Hallam's Walk

Hallam walked along Tennyson Beach. He liked to do it, every decade or so. Today he was in a red top and cut-off jeans. More comfortable than my Governor General outfit, he thought.

He looked out towards the horizon. Astonishingly, there was no horizon, today. The sea was one with the clouds which were pearly and gelatinous, all heaving gently. My dad would write a poem about this he thought, sourly. Or a saga, more like.

The sky above was a brilliant blue and the sun was warm. He felt sweaty even in his summer top. And he needed his cap, because the sun was at a low afternoon angle.

He sniffed the air. Pooh, he thought, iodine. Or is it ozone? No, ozone doesnt have a smell. It'll be this seaweed. He stared at the heaps of brown seaweed, sculpted into hillocks, cliffs and troll-like creatures by the tide.

The sea slopped up to the seaweed, warmly. Seagulls bobbed in the shallows facing away from the sun. They didn't appear to be doing anything other than bobbing. He wondered why they had chosen to bob there.

He didn't know much about seagulls. He saw a pelican flying low over the water, into the sun.
He didn't know much about pelicans either. I bet my dad did, he thought. I wish I'd been allowed to finish at Cambridge, instead of having to give up my studies to be his secretary. He sighed.

Still it was a nice day, and he had done pretty well for himself really. Governor of South Australia and then Governor General of Australia for a year after that. He decided to treat himself to a Farmers Union Iced Coffee at Noonies.

Tennyson

Little did Alfred Lord Tennyson know that this would happen.

His son Hallam would become the Governor of South Australia in 1899.

Alfred did not know this because he died earlier, in 1892.

Back to Hallam.

Hallam was named after Alfred Lord Tennyson's friend Arthur Hallam, who died even earlier.

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote a poem about the death of his friend. He called it In Memoriam.

But, back to Hallam.

Hallam, as Governor of South Australia, had a beach named after him.

The beach, probably to his chagrin, was called Tennyson, not Hallam.

This afternoon, as I was walking along the beach at Tennyson, I thought of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam, for two reasons.

One, because the name of the beach was Tennyson.

Two, because the sound of the sea was mournful, dragging and repetitive, as the tonal effect of In Memoriam is reputed to be.

I have not read it, or if I have, I have forgotten.

This is a prologue. Tomorrow I will write more about Tennyson.