A Visit to Lindisfarne

It's always a pleasure to follow motorway signs to The North, and this time was no exception. As a family, we all chipped in to rent a holiday cottage just outside Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast so that we could spend Christmas together: seven adults, two boys and a dog. 

The Farne Islands, home to St. Cuthbert and Grace Darling

Luckily, we had a week free of snow though the weather was mild and windy, giving us days that were bleak, dark and very short.

I always like to have some sort of project on the go for times like this, and this year it was to look at Lindisfarne/Holy Isle through the prism of Roman Polanski's 60's black comedy thriller Cul-de-Sac. It was a film that made a great impression on me when I first saw it back in 1966 at Lincoln Film Society, in the building in which I now work.

As well as tide tables off the Web, I got hold of the DVD from MovieMail. The night before our visit, the lads and I sat down to watch it. Not having seen it for decades, I was struck by its Samuel Beckettian quality — as a kind of riff on Waiting for Godot with bits of Pinter thrown in. Instead of Godot, the characters wait out the non-appearance of Mr Katelbach from Mablethorpe (a holiday town on the Lincolnshire coast). I was pleased to see this reading of it confirmed out by notes on the BFI website, where I found this nice production still.

The most striking thing, on visiting the place itself, was how Polanski played around with the geography, collapsing a landscape that stretched over several miles into a compact, claustrophobic stage set-like location.

Weather, tides and daylight hampered my attempts to get to grips with the island's essential character, so I came away with only a few photographs to post to Flickr. Another visit clearly beckons. Time and tourism have been very kind to the place and the run-down castle environs and decrepit sheds are much smartened, thanks to the ministrations of the National Trust.