Artist Residency at Burnham-on-Crouch Primary School, Week #4 with fellow artist and collaborator, Alan Hockett.
Today's River Crossing Puzzle - how do you get 62 children and seven adults across the River Crouch to Wallasea Island and back on one ferry that can only take 12 people at a time and without leaving any children unattended? With a three-page spreadsheet of course! Thanks to the staff and helpers at Burnham-on-Crouch Primary School (and of course Bill our Ferryman) and a military-style operation, all of the children were safely ferried from Burnham's town quay across to Wallasea Island on the opposite bank of the River Crouch.
Today's River Crossing Puzzle - how do you get 62 children and seven adults across the River Crouch to Wallasea Island and back on one ferry that can only take 12 people at a time and without leaving any children unattended? With a three-page spreadsheet of course! Thanks to the staff and helpers at Burnham-on-Crouch Primary School (and of course Bill our Ferryman) and a military-style operation, all of the children were safely ferried from Burnham's town quay across to Wallasea Island on the opposite bank of the River Crouch.
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As each group of excited children arrived at the Marina we set out, single-file, on a walk along the narrow sea wall path towards Wallasea Island's Wild Coast nature reserve passing a collection of scattered wooden pontoons that look to date from WW2. They could have been used as a temporary harbour and reports vary as to their actual use and origin but Bill, our ferryman talked of them breaking up during the Great Storm of 1987.
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Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project has been created with the 'spoil' from London's Crossrail development as an RSPB salt marsh habitat. We could make out on the horizon the conveyor belt that brought the soil ashore. We learnt just this week that the final consignment has arrived at Wallasea and the sea wall will be 'breached' in August to flood the area to form the new wetland habitat. The children delighted in taking turns with binoculars to 'look back' at Burnham and using their 'viewfinders' to frame the landscape, identifying landmarks we had walked past last week; the moored houseboats, the town's clock tower and the wind turbines beyond Burnham visible from our new vantage point. Everyone agreed he Royal Corinthian Yacht Club we had visited the week before definitely looked smaller!
Observing the landscape and scattered farm buildings of Wallasea, budding poets recorded words to use in their poems; 'flat', 'green' ("fifty shades of green" as one suggested!) and words to describe the sounds we could hear; the whispering of the wind in the long grass, the sound like bells as the rigging hit the masts of boats moored in the marina. Meanwhile, others sketched and chatted excitedly about the return ferry trip.
Observing the landscape and scattered farm buildings of Wallasea, budding poets recorded words to use in their poems; 'flat', 'green' ("fifty shades of green" as one suggested!) and words to describe the sounds we could hear; the whispering of the wind in the long grass, the sound like bells as the rigging hit the masts of boats moored in the marina. Meanwhile, others sketched and chatted excitedly about the return ferry trip.
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With compliments, once again, on their impeccable behaviour and a good deal of cheerful waving from the ferry, we watched as it shrunk into the distance. The children seem to have enjoyed their Wallasea Island adventure which we discovered only two of them had ever visited before.
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