Small black fine line tattoo of an anchor with a heart above and star bursts, on the inner forearm.

Anchor and heart on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small black tattoo of an anchor, with a curling line rising to an outlined heart at the top and several small star bursts beside it. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the design is set against pale skin. A silver charm bracelet sits below the tattoo, and the photo is taken at a slight angle with flash lighting.

Fine line Forearm Anchor Heart Star

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Old Tam Reddie had mended nets on the quay at Kellow Bay since before the war, and when his son Joseph went out past the breakwater in the autumn of 1953, Tam took the good anchor from the shed and carried it up to the church rather than leave it to rust. People said it was a foolish thing to do. The vicar said nothing. He only moved the lectern so the anchor could lie beside the font.

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The boat was called the Marigold, and she did not come back on the Tuesday tide. For three nights the women stood on the harbour wall with lamps. Sarah Pell, who kept the chandlery, cut a heart from a biscuit tin and nailed it to the mooring post where the lamplight caught it. Every night at nine she struck a match and let it burn down, and the small bright sparks went up over the water like a scatter of stars that the sea had no use for.

On the fourth morning a fog came in thick enough to hide the gulls. Tam heard the Marigold's horn before anyone saw her, low and stubborn, and he walked down the slip to the water's edge with his cap in his hands. Joseph stepped off the bow onto the wet stones and told him the anchor had held in the storm, dragging against the Skerry rocks until the chain bit deep enough to save them both.

That evening Tam fetched the anchor back from the church and hung it on its hook in the shed. Sarah kept the tin heart on the mooring post, and she still struck her match at nine, though nobody on the wall asked her why anymore.