Traditional style colour tattoo of a grey anchor wrapped in yellow rope and teal leaves, on the lower leg.

Anchor with rope and teal leaves on a calf

Traditional · Calf · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows a grey anchor with a yellow rope coiled around its shank and a wooden crossbar, with a cluster of teal leaves above and below it. The anchor is shaded in grey with a bold black outline, and the leaves have yellow highlights and fine veining. The design is centred on the lower leg, with the anchor running vertically across most of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mo,

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I found the anchor in the back of Dad's shed on Tuesday, under the tarpaulin with the broken deckchairs, and I thought of you straight away. You were the one who said at Saltcombe Grammar that a thing only stays put if it has something to hold on to. Remember? Mr Pryce made us sit on the harbour wall to write about tides and you wouldn't stop sketching the rope rings instead.

The reunion was smaller than I expected. Eleven of us in the function room above the Ship, and Gareth brought his wife's photo albums, which nobody asked for. Janet asked after you twice. She still has the bus timetable you drew for the Bridlington trip, the one with the sea kale spilling down the margins because you said the buses kept getting lost in it.

I didn't tell anyone that I stayed out on the wall until the lights went off in the Ship. The tide had come up over the bottom steps, and the old iron ring was still there, furred green, exactly where we left it when we were fifteen. I put my hand on it. It was cold, and it did not move at all.

So I'm writing to say the anchor is yours if you want it. Dad says it came off the Lady Ellen in 1962 and he never could make himself sell it. I'll post it or bring it, whichever you prefer.

Yours, still on the wall, Tom

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