Ditch Walking, Mud Larking and Becky’s Dive Bar
In my Spanish class recently, our tutor asked us to write about what we had liked to do in our childhood. I was immediately transported back to my favourite activities, ditch walking and mud larking. Let me tell you about them and explain why I have always been fascinated by mud and muddy water.
I was born in Boston where there were lots of ditches, a rustic grid system which provided a secret highway for the adventurous child. They were below the level of ordinary life, beneath cars and bikes on the road and beneath sheep and cows in the fields. It was possible to disappear into them for hours and travel unseen for miles. But not only were they secret, they were dangerous and exciting as well. Who knew what lurked beneath the toxic-green pond weed? Or what had died there. The black mud tugged at your wellies, the chill of the water made you catch your breath and the rich smells of decomposing matter warmed your nostrils. Then, of course, there were the rats, alerting you with a plop, or a grass snake, a blur of green and yellow on the bank. Like any underground highway, there were tunnels to negotiate, some dark and dripping under a bridge, others dappled archways through April blackthorn or hawthorn in May. Or, perhaps, we would come across a watering hole for cattle, where the mud was at its most glutinous. A gang of us knew every inch of that ditch system. We could draw you a map which would take you from Skirbeck to Fishtoft, three miles away. We were guides to a secret underworld.
Similarly, we could take you creek jumping on the marshes or, even better, mud larking on the banks of the river Haven, a mile down river of the Docks and St. Nicholas’ church. Now, if you’ve never been on the banks of a tidal river, you need to know what you are missing. It is the mud. Not just any mud. This is quality, tidal mud, the kind of mud you see in London when the river Thames is at its lowest. It is smooth, shiny and brown, a brown that can look like hot chocolate one minute and then turn as chestnut as a conker the next. But once it is disturbed by a dog, a seagull or a stone, it instantly turns to black, sometimes grey-black, at others, jet-black. This is the kind of mud I loved as a child. With my friends, we would build a den at a turning tide as close to the water’s edge as possible. We would use any wood or rope we could find for the walls, and stone from further up the bank for a base. Then we would wait for a timber or cattle boat to glide past, sucking the water away from us as it approached and swamping us in its wake as it passed. If our den had been made water-tight, we remained dry, if not, we got drenched.
Of course, mud larking also meant searching for any jetsam of interest which had been washed up onto the bank – old tins, bottles, shoes, dead animals, and, alarmingly, condoms. We never found any old coins or anything of historical interest. It was the search in itself which was the most important thing. Just to be near oozing, salty, slippery mud was enough because it was mud that smelled of the sea and the marshes and, just like the mud of ditches, it promised adventure.
These days all I can do is look wistfully at ditches when I pass them on my bike rides as I did the other day to Claxby. However, there might be a flicker of hope. Only recently, I took my seven-year old granddaughter, Athena, for a stroll around Tealby and she insisted on walking through the watering hole where the river Rase crosses Sandy Lane. Not only did she get stuck in the mud the first time she went paddling but enjoyed it enough to get stuck in it again. Promising signs, I thought. Now, all I need to do is to choose my ditch.
As for tidal mud, every time I visit my daughter in London, I try to catch a glimpse of the Thames and get near enough for a sniff. It has occurred to me that perhaps I need to investigate mud larking more seriously. Consequently, I have carried out research which has led to the discovery that you can apply to the Port of London Authority for a licence and become an official mud lark. Now, there’s a thought. Perhaps my granddaughter might also be interested.
What has all this got to do with Becky’s Dive Bar? Well, I’ll tell you. It was while I was doing my research that I came across the name, Shad Thames, a riverside area of the south bank near Tower Bridge which was famous for its mud larks, slums and seedy characters like Dickens’ Bill Sykes. Seedy characters got me thinking. Then unhealthy places. Finally, the south bank provided the missing ingredient. ‘Yes,’ I exclaimed, ‘Southwark Street near London Bridge, the year 1973, my first visit to Becky’s Dive Bar.’
For those of you who never experienced this cellar pub, let me tell you about it. It was, and remains, the seediest pub I have ever visited. It was on several floors, each like a different level of hell. Below ground, after a short flight of stairs, was the main floor, with two rooms, one being the saloon bar, where I sat with my friends on barrels. The beer, Ruddles County, Shepherd Neame and so on, was served out of casks which were propped on the bar. Becky was an eccentric woman, old, nearly always inebriated. She was plastered in make-up and red lipstick, a dyed black beehive balanced on her head, often standing next to Harry, the massively beer-bellied barman, who offered greasy fried food to those of a strong constitution.
The toilets were on the next level down and were the dirtiest, smelliest toilets I haveexperienced, and approached by the narrowest staircase I have negotiated. It was rumoured that cells which once belonged to the Marshalsea debtors’ prison were below the toilets. I don’t remember anybody ever investigating this.
I kept going back for the next two years. It had everything going for it. It was an underground watering hole, dangerous, full of rich, warm smells and decomposing matter. Much like ditch walking and mud larking, in fact.
Footnote: Becky’s Dive Bar was closed down in 1975.
