Traditional style tattoo of a pink heart wrapped in rope and entwined with an anchor and a rose, with curved text reading Sons are the anchors of a mother's heart, on the side of the torso.

Anchor and heart with quote on the side

Traditional · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A heart with a pink and yellow fill is wrapped in rope and set against a grey anchor, with a rose or flower tucked beside it at the upper right. The outlines are bold and dark, with soft blended shading inside the heart and anchor. A curved line of black handwritten-style text runs beneath the motif, set against plain skin.

Traditional Ribs Anchor Heart Rope Rose Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Your father's barge is tied up at Shadwell again, and the wind has been flattening the water all week, so I've had nothing to do but sit on the cabin step and count the gulls. Don't scold me about the coal money. I paid the lock keeper with the good shillings and kept the coppers back for the chandler, the way you showed me before you went off on the Gravesend run.

Keep reading

The rope on the old anchor has frayed where it snagged on the wall at Greenwich. I've wound fresh marline round the shank myself, the way Uncle Tom taught us both, with the knots tucked under so the wet can't get in. Mr Pell at the yard offered to replace the whole thing for two pounds, but I told him that anchor has held this family in the mud for thirty years and it can wear its own stitching a while longer.

Mrs Ashdown's girl brought a rose up from the market for the windowsill, pink going yellow at the edges, and I stood it in a jam jar beside the tiller. Every time a tug sounds its horn downriver I think it's you, though you've not been out since March and I know full well it's only the coal barges. I keep the kettle warm regardless.

Come home when the tide turns. The anchor will hold, Tom's knots will hold, but I would rather you were the one doing the holding for once, and I'd rather you did it sitting at this table.