With the Boggins and Towpath novels both out for consideration with agents, I have nothing else to do than START WRITING ANOTHER BOOK! My sixth novel (have I really written five books?) will be called Time and Tide and is based on a mind-bending experience I had on a beach in Cornwall nearly two years ago. And no, it didn't involve any kind of enchanted fungi either. In fact I got home from my holiday and wrote down the outline of the story straight away, it affected me that much. I have only now got round to writing it.
To cut a long story short, I think we – yes other people saw him too – might have seen a time traveller. Ok, it sounds weird and you're probably sitting there laughing and thinking 'oh my god, she has totally lost the plot altogether' but it happened and I really, REALLY wish I'd taken a photo of him. Actually, I really, REALLY wish I'd asked him straight out who he was. But I didn't. I had just found a three-foot-square pitch of wet sand to sit on after driving for two hours in increasingly bad weather to find the bloody beach. You'd think it was Torremolinos, it was that jam-packed. And everywhere we looked, glum, irritated, pale faces looked back at us as if to say 'isn't Cornwall shit when it rains?' After umming and aahing whether to stay there or not or just go back to the static caravan, watch the telly and crack open the red wine and Doritos, we decided to have our picnic then leave. I wasn't in the best of moods, it has to be said.
Just as I'd got the food out and we sat there staring at a grey sea along with an equally grey sky, popping snack eggs into our mouths like they were going out of fashion, this figure appeared over by the rocks to our right. I noticed him straight away. He wasn't dressed like a tourist so he kind of stood out. There were no combat shorts, slogan t-shirts or Converse on him, that's for sure. No sirree! He was wearing what can only be described as a military uniform. In fact, he looked like he'd just stepped off the set of a World War One movie. I watched as he carefully made his way over the rocks and started to pick his way through the crowd. He looked dishevelled and tired and kept pushing his hair back off his face. He carried an old cloth backpack over one shoulder and looked utterly bemused.
I nudged my partner, then kicked my daughter and said in low tones 'bloke at two o'clock, bloke at two o'clock - looks like he's stepped out of the war'. This confused my daughter initially. She'd never heard of using the clock for positional purposes before so she started rummaging around for her phone to tell me what the time was. I kicked her again and hissed 'just look at that man Florence!' All three of us held our breath as he walked right by our feet and I remember looking at his muddy leather boots as he passed and thinking 'I've just seen a bloody time traveller'. I turned and watched as he disappeared over the dirt bank behind us. I stood up, expecting to see him sauntering across the car park beyond, but he was gone. Vanished. Into. Thin. Air.
I sat down and we all looked at each other blankly. I asked my partner and daughter if they definitely just saw 'that man', thinking maybe I was indeed losing the plot, but they both confirmed they had. All I remember saying was 'that was the weirdest thing I've ever seen'. We talked about him for a few minutes and then carried on eating our picnic in silence.
Anyway, that's my time-travelling story. Last year a similar story made the headlines and national news. A photo was uploaded to Twitter of a beach in Cornwall (honestly) in the 1940s. There in the forefront is a man with both his hands raised in front of him. Somebody commented that it looked like he was using a mobile phone and so the time travelling story exploded. I checked out the photo. I wasn't convinced at all. That man was merely rolling a cigarette. Not texting somebody.
But I saw a REAL time traveller. With my very own eyes. And that is what my new book is about. It's going to be brill.
