It was two years ago today that I started Tales from Bridge 39, a length of time that has, unsurprisingly, passed by incredibly quickly. Conversely, the beginning of that time period seems another world away entirely. I remember smoking just outside of Telegen, the old call centre, with Tom and Pam, wondering what I should call the blog I wanted to write. In desperation I settled on 'Tales from Bridge 39', and then only as a temporary measure. I had the very real fear that deciding on a name could take so long, meeting with so little success that any motivation and inspiration might swiftly evaporate. I played with the idea of having a title involving 'Black Shuck', a mythical ill-omened ghost dog of English folklore. For some reason -I can't remember why now- I decided against this, and cast my mind around for another suitably eerie haunting or myth I could use.
Interestingly, the haunting of Bridge 39 is not my favourite haunting, but there was something abstract and open-ended about 'Bridge 39'. It gave nothing away, and could mean anything. I stuck 'Tales from' before it, and it kind of made sense. Bridge 39 is a bridge over the Shropshire Union canal in Staffordshire (see the photograph above) and since the late 1800s, there have been sporadic reports of a phantasmal creature haunting the structure and surrounding woods. The creature most closely resembles a large, aggressive chimpanzee like thing/ Some tales make note of burning red eyes (which bearss some similarity to various hell-hound legends) whilst others accentuate the creature's ethereal qualities - one commentator described how his hand went right through the creature when he tried to touch it. The creature is still - allegedly - seen now. I came across a report of someone who, on a canal holiday, reported seeing the creature peer down at him from that curious 'internal arch' in the structure as his boat passed underneath.
Not my favourite -or most convincing- haunting, but when I was a kid we used to go on canal holidays every year along the Shropshire Union canal. The area of the canal in which Bridge 39 is situated is surrounded by thick woodland. The canal itself moves through deep cuttings leading to a very claustrophobic creepy feel. There's something odd about canals anyway, something cold and still about the waters. Canals seem full of waters for drowning in. I think it is partly to do with their artificial quality - all canals are manmade - and also with the obscure and forgotten countryside they tend to meander through, a landscape of silent fields and tangled woods and oddly desolate flatlands. There is also that curious feeling of absence too, or maybe of trespass. Canals now are for canal holidays and pleasant Sunday afternoon walks, but once they were part of the country's industrial infrastructure. Along the canals are remnants of its industrial history. You often see those black painted iron poles that are cut deep with the marks of ropes from the times when horses used to pull the barges along the tow path. Being on the canal can sometimes feel like breaking into a factory that has been shut down. Still feels a bit like you shouldn't be there.
Summer of 2009 and there was another canal holiday with the family - my parents, my sister and her husband. On the first night we moored up what I thought was close to Bridge 39. After dinner I had the grand idea of walking what I thought was to be only a fifteen minute walk to the haunted bridge. I could time it so I could arrive just as night was falling for maximum effect. As I set off along the tow path, through the deserted countryside, on either side of the canal either dusk-reddened fields or deep twilight woods - I began to feel a little bit disquieted. Despite the fact that civilisation - moored boats, a local pub / restaurant and a group of fishermen - were only a short way behind me, I began to feel very far away from it all. Very alone. I walked quickly through these silent cuttings with their sandstone walls and under the troubling darkness of other long low bridges. The twilight felt tangible and thick with that jungle-smell of damp earth and unmoving water. The last of the red sunset rays gave everything a lurid nightmare glow. An eerie and unsettling region. I was glad when Dad rang me and told me that, looking at the map, I would have to walk about another five miles to reach Bridge 39.
I was pleased to be able to head back.
It was only five months later that I started this blog. Perhaps I was thinking about that summer evening when I was casting about for a name.
Not that it matters. What was to be only a temporary name -as is so often the way with these things- has become it's permanent identity.
I wonder what 'Tales from Bridge 39' would have been like if it had been called anything else.
