Traditional style anchor with rope and ship's wheel on the top of one foot, beside a teal compass rose on the other foot.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Anchor and compass rose on both feet

Traditional · Other · Colour · Photo

Two bare feet show tattoos on their tops: a teal anchor wrapped in rope and set in a ship's wheel on the left, and a compass rose with N, S, E and W markings on the right. The linework is bold and dark, with the teal and blue-grey shading applied in flat, solid fills and a few radiating marks. The feet fill the frame against a dark, shiny backdrop.

Traditional Other Anchor Compass rose Ship wheel Rope Feet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The brass compass you left on the hall table has been swinging since Tuesday, and Mrs Pryce says it's the damp in the sea wall. I told her it's the sea wanting you back. Your room is as you left it, though I aired the blankets twice because the Lovell girl asked for the sea view and I wouldn't have it. Nobody sleeps in a bed that still smells of tar.

Mr Ashdown came down this morning asking whether anyone had seen his tin of tacks. He'd spent the night on the back step painting the ironwork by the gate in that blue-green from the chandler's, saying a rope holds better when it's the same colour as the water. I said a rope was a rope and the water was the water, and he could take his paint elsewhere. He laughed and gave me a shilling for the mess, which is the first honest money he's paid since May.

He's gone now, with his sea-chest and his bearings set for Hull. Before he went he left a drawing on the back of a rent book: a compass rose, points sharp as bread knives, N at the top and S at the bottom, and a little anchor drawn in the middle where the lines cross. Under it he'd written Keep the wheel turning, which I took to mean the boarding house, though I suspect he meant something else entirely.

I've pinned it above the kettle where the draught from the back door can't reach it. It points at the kitchen, Tom. I don't know which way that is for you, but I know which way it is for me, and I'll keep the kettle on until you tell me otherwise.

Your loving mother, Nell