De Haut En Bas

An extract from the biography of a modern day celebrity ghost written by a literary great

It is a sun-dappled dawn. See. Dover sinks beneath the blue-birding, kittiwaking cliffs, pillow-white and pale as a seagull’s breast. We gather on deck, happy as hornpiping piccolos: captain and cook, cleaners and caterers, cock-crowing crew and me, fresh-faced and eager – my Peter Pan, baby-boy eyes sparkling and sparking, bright as fireworks, lively as lightning – my baton poised ready to beat this cacophony into a choir as sweet as seaside candy floss. Quavering, quaking before me, these shivering timbers croak in chorus like natterjack toads till, wielding my sea-shanty stick, I tirelessly whip them into shape. Listen. Fine-tuned as the wind on the waves, their lilting lyrics, soft as vespers, sail towards Calais, falling like lullabies lapping the shell-fishy shore. Only a soul-saving, cockle-heart, wand-waving maestro like me could conjure, from howling sea dogs, this siren song choir.

(Gareth Malone/Dylan Thomas)