Charles Darwin and how I proved his theory

Now here’s a thing I bet you didn’t know, Charles Darwin is 200 years old this year, and his book “The Origin of Species” is 150 years old next week, you’re impressed aren’t you, some of the rubbish I read, I can tell, you’re impressed.

150 years ago on 22nd November 1859, Charles Darwin and another bloke who’s name has been lost in the confusion of time published their much criticised theory of evolution, a theory that is still criticised today by people who prefer the theory that there lives in the sky a big old man with a white beard who points earthwards from time to time and wreaks havoc on our lives, playing us all like pieces on a chess board – I have to admit that the nutters who prefer that theory (and one of them was boss of the USA until recently) tell better stories than Darwin, but ultimately I believe Darwin and I don’t believe the old grey man followers.

Why ?

Because I’ve seen the evidence that Darwin alludes to.

 

The biggest disappointment to Darwin and his theory was that if man evolved from apes then you’d expect there to still be a halfway house wouldn’t you ? You know, there would be a sort of half-ape, half-man who has learned to light fires with a flint but who still cannot quite stand upright and who speaks mainly in grunts, a creature not quite evolved yet.

I have to admit, this lack of a stepping stone in the process of evolution did put a damper on Darwins work when I read it in biology class in school, even at the tender age of eleven it was the first question I put to Soapy Luxton our biology teacher as he explained all about Darwin, “Sir, ”  I would have said, hand straining up in the air to grab his attention, “why are there no half-ape half-men then ?” and he would have strode purposefully between the rows of desks to hit me across the head with the weighty tome that is Darwins Theory of Relativity and tell me to “Shut up you stupid boy, its you”, thus was my education honed.

So ultimately I was disappointed, and for 52 years I was disappointed that nowhere in the world had been discovered the missing link, that transit point between ape and man…

…and then this summer I ventured to Workington.

Mike Harding, folk raconteur of this region once described Workington as “A town at the end of a 30 mile long cul-de-sac”, a perfect description of how to find the place that everyone forgot about.

To visit Workington you must venture up our M6 to the very far North of this country and then just before you reach the Scottish border you must take the turn off the motorway labelled “Workington And Thats All Folks”, you turn left onto a lane surfaced with loose rocks and you follow the wheel ruts for the next thirty miles, averting your gaze from the skulls on the lanes side and those eyes in the woods that seem to follow your slow progress, until much later in the day you arrive at a large village that has the temerity to call itself a small town, and here be the species known as Workington-Man.

Workington-Man, the link that Darwin never managed to find, its almost a human and not quite an ape, it has ape-like features, it barely stands upright preferring a crouch, it drools excessively and is more often than not drunk, it communicates with its fellow Workington-Man by means of strange extended vowels and grunts and it uses twigs to light fires with, its probably about 1000 years worth of interbreeding from becoming a fully fledged card carrying member of the human race and yet is still significantly so not-human as to be amusing in the same way that chimps in a zoo cage are.

Those regular readers here will know that we were in Workington of July this year in order to start the impressive coast-to-coast bicycle ride which starts at the lighthouse in Workington, seemingly a simple enough thing to achieve in a coastal town, all you have to do is find the harbour which is usually a case of driving through the town until you find the sea and then look for a tall white pointy thing at the end of a sea wall, this will inevitably prove to be “the lighthouse”.

However even for the terminally stupid its still not a problem, for everyone who has lived in the seaside town for the whole of their lives, indeed has lived in the seaside town for the whole of their families slow evolution, will easily recognise the word “lighthouse” in your request to them as you wind down the van window and ask any random passer-by “Excuse me, where is the lighthouse ?”

Not so in Workington.

Workington is a town built on the coast, it is by most definitions a seaside town, but it has none of the accoutrements that you’d expect from a seaside town, it is a town that has turned its back on the sea, it is a town that denies that it is anywhere near the sea, there is no acknowledgement to the sea within the town, no signs pointing the visitor to the sea, or the lighthouse, none of the roads in the town centre lead to the sea, the sea is only one hundred yards from the railways station in the town and yet all the signs there point to the town centre and none to the sea.

Its a town that denies that it is on the very edge of England, almost the furthest point West and next stop Newfoundland in the Americas, its like the people do not wish to be reminded that once upon a time all of the intelligent folk in the town left on a big ship and never returned despite their promises to do so, “Are you going to return” some of those intelligent people must have asked each other when eventually they arrived in Newfoundland, “Fook that for a game of soldiers” must have been the answer, “are you ?”, “No”

We drove the van around and around that godforsaken town for half an hour trying to find the sea, we knew that it must be there for the small map that we had said it was, but we could not see the sea for the townfolk had built a huge wall of sand all down the coast in order to prevent you from even viewing that expanse of water known commonly as “the sea” – we drove past the railway station four times as we drove around and around in circles and eventually we stopped by three men wearing British Telecom hi-viz jackets, they were standing in a hole in the pavement and apparently just waiting for four o’clock so they could go home.

“Excuse me, my fine gentlemen” I hailed them from the vans open window, “could any of you almost upstanding members of this jolly community explain to us outsiders where exactly you have placed your lighthouse of this fine borough ?”

“Lighthouse ?” one of them muttered, and looked at the others with incomprehension writ large on his face

“Yes sir” I confirmed, “the town has a lighthouse has it not ?” and I pointed at the instructions in my hand from the C2C people, the one that said “Start at the lighthouse”

“We ‘aven’t gorr a fookin lighthouse in Wukkintun” one of them grunted and he looked at the others who pouted their lips and shook their heads, they had never seen such a thing in their home town.

I consulted the instructions again, it definitely said “lighthouse” and it even had a little map with a traditional sort of lighthouse drawn upon it,

“Are you sure ?” I asked, “for this here document informs me that indeed you have a lighthouse in the borough and we wish to go there shortly”

“Ney fooking lighthouse in Wukkintun” one of the other replied and all three of them laughed at the idea that “Wukkingtun” could afford something as affluent as a lighthouse.

I thanked them for their kindness and we quickly accelerated away, and then, many hours later, after driving around the cursed town several more times and eventually after driving across barren wasteland that could have once been something industrial and very toxic still, we accidently came across the remains of a small port and at the end of the small port was a short sea wall, and at the end of the short sea wall, was the lighthouse.

Just 100 yards from the railway station, 75 yards away from the BT workers stood in a hole waiting for 4 o’clock, and yet it could have been a million light years away – finding the lighthouse in Workington was exactly like that final scene in The Planet of The Apes (how appropriate) when Charlