I grow interested in the myth. More than interested, intrigued. Why is it a myth? Clearly there must be some foundation to it. But nobody knows. Does nobody want to know? Everybody wants to know everything, always; but do they really? Is it kinder on the mind, and warmer on the heart, not to be certain, about certain things?
Who, I wonder, were these ‘two guys in their twenties’? Shouldn’t there be a plaque to them? Should they not be celebrated as local legends in their own, quite literally, lunchtime? (It was around then, after all, that they stepped into leisurely ‘action’, in the nude.) Do they still take part now, many years later, perhaps in their thirties, or even forties? They could be dads, by now; in fact, if—as in any respect other than their initiation of this curious custom they appear to be—they are fairly average males then all likelihood suggests that they are, by now, also dads.
Do they live in Bournemouth, still, or Boscombe? Did they ever? That may be a clue: perhaps they weren’t actually from here. Maybe they were just visiting, this is a distinct possibility. Because if they were native to the Bournemouth and Boscombe community then surely, but surely, somebody would know who they are. Then again, if, as has been suggested, some ‘mates’ joined them on their first stroll, then there must have been mates to do so. Maybe they were visiting too? Perhaps they were part of a group, of an Australian sports team? Maybe a language school? They could have been hearty Scandinavians, here to learn English! Or maybe they actually didn’t have any mates here at all, maybe they were just talking to strangers at first, but became readily friendly with them, and these erstwhile strangers who were now effectively friends had mates and they joined them, impromptu, and that’s how it all happened. Who knows. Well, exactly: who actually knows?
My early investigation into this matter of waxing importance—waxing, in importance, at any rate, to me—yields nothing. Yes, the Bournemouth & Boscombe Nude Beach Stroll happens each year on the last Sunday in June; yes, it attracts a fair bit of attention nowadays: people come here from all over the region, even the country, maybe the world, but there is no website and no guide. No official history, and no reference to its founders. No club and no charitable foundation. More than intrigued now, I’m fascinated: how do these things come about?
My mind latches onto something, but it doesn’t know what. Maybe it’s my subconscious mind: it knows, it wants, it needs there to be more to this than meets the eye (though what meets the eye would, on occasion, seem to be quite enough…) and it thinks it knows that there usually is: so likelihood would suggest. And in the absence of certainty, likelihood is our friend. I want to go with that, that notion, that thought.
My mind senses, below reasoning, above intuition, that there is a connection and that this connection can be found. But not by ‘traditional’ means. (What, in any case, are ‘traditional’ means?) It realises, my mind, now, that it has to let go and take an approach that is not a route, that is not direct, that is not determinate or determined, that is neither logical nor pure, neither chaotic nor abstract, neither instinctive nor wise. So what is it? Perhaps I am overthinking it all, but that doesn’t matter: I stand on the beach looking out to the sea and I notice the air coming in from vaguely the right. Over there. By the headland. Is it a headland? Is it a beach? I like the waves, they are steady and impermanent at the same time. They are waves and they are particles too. They are full of tiny molecules, but that is not what I mean. They are wet but their power is implacable. If nobody knows, then maybe they need to be told.
I decide to delve deeper and take a detour, via the sea. There is something somewhere that somebody would rather were not the case. I shall find it and let it be so…
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EDEN by FREI 