It wasn’t the sort of morning to dally; there was a stiff northly wind blowing. The tide was high; the cold green water whisked white as it pushed over the promenades edge. The sun hadn’t risen high enough to give any warmth to the overcast sky.
I take this walk most mornings; in most weathers. Other than the occasional dog walker it is deserted; I cherish the solitude, and the sea provides an ever-changing vista. As I reached the Low Lighthouse, now the Maritime Museum I briefly paused: to watch and listen, the sea was at its most uninviting, whipped by the cold, howling wind; the Tide Bell, rather than its melodic chiming, sounded discordant and ill tempered. This short pause had dissipated the warmth gained from walking, replacing it with a deep-seated chill; I walked on.
I hadn’t gone far when I stopped again, looking over the grass bank onto the green I was level with the treadwheel crane. Leaving the promenade, I climbed the bank and stood next to it. It has been here all my life; surrounded by high railings. You can only get access to the interior on high days and holidays when it is opened to the public by the local historical society.
Standing here with only the sound of the wind and the sea for company; the mind can be prone to drift and fill with fanciful thoughts. Other cultures hold beliefs in Animism; that is places and objects can possess a spiritual essence, agency, and free will. What if this crane wasn’t just an artefact of our past lingering into our present but possessed a consciousness?
I started my working life in 1667 at the Navel Dockyard; as part of an expansion ordered by Samuel Pepys. It meant more work for the Dockyard, which was a sign of hope. My arrival was only a year after the plague, which decimated London but also affected nearby Colchester and us in Harwich causing many to die. I was known as a ‘House Crane’ as the wheels were enclosed; I have two, one man in each. Treadwheel cranes had been around since the Roman times, some powered by animals some by men. I cost £392 to build, and worked for 260 years.
There is much made of the danger; when people read or visit that the two wheels have no breaks; to stop the load from accelerating backwards catastrophically out of control, killing or injuring the men. However, the ‘friction force’ created by the mechanism normally prevented this from happening. Labour has always been hard and dangerous; those with the money have always been more interested in profit than the wellbeing of the workers.
There were 138 recorded work-related deaths in Great Britain in the year 2023/2024.
I have heard and seen many changes in my long existence. Many of the changes I have only learnt vicariously, that is by the people coming close to me, or carried on the wind; others I can see for myself. I witnessed much change during my long working life. When I was put ‘out to grass’ in 1932 I was moved from the dockyard to the Green to become the curio I am today, the changes seem to have got bigger and faster. Perhaps that’s just because I have more time to look and listen?
As I look across the harbour, beyond the ever changing, but reassuringly constant sea, there is Felixstowe Dock. It’s the biggest container port in the United Kingdom now; hard to believe how it has grown since its humble beginnings in 1875. It now takes some of the largest container ships in the world. The MSC Loreto docked there, she can hold 24,346 containers this is the maximum that can be currently carried; the only other ship capable of this is her sister ship the MSC Irina. These ships seem to fly in the face of nature: how can anything this high and stacked with so many containers float and not capsize.
Looming on the horizon are the cranes; but nothing like me. These are mechanical, made of metal and tower above the dock. They look more like the soulless ‘fighting machines’ from the ‘War of the Worlds’; rather than something crafted by people to work with people.
There is often talk about the drudgery for the two men powering my wheels, it was men then; but has it really changed? The people unloading the ships at Felixstowe have a computer in their cab telling them what to pick up. They pick up a container from ‘A’, take it to ‘B’, unload, and repeat; for twelve hours a day.
This could be used as a metaphor for life. Large parts of the population, those with the least: spend their lives constantly trying to move forward, to make thing better; only to never move forward. The treadwheel has been replaced by the treadmill.
I shiver, I have lost all sense of time, looking at my watch I have only been here a couple of minutes; but long enough to become chilled again. Time to start the walk home, get in, cup of tea, and finish my book. Its not my normal reading but I have enjoyed it; ‘War of the Worlds’ by H. G. Wells.
I still don’t know what made me stop here, but I am pleased I did.
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