By: Blonde Two
They (I am not sure who, but they are probably French) say that you can see the Eiffel Tower from every window in Paris.
The North Hessary Tor transmitter stands at 510 metres above sea level and, if Dartmoor was its own wild world, would be the axis around which the moor would spin.
At least it would be if you were a walker. A bit like a right-of-passage, it is the first tor name that we teach our youngsters. In the world of Dartmoor navigation training, if you can’t name North Hessary, you are unlikely to ever be able to make it safely home on your own. You can often hear our Young Leaders asking, “What is that?” of newbies as they point in the Princetown direction.
There is a reason for this; “The Mast” as it is affectionately known, can be seen from a considerable distance in 360 degrees of direction. It is so high that its top often sticks out above the cloud that haunts Princetown and its distinctive red lights have led many a weary traveller home as night creeps across the moor.
Wild campers too, feel reassured by the presence of the red lights as they zip up for the night, home is just over there, if one needed to leave suddenly, one would just need to head for the light.
After a couple of year’s walking across Dartmoor, you come to love “The Mast”. It is a sign of home, an indicator of the end of a long day and a reminder that you aren’t as on your own as you might feel.
Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of The Mast’s first venture into regular transmission. It deserves to be congratulated. It is functional and serves its purpose, but it is not beautiful. Unless, of course, you are a weary traveller on your way home. Then it can seem the most beautiful thing in the world!
not true, course – Victor Hugo used to luncheon every day in the splendid restaurant ‘au Premier Etage du Tour’ (still open – and still perfect, by the way) and when asked why, declaimed in that florid style so well-beloved of french nineteenth century literati (translation into english renders it rather banal, I think) that the view from the window was the only one in Paris from which one could not see the dreadful spectacle of the infernal tower.
Very similar the bitter Warshavian joke about the Palace of Culture kindly donated to the people of Poland by their beloved friend Josip Stalin (design the same as the hilarious Moscow University wedding cake) – or indeed my opinion of the viewing gallery of the (London) Shard.
You could summarise navigation as a set of reassurances separated by a set of doubts (of varying intensity). The scary bit is when you can’t be sure and you start shaping what you see into what you’d like to see. The Mast represents unequivocal reassurance since it can’t be anything else, nor can anything be shaped (in the imagination) to look like The Mast. Since I regularly pose as an intellectual I feel I must invoke TS Eliot:
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The Mast is anti-religious. Religions depend on faith which – by definition – comes unsupported by fact. The Mast is a fact, none better. It is comfort to the fearful and confirmation of the pragmatic approach. Its existence is neutral but its very neutrality is beneficial. We may give ourselves over to The Mast without being made foolish.
The above skirts very close to being rubbish but at first glance it looks plausible. Plausibility is my middle name.
Can you see why I can’t do Twitter or Facebook? Should I open my veins?
The Mast is a bit like the church spire I suppose, calling the worshippers in. One of the things I like about Twitter is the game of trying fit what you want to say into 140 characters. It is a good way of making yourself focus on which bits of what you are saying are really important.