Whalebones

Apologies for the dreadful quality of the photo. 

I've wanted to take a photo of this for posterity's sake for as long as I can remember and I was heading to Burneside for work and a day of metaphors so I grabbed the chance to take this on my way there. It was a very dreich morning so I pulled in quickly, blipped and ran.

Not many will notice or remember this but it used to be a bus stop on the A591 called 'Whalebones' just out of Kendal. I will always remember G telling me about it and have always made a point of noticing whenever I have driven past. Over the years they have gradually crumbled and before long they will be gone completely, both literally as well as from memory. Not much is known about them. There's a couple of speculative stories about how they came to be there but I have always been fascinated by  the idea of these whalebones landlocked and mystery-locked in the heart of Cumbria and I love remembering G tell me about them and how they were a landmark once known by everyone and now lost in the blur of time, modern life and fast moving traffic on the A591. But for me, time always stops momentarily as I pass and the association bridges past and present and I can hear his voice. He was a born story teller.


Metaphors of a Magnifico - Wallace Stevens
Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges,
Into twenty villages,
Or one man
Crossing a single bridge into a village.

This is old song
That will not declare itself . . .

Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are
Twenty men crossing a bridge
Into a village.

That will not declare itself
Yet is certain as meaning . . .

The boots of the men clump
On the boards of the bridge.
The first white wall of the village
Rises through fruit-trees.
Of what was it I was thinking?
So the meaning escapes.

The first white wall of the village . . .
The fruit-trees . . .