Chances Peak, Montserrat

Chances Peak is the culminant point of the active complex stratovolcano named Soufrière Hills at 915 m. It is the highest point in Montserrat, a British overseas territory located in the Caribbean Sea. The last eruption was in January 2009.

Lowry refers to the peak in his novel Ultramarine; " 'Yes, and there's a mountain there, a ruddy great mountain, and I climbed it and I had a guide who went up in bare feet, eh. It was the hell of a climb, like climbing up a tree all the way - ink trees and wild cabbages they were - and kept stopping and his nigger guide'd say, "Catch yo' breeze, man! catch yo' breeze!" ......"Wild cabbage, yis! There was, growing at the top. And all the niggers go and throw pennies in the pond up there on Easter morning -" (Pg. 175).

Whether Lowry actually made the climb described in Ultramarine is certainly open to speculation though he may have spent a short time in Monsterrat on his 1929 voyage to USA to visit Conrad Aiken. (Gordon Bowker Pursued By Furies Pg. 83 ). Lowry also refers to this climb in his short story 'Through The Panama'; " Montserrat not far away to starboard where I altered geography books by climbing Chance's Mountain in 1929, in company with two Roman Catholics : Lindsey, a Negro, and Gomez, a Portugese." (Pg. 72).

Lowry's reference to the coins being thrown into the "pond" cannot be verified. However, there is certainly a legend associated with the Mermaid's Hole on the peak which may relate back to Irish mythology:

Finally, Montserrat is also a land of legend. A mermaid reportedly lives at a pond on Chances Peak in the now famous or infamous Soufriere Hills, with a treasure chest at the bottom of the pond. The mermaid has somehow revealed that anyone who takes her golden comb on Easter Monday and runs to the sea and wash it will possess the treasure. There is a catch however. The seekers must outrun a diamond snake that will try to touch them. If the snake succeeds, they will lose the treasure and must pass the comb back to another person. Montserrat & Monserratians: Photo Exploration: Commemorating Ten Years ... By Igor Kravtchenko, Howard A. Fergus

Or this account:

It is Easter Sunday and in Montserrat there is a legend that there is a white mermaid who appears at the top of Chances Pond every Easter at midnight. Hundreds of Islanders would climb Chances Mountain which is 3002ft using torches. They said that one must arrive before dawn take the mermaids comb from her and ran to the sea before they could be caught they would be rich for life. They never said exactly what you should do with the comb once you arrived at the seashore. Acacia

Rock Ferry

Rock Ferry is an area of Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Residential building did not really happen until the early part of the 19th century, the rise of the ferry and the railway, and the establishment of the Royal Rock Hotel and bath house in 1836. Between then and 1870, the area received an influx of luxurious housing including the villas of Rock Park with many other large houses around the Old Chester Road making Rock Ferry one of the most desirable addresses in the North West.

In the later part of the 19th century, Rock Ferry expanded due to the need to house the increasing population of workers, especially at Birkenhead's Cammell Laird shipyard. The decline of local industries in the 1950s took its toll with many of the splendid buildings were dilapidated and unrestored. The building of a by-pass cut the town off from the river with the destruction of Nathaniel Hawthorne's former home in Rock Park in the process. From a nadir in the late 1980's, the town began a subsequent regeneration which still continues.

Death of an Era: Last Hours of Hawthorne's House by Geoffrey Moore

Lowry refers to Rock Ferry in a number of texts including his short story 'Enter One In Sumptuous Armour'; "All around us in the fog lay that extraordinary terrain of the Industrial Revolution and the first street cars, where Wilfred Owen was at school and Nathaniel Hawthorne was Consul..." (Pg. 235); Lowry refers to the Rock Ferry Station in his short story 'Through The Panama';" - a letter came on board causing me much anxiety: my brother reports my mother is seriously ill in England. this is the first time i shall have seen her, as I hope to, in 20 years. Last time I saw her was at Rock Ferry Station, Birkenhead (where Nathaniel Hawthorne was consul), when she saw me off on the London train." (Pgs. 100-101) and he refers to Rock Ferry in a letter to Derek Pethick dated 31st august 1950; "I was born... in New Brighton, near Birkenhead, not far from where Hawthorne had his Consulate in Rock Ferry.(Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg.277).

