Dumbo quote in script on a limb

The ice went out of the cut on Tuesday and Father finally let me take the Mary Jane down to Ely on my own. You'll laugh, but the whole way I kept thinking about the mooring ropes. Every knot we tied at Bishop's Lock was holding her down, pinned to the bank like a dog on a short lead, and I hated them. Then the flood came up under her keel and she rose right off the mud, bow first, as if someone had cut her loose, and I stood at the tiller with my mouth open.

Mr Okafor from the Ouse boats says a barge is never happier than when the water is doing the lifting. I didn't believe him until I saw the Mary Jane float clear. The ropes that had only ever stopped her drifting were the same ropes that let her ride the rise, because they were tied fast to something that was going up too.

I've painted the line on the inside of the wheelhouse door, in the blue Father used for the roses. It's crooked, I'll admit, the letters leaning like they've been caught in a wind. But it's there now, the thing I wanted to tell you, so come up at Easter and tell me it's daft.

Your loving sister, Nell