A Lockdown Success Story

..And how SeaNet came to be

(Disclaimer - Contains Swearing, Boobies and Rude Jokes.)

Once upon a time, a woman impressed a man with her siren singing and boobies. She could also wield a whip, and stand on swords, in the style of Olden Days Side Shows. He similarly impressed her by building, from scratch, the most beautiful vintage fair. This also happened to include the Biggest Mighty Striker she’d ever seen. They got together and had a great lot of fun breaking themselves travelling about with said fairground and side-shows. 

Once she’d had her bell suitably dinged by the Mighty Striker to last some years yet, their thoughts wandered onto other things they liked doing. Fella had always fostered a love of waterways and oceans, and with a penchant for environmental issues, and, after having faced major spinal surgery, their conversations turned to “Ways to Live Without Breaking Yourself” and “How to Give Something Back”. They would spend many mornings drinking too-much-coffee parked up where they landed, and doing MAPPING. 

This began as a game, as all great things do, the beginnings being the smallest of pebbles thrown into the lake, as something to do whilst looking at the water. Their Mapping, coupled with the signs on the outside of the truck, *sometimes* made other people think they were Very Serious People doing Very Important Jobs, rather than Getting Drunk in the Beach Carpark, Listening to Great Music, and Cooking Nice Dinners. And so, it seems, as per the projection, that’s what it’s turned into: 

Corona Times have cleared every last drop of the travelling entertainers livelihood. And so we found ourselves, during lockdown, in a tiny studio space, looking out onto the tidal River Colne through the smallest of windows.

 We spent the first few weeks aiming the air rifle at the various pieces of crap in the river and cans floating down when we fancied a moving target. When we got bored of that, we decided a great way of getting our dose of Vitamin D without bumping into any Corona would be to get out on a boat.. leading to the Fella had purchasing The Saucy Jack and us spending my birthday last year fibreglassing the deck. 

Then the epiphany happened. After conversations, research and so many possibilities for something good and fun to do, we started to pull out the crap in the river. Fella gets out into the mud in Waders and tied barrels to shopping trollies, lorry tyres, and a couple of bikes, barbecues, traffic cones… all sunk deep into the mud. Then at High Tide fetched them in on the boat and piled them up on the Quay. It’s heavy, smelly and ropey, but immensely satisfying. 

It’s been pretty much a work in progress since then, 2 years talking and hypothesising turned into 6 months of fetching crap out the river, researching what to do next…

And so, here it is: 

The Spinal surgery means he really shouldn’t be lifting Lorry Tyres out without assistance. Especially not ones filled with River Mud. They weigh an absolute ton! Fella is currently making mugs to fund a Swing Lift for the Saucy Jack. So we are working on funding that with donations, and the selling of merchandise. Beyond the actual River Clean mission though we really wanted to enable the local community to educate those who think it’s ok to throw their crap in the river to begin with.. and to increase quality of life for those who occupy the area’s local to the Colne.

I’m running out of words now, but there’s loads of nature here! Only a few weeks back there was a seal visiting literally a few metres away from the Warehouse.. and we have a resident Kingfisher.. people have seen Otters here. There are Dippers, Curlew, Egrets, Cormorant.. and we are SO lucky to be able to step outside the offices and witness this going on under our noses.

This is an Edge of Town River with so many developments planed, and happening as we speak. We want to preserve what we can, work with what we’ve got, and inspire a certain passion in others to want to do the same. Change will and is happening, and that, in the current capitalist society is something we can’t escape. But we can work with it as much as possible and encourage the human beings here to look up from their lives and appreciate what is here, right now, and remember that breathing the fresh air, observing the tides, and appreciating a few moments of the abundant wildlife is enough mindfulness to last the whole day. 

If you’d like to buy a mug to support the ongoing River Clean Mission - please email SeaNet.Heritage@gmail.com with the word “MUG” in the subject line. 

Each mug is personalised with your chosen Name and Rank. There is a choice of 4 designs, some more sweary than others.. if you let us know which one you require via email, we can put you down for the next press batch. 

Also - anyone local to the River wanting to become a member of the future Unincorporated Association (SeaNet Colne Heritage Society) please email SeaNet.Heritage@gmail.com with the word “MEMBERSHIP” in the subject line. 

For anyone who got to the end of that, WELL DONE. For those of you TLDR that’s ok I’ll be repeating all this in smaller doses over the next few weeks, don’t fear! There are many many more projects for SeaNet lined up, due to the fella spending much of his life studying higher level conservation; almost as much as he's studied "being a prat". 

(Similarly, if you were just here for Mighty Striker porn send us a message and I'll see what we can do. It's been out of action for a while but I'm sure together we can make it ding again.)

HAVE A GREAT DAY! And.. if you already bought a mug, SEND US A MUGSHOT of YOU and YOUR MUG! #SeaNetMugShot

****We Are SeaNet****