Rock Ferry Station, Birkenhead

Rock Ferry station was opened in 1891 as the terminus of the Mersey Railway's line from Liverpool via the Mersey Railway Tunnel, when it was extended from its previous terminus at Green Lane station to the north. Electric train services began in 1903, when the line was electrified. Until 1967 it was the first stop out of Birkenhead Woodside on the former GWR's main line from Birkenhead to London Paddington, and all long-distance services stopped to make connection with the Mersey railway for Liverpool passengers. From then until 1985 after the closure of Birkenhead Woodside it was the terminus for services from Chester and Helsby, giving a connection to services on the Mersey section. Further electrification in the 1980s and 1990s allowed electric train services to be extended, first to Hooton in 1985, then to Chester in 1993 and finally Ellesmere Port in 1994.

Lowry refers to the station in his short story 'Through The Panama';" - a letter came on board causing me much anxiety: my brother reports my mother is seriously ill in England. this is the first time i shall have seen her, as I hope to, in 20 years. Last time I saw her was at Rock Ferry Station, Birkenhead (where Nathaniel Hawthorne was consul), when she saw me off on the London train." (Pgs. 100-101). This incident maybe based on a real event though Lowry's last visit to England was in 1934 which is outside the timescale as 'Through The Panama' is based on a voyage made by Lowry in November 1947.

Shakespeare's Richard 11

Mather Brown, Richard II Resigning the Crown (1801) The Boydell Shakespeare Prints

King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England (ruled 1377–1399) and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's successors: Henry IV, part 1, Henry IV, part 2, and Henry V. It may not have been written as a stand-alone work. Although the First Folio (1623) edition of Shakespeare's works lists the play as a history play, the earlier Quarto edition of 1597 calls itself The tragedie of King Richard the second. Read more on Wikipedia

Lowry was taken by his father Arthur to see a production of the play at the Birkenhead Hippodrome circa 1918/19. No details of the production are available. Arthur Lowry loved Shakespeare and took the text along to read between acts. (Bowker Pursued By Furies Pgs16-17)

Lowry refers to the play in his short story 'Through The Panama'; "A poem by Conrad Aiken, a performance of Richard II when he was 10 years old at the Birkenhead Hippodrome, a gramophone record of Frankie Trumbauer's with Eddie Lang, Venuti and Beiderbecke, and a French film directed by Zilke (rhymes with Rilke?) called the Tragedy of a Duck." (Pg. 121)

Stavanger, Norway

The city is the third largest urban zone in Norway and the administrative centre of Rogaland county. Located on the Stavanger peninsula in Southwest Norway.

Lowry refers to the city in his first novel Ultramarine; "Matt told them that he had struck the new skipper, a Stavanger man, for calling him a Bergener." (Ultramarine Pg 17) and in later works; "STAVANGER NORWAY— THE ROTOR SHIP IS REPORTED AGROUND HERE" (The Cinema of Malcolm Lowry: a scholarly edition of Lowry's "Tender is the Night" Edited by Miguel Mota and Paul Tiessen Pg. 156).; Dalfoun - Stavanger (Norsk) 'Through The Panama' (Pg. 68).


There is no record of Lowry visiting the city.

Charon

Gustave Doré Charon 

Charon is the ferryman in Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. 


A re-occuring figure in Lowry's work; “Your lights are bright Mr Charon” ‘In Le Havre’; “The ferry, quite as Charon’s boat, knows death” (‘Freighter 1940’ in Collected Poems 143); a Robert Charon was a passenger on the S.S. Brest the ship Lowry sailed on from America to France in 1947 (Letter to John Davenport Collected Letters     Vol. 2 111); Lowry wrote the short story ‘Through The Panama’ based on the 1947 voyage and included the character Charon; “a glum Charon’s boat, plying up and down between mountains” (October Ferry to Gabriola Pg. 49); “So might Charon’s boat appeared, Ethan thought, when hell was nearly brand-new” (October Ferry to Gabriola 287). Charon is also archetype for Scrubby the character in Sutton Vane’s play Outward Bound, which was highly influential on Lowry.