Traditional style anchor flash design with a red heart and a banner reading DAD, drawn in red, blue and yellow with bold black outlines.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Traditional anchor and heart with DAD banner

Traditional · Colour · Flash

A drawn tattoo design of an anchor with a red heart wrapped by rope near the top, and a white banner across the shank reading DAD. The bold black outlines and flat fills are typical of traditional flash, with red, blue, pink and yellow ink and some dotted shading on the anchor. The design is shown centred on a warm, textured paper background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Dad, The gulls have got into the fish market again and Mrs Penhallow has threatened them with a broom, which they ignore, as they ignore everyone. This morning I went down to the slip with the coffee you like, the one with too much sugar, and found the Brightwater's painter still coiled on the bollard the way you left it. I didn't untie it. I haven't untied anything since March.

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I have been thinking about the knot. Half hitch, two turns, tuck under the standing part, the one you made me recite until I could do it blind. Mum said it was a waste of an afternoon. You said a child who can tie a knot in the dark can get home in the dark. Last Tuesday the wind came round off the point while I was alone on the quay with the nets, and my hands did it without asking me. I nearly cried in front of Eddie, which he would have enjoyed.

The harbour board wants the old slipway for a car park. Mr Vance came round with a clipboard and a tape measure, and I told him he could measure all he liked but the tide would still come over the top of his numbers. He wrote that down. I think he took it for a joke. Mostly it was true.

The anchor is still on the wall above the kettle, the one with the banner I pretended to be embarrassed about. Ellen says I should take it down. I've decided I won't. Tomorrow I'm taking the Brightwater out past the breakwater on my own, two hands on the wheel, and when I come back I'll tie her up the way you showed me, twice round the bollard, tuck under, and leave the painter loose enough to take the weight. Love, Bee.

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