Bosham Today

I didn't intend to catch this charming vignette of a picture on a windy but otherwise gorgeous walk round the Bosham area today. It looks like the sort of thing that wins photography competitions to me but since I have no idea who the people are and didn't get them to sign anything, it might be against some sort of law.

Bosham is a long-standing favourite local place but it's been a while since I've been, for the obvious reason of having been hardly anywhere for two years. It is deeply historic with its main action being a thousand years ago. Whether or not it is where King Canute demonstrated that he wasn't powerful enough to stop the sea coming in is unlikely to be proven but his 8 year old daughter drowned in the mill stream and it is thought it was her grave that was discovered under or nearby the church which is now marked by this memorial.

 

It's tempting to think that having marauded his way to Bosham and then had his daughter so cruelly taken made him realize that he wasn't quite so powerful after all. This has been the theme of Canute in Bosham, a poem I've been struggling with for some time now. It's only 85% there for my purposes and it's difficult to add in the 'poetry' later when one began too early with only the idea. One needs the 'poetry' to be there to begin with and it might be too late to inject any now. If it isn't really a poem, I'm not convinced a workshop makes it into one. I dare say some magazines might take it as it is but if it isn't good enough for me, it's not going to see print.

Bosham is also mentioned in the Bayeux Tapestry, being from where Harold set off to meet William of Normandy in 1064 in what proved to be a forlorn effort. Research based on the tapestry establish the surprising fact that in those days horses, and some dogs, were green.