






MICHAEL FAULKNER

THE BLUE CABIN
Living by the tides on Islandmore
STILL ON THE SOUND
A seasonal look at island life
Welcome to the website of author
BOOKS ON ISLAND LIFE AND STRANGFORD LOUGH
Island life & Strangford Lough
“..In July of this year, to mark my birthday, we set out to achieve the most important return trip of all.
Since her stroke, my mother has been largely confined to a wheelchair, and speech,
for eighty years the conduit for a sociable personality and an active mind, has become
a daily frustration. Although she has risen to the challenge of living at home, with
(in order of importance) dogs, cats and family around her, she laughed when I first
raised the idea of coming to Islandmore, thinking it a challenge too far. The cabin
belongs to her, but it had been five years since her last visit and I suppose she
had visions of coggly boats, makeshift ramps, slippery jetties – and electric wheelchairs
which, to put it mildly, are not light. Even when I presented her with a self-
For me, it became a mildly obsessive project. I went ahead with preparations, building
a raised deck for the boat and sourcing a special threshold ramp, flexible enough
to form a workable bridge from the pontoons to the boat. Appropriately enough, since
his grandfather had re-
That everything came together for my birthday, I count as a special bonus. I said
to mum that morning, ‘Let’s give it a try,’ and she replied with an old-
We drove to Ringhaddy with hope in our hearts, natural justice on our side, and the
self-
When we arrived at the boat park, I fetched the ramp and the platform from the boat
shed and tied up to the sheltered side of the pontoon harbour. With everything in
place, mum and I made our way onto the concrete walkway that leads to the pontoons.
We smiled and nodded to a number of fellow cruising club members on our way to the
boat. All of them had seen the preparations and were fascinated to hear what I was
about; and all of them, to varying degrees, were keeping a discreet – that’s to say,
a lets-
We rolled on, or rather mum rolled on. I kept my feet on the pontoon and when the wheelchair was more or less halfway across the boat, I knelt on one knee and reached forward to apply the brakes. Then I untied at the bow, stepped onto the dead centre of the stern locker, and pulled the ramp after me. For the second time, I asked if mum was alright, but there was no need: perched high above the gunwales, she was, if anything, savouring the moment.
A coolish breeze was coming from the southeast, and I took off my oilskin jacket and put it across her shoulders. The sleeves billowed and lifted like wind socks, sending secret semaphore to the gods; and that’s how we crossed Ringhaddy Sound, ‘Like a stately ship of Tarsus bound for the isles… Sails filled and streamers waving’ – like Delilah, and with equal triumph.
The roll-