Black and grey traditional anchor tattoo with leaves and a Sink or Swim banner on a forearm, shown in two views.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Anchor with leaves and Sink or Swim banner on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two views of the same forearm tattoo show an anchor with a banner reading SINK OR SWIM across its shaft and a pair of leaves above the ring. The bold outlines are combined with stippled dotwork shading on the anchor, leaves and banners. The image is black and grey on a dark background, with the larger close-up on the right and a smaller view on the left.

Traditional Dotwork Forearm Anchor Leaves Banner

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last northbound train sat at Platform Two with its doors open and nobody climbing aboard, and you stood in the ticket office with the tide table in one hand and your uncle's brass key in the other. Outside, the wind had found the loose sheet on the noticeboard and was slapping it against the glass. Dessie had run this halt for thirty-one years. He had never once let the sea reach the bottom step before the lamps were lit.

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The words were still painted on the signal box door, in the chipped white capitals the company used before the war: SINK OR SWIM. He used to say them to anyone who asked whether the crossing was safe, then put the kettle on, which was his way of telling you that you could stay put if you liked. Under the footbridge the sycamore dropped its leaves onto the iron bracket shaped like an anchor, and every October he swept them off with the side of his boot and said that was the only maintenance the railway had ever needed.

Tonight a parcel sat on the bench, wrapped in oilcloth and addressed to the widow at the lighthouse cottage across the bay. Nobody else would go. The tide was making fast over the slipway, and the boatman's skiff was already tied up at the far end where the water came in. You tucked the parcel under one arm, took the steps two at a time, and felt the cold lift your boots off the stone before you were halfway down.

Behind you the empty train pulled out with a long sigh, and the platform lamp swung on its bracket, throwing the anchor's shadow across the wet shingle. You heard him as clearly as the gulls: sink or swim, and no sense standing on the steps arguing with the sea. You waded on with the parcel held high, and the lighthouse beam came round and found you, steady and white, as if it had been waiting.