different. I walked the river and made casts into various, promising looking holes but caught nothing. Above all, I was a buzzard botherer. At lunch time I sat in the middle part of the valley, near a small drainage dyke; the valley is home to many tits and also larks; they sang well until a little rain started in. Then the dyke began to suck at the river and a gurgling sound came on. When I was done with my cheese and onion sandwiches, I jumped the dyke and almost made the other side. My right leg was over but the left was stuck halfway up to my knee.

I’d intended to walk closer to the buzzard, who was occupying the final tree in a bund at the bottom of the valley, but when I’d finally squelched my leg up and out the bird had long flown. Instead I went for a wander and came across a wild pond I’d never seen before. It wasn’t big enough for perch but there’ll be newts in there come spring time – perhaps even some great cresteds.

It was approaching two ‘o’ clock and I felt my solstice was going well. I’d spent most of the morning tracing that old buzzard, so I had definitely honoured the sky. I’d walked a fair bit and got stuck in the mud, so had sufficiently celebrated the earth. The sun had not quite put his hat on yet; all I had to do for the moon was wait. But despite all my time by stream and pond, I felt that to fully engage with the wonder of water; I had to get nearer to one of its children. I packed up and headed for my second stream – another wild river still further south, towards my grandfather’s first colliery, in the east Kent coalfields.

This second stream is much bigger, deeper and today it was really running. I walked a patch we call ‘The Sprong’ until I reached a beaver-bitten, submerged tree. I cast a worm in upstream, under a bobber. The float dipped under on the first cast, just as it passed the trunk. I watched it disappear like a little red submarine, travelling deeper into the shadows until it disappeared behind a waterlogged branch. Just before the point of no return, I struck back upstream and reeled the fish in – a beautiful perch about the size of a deck of cards. That’s water off my checklist, I thought. I caught several more of the same class until just gone three, when I stopped for a tea and to look at the landscape. An hour before dusk, the sun came out and the sky briefly turned blue.

All I needed to do now was wait for the moon, the first inkling of whose advent was a pearly-white male barn owl who came flying across the fields with a sudden sheet of sea fog. I once watched a barn owl skim an ocean of barley on the summer solstice; it kept moving in circles, as though it was observing a whirlpool in the seas of corn below it. Not so its wintry cousin, who flew in straight lines above the empty sods of earth, only turning when that final hedgerow dictated it. When my binoculars could no longer keep up, I looked up and around to see the moon which had had risen and was waxing over a distant village. I watched it for a few minutes before the fog rose and covered my view.

My solstice festival was at an end; I thought about one last cast but decided instead to wait and see if the moon might materialise a little more. It didn’t and when they sky was almost pitch, another barn owl screamed out somewhere north of me, nearer to where the river meets an old drain system. I don’t hear barn owls call very often on this particular stretch of marsh; it usually attends something strange. I’m grimly fascinated by these things; the spirit of Mary Bax walks this part of the marsh. I don’t expect you to believe this kind of nonsense. I’ll admit there was a time when I thought it was nothing but foolishness.

I stayed awhile before enjoying a slow walk back to my car. I heard no more owls and the moon didn’t come back. There were no spirits, either; at least none I could see. That is, until I got to the pub – it seems like a solstice needs to be measured in more than just sky, earth, water, sun and moon. Now was the time for that other essential element: fire water. The trick with the latter element is to sip slowly and think nice thoughts about the next six months. I did just this, and dreamed about the rest of the winter; snow came and went – as did giant, Kentish pike. As I warmed so too did my thoughts – they raced ahead to spring and the very early summer, almost to the time of the next solstice: tench appeared, paddle-tailing and swirling their way through my fire-water. Bass came too; angered, shook and inviting me to catch them if I dared.

Only when I later slept did I hear the owls calling once more and see the moon rising again, higher than it ever had in my waking hours.