Pier Methil.

Oil on panel – 18 x 13 cm.

Sharp, bright morning, frost on the ground. Cobwebs sunlit on the wooden pier. A man fishes for whelks on the low tide.

Methil dock No.3 – text.

The curve of the sea wall veers left away to the town. Turning round it juts out into the Forth, too far to see. The fisherman’s wharf – pilings, planks, criss-crossing, small boats tied up. Low tide. Part of the harbour wall has collapsed, exposed like a cavity in a tooth, sensitive to the grey cold water. Razor wire snags my coat at the padlocked gate, admission not permitted beyond this point. A shag treads water close to a small wedge of sand where the pier meets the harbour wall. Plastic bottles, gloves, traffic cones, a Flymo without its motor. The coal hoists have gone, where once trains called pugs would pull their wagons, each one lifted by the hoist into waiting boats. By the mid 1930’s three milion tonnes of coal left this dock. Long gone. The giant turbine turns slowly in the thick grey rain. I am the only one here.