Walking The Chains, The Passenger Shed, Temple Meads

I went to see 'Walking the Chains'*, about the building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol (before I broke my leg).  Here's a review I've written about it for the local rag.  

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the 150^th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the Clifton Suspension Bridge had culminated with December’s firework extravaganza, but just over a month later, along comes this baggy and at times slightly exasperating celebration of our most famous landmark and the ‘little giant’ whose vision and drive brought it into being.

For the sentimentalist, the idea of staging ACH Smith’s play in the Passenger Shed at Temple Meads was inspired. More practically, the acoustics aren’t great and this meant it was occasionally difficult to hear what was going on.  Moreover, the way the action jumped back and forwards through time, with episodes such as the attempted suicide of Sarah Ann Henley (you know, the jilted Victorian woman whose voluminous skirts filled with air and parachuted her onto the muddy river bank) preceding the completion of the bridge, made me concerned that anyone unfamiliar with its lore and stories might be irredeemably confused.

But for all that, it’s a gutsy show, and with performers from theatre company Show of Strength, Circomedia and the Suspended Voices Choir – a cast which seemed to be of the clay of Bristol itself – you’d have to have a heart of Avon Gorge limestone not to be captivated by its exuberance.  

Perusing the list of financial supporters in the programme, I spotted a shocking omission. Sometimes it seems that Bristol has again been split in two, this time by a council that parachutes in expertise from elsewhere to promote our city’s status as Green Capital while ignoring the local talent of its citizens, and blows thousands on the nonsense of fake grass and trees in Park Street, a stone’s throw from Brandon Hill.  (Hardly very green.)  Meanwhile, Show of Strength, along with b-Creative, Bristol Ensemble and Poetry Can, have lost all their modest council funding. It took Brunel, an incomer, to bridge the great divide 150 years ago.  Now we have another, and maybe it’s time our Mayor reconsidered how best to support the arts, and the interests of those Bristolians who practise them.  

*'Walking the Chains' refers to the practice of 'interviewing' prospective maintenance workers on the bridge by making them walk its great supporting chains (without a safety-harness) to see if they had a head for heights. All other skills could be learnt.  

The IsamBards: Poetry Walks on Clifton Suspension Bridge

It's 150 years since the Clifton Suspension Bridge was opened and to help mark the anniversary, the Isambards - Pameli Benham, Stewart Carswell, David Johnson and I - were approached to participate in some guided walks, thus turning them into poetry walks.  

Being Bristolian, I'd never seen the need to go on an official tour of the bridge, but our guide, Laura Hilton, was informative and interesting, I learnt stuff and it was good to give our bridge-related poems, some of which had been written especially for the occasion, an airing in the spot which inspired them.  

Here's a link to one I read, a poem about Sarah Ann Henley, who was jilted by her lover and who jumped from the Clifton Suspension Bridge on 8^th May 1885, only for her dress and petticoats to fill with air, parachuting her onto the muddy river bank. She died 63 years later, a reluctant celebrity.

Another woman associated with the bridge is Ann Wood-Kelly, an American aviator who flew with the British Air Transport Auxiliary in the second world war.  There's some dispute as to whether - as her Guardian obituary has it -  she twice flew under the Suspension bridge, but let's pretend for the sake of this fabulous picture (and the poem that accompanies it) by IsamBard artist, Dru Marland, that she did.

An updated pamphlet of IsamBard poetry, including all the new poems, is available to buy for £5 in the Visitor Centre of the Suspension Bridge. 

The Poetry Please Competition 2013

One local poetry competition close to my heart is the Poetry Please Competition 2013, which forms part of the annual Chipping Sodbury Festival (or, as my bus driver grandfather whose terminus it was nigh on half a century before the ring road was built called it, Sodding Chipbury).   

Having won first prize in 2011 with my poem about Sarah Ann Henley who tried to commit suicide by jumping from Clifton Suspension Bridge, and come second last year, the compassionate organiser, Mr Stuart Nunn, realised that the only way to break my plummeting trajectory would be to ask me to judge it, so I gratefully agreed. 

Anyhow, the closing date is fast approaching but there's still time to enter.  A first prize of £60 will be awarded to the writer of the best poem submitted.  Additional prizes of £20 and £10 may be awarded at the judge's discretion.  If the quality of entries warrants it, there will be a prize of £20 for the best poem submitted from a BS37 postcode.    

Here's a summary of the rules:

1. The competition is open to anyone aged 16 or over.

2. Poems must be original, unpublished, not currently submitted elsewhere nor have won any other prize.

3. Poems should be typed or neatly handwritten and must not exceed 80 lines. Poems must be in English.

4. Entries should not identify the author in any way.

5.  No entry form is required, but on a separate sheet of paper give your name, address, email address, and telephone number, with the titles of the poems submitted, mentioning where you heard about the competition.

6. Receipt of your entry to this competition will be acknowledged only if you supply a stamped self- addressed envelope marked ‘Receipt’ enclosed with the entry.

7. Do not send the original writing – only send a copy of your poem(s); as we cannot return poems after the competition nor can we be held responsible for any loss of your poems.

8. A list of winners will be displayed on the Festival website.

9. The entry fee (sterling only) is £3 per poem or £10 for five poems. Make cheque's payable to  Stuart Nunn and write your name and address on the back or pay using PayPal.

10. Email entries are welcome. Please state in the body of your email your name, address, email address, names of the poems entered, transaction number of your PayPal payment. Please put your poem or poems into a single word file and attach them to your email. Ensure that there is no identifying name on your attachment or poems.

11. Closing date is 3rd May 2013, and prize winners will be notified by the 31st May 2013.  Copyright remains with the authors, but the organisers reserve the right to publish the winning poems and a selection from the short list in print form or on the website.

12. We regret that we are unable to amend poems or return them after entry.

13. Winner and runners-up will be invited to read their poems at the Poetry Please event in Chipping Sodbury Town Hall on Friday 14th June 2013 .

14. Entrants will be deemed to have accepted these conditions of entry on submission of their poems.

15. The judges will announce their decision in the press and to the winners. We cannot call everyone to report the judges’ decision.

16. The decision of the adjudicator shall be final and binding upon the participants entering this competition.

To pay via Paypal, go to the official poetry competition page on the Festival website, or post a cheque payable to Stuart Nunn, together with your entry and covering page, to Stuart Nunn, 3 Virginia Close, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol BS37 6HN.  

And even if you don't enter, it would be great to see you at the Town Hall on 14th June for an evening of poems and conviviality.  Don't forget to bring some along to read!

Fallen Woman

My poem, 'Fallen Woman', won the Chipping Sodbury Festival Poetry Competition last night.  


It's about Sarah Ann Henley, who jumped from the Clifton Suspension Bridge on 8^th May 1885, only for her dress and petticoats to fill with air, parachuting her onto the muddy river bank below.  She died 63 years later, a reluctant celebrity.


This is my poem having a little lap of honour before it sinks back into the mud of obscurity.

Fallen Woman

Mud sticks,

sister of Icarus,

under the nails of pointing fingers,

to the skin of idle tongues.

You can scrub your treacherous dress,

those voluminous petties.

The prurient breeze still lifts the hem

and sniffs beneath.

You tumbled before you stepped

from Clifton’s glittering parapet, the city

spread between your legs

like a dowry to the wind,

which wrapped itself around your body

and possessed you,

as you somersaulted

like a clanging knell,

and plumped

the lecherous lover’s bed

that dipped to catch you

as you fell.

Deborah Harvey © 2009 , 2011

NB. My first poetry collection, Communion, is being published by Indigo Dreams next month. This poem isn't in it.