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The Quicksands of Toyne (Working Title 9.1)


A Death in Toyne

In the summer of 1974 I watched an elderly man drag a wooden deck chair onto the beach just north of Toyne. He was from the area, I’d seen him before, so I didn’t bother to warn him that the place where he finally chose to stop and sit was near a limestone shelf that made the tidal pools dangerous. Apparently there’d long been a problem with fluvial peat mixing in the water just east of the beach, and the sand could turn almost to mud as the tide came in.

It was not until two hours later, when I was returning to the cottage I’d been renting, that I realized that I ought to have said something to the man—someone I now know to be named Timothy Llewelyn. There were nearly fifteen men standing hand in hand, forming a human chain that stretched from a rocky flat down to where Llewelyn was in his deck chair, although he and the chair were now swallowed in a kind of quicksand. Only the tops of his shoulders and head were visible.

He’d fallen asleep, I heard later, and had only been rescued when a postal carrier had walked by and seen him. After the rescue, I followed everyone to a sort of public cafeteria where people gathered when the pubs were too small to hold large gatherings. The cafeteria served beer and packaged food, and I spent the entire afternoon and evening hearing the rescue story told and retold, participating in the celebration of Llewelyn’s escape from death.

Remarkably, the next morning Llewelyn returned to the same spot beneath the limestone shelf and once more found himself immersed in quicksand by mid-day. Men from the town again came to his aid, but this time they were too late. He’d already suffocated beneath the sand before he could be rescued. Llewelyn’s funeral was held at the same cafeteria, and I was invited, even though I was an outsider. We again drank together for several hours, and I enjoyed getting to know more of the people of Toyne. The mood was obviously very different, but I have to say (because of the conversation and because of the drinking) that I enjoyed myself even more on this occasion

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