Day 18 - BACKDROP

So, I'm in Cleveland at the mo with Mr P and Vicky (of the "Trust" post from day 7), having a bit of a break. This morning we went up to Redcar and found a quiet beach, just past a disused steelworks.  

The beach was stunning. But it was the view on the way that grabbed me more. The eerie sight of the once fully alive steelworks against the blue blue sky and greeny-brown scrubland. Massive high towers with gaping holes and panels like huge teeth hanging on by their last tissue. Cranes at odd angles, like they'd suddenly stopped mid-manoevure. And long long buildings latticed with exposed rusty beams. It was moving to see and imagine the roaring might of the place it once was. The skills it fostered, the livelihoods it maintained and the community it held.

Larking about on the beach after that was still fun. But the backdrop still loomed. And the awareness, amidst all the giggles and whoops, that life is hard. And can be heart-breaking. Like a recent local history that still benefits the few, not the many. Like a global pandemic, affecting so many in different ways and not just a few. Like an ongoing refugee crisis lived out by few, in comparison, but unseen, or just ignored, by so many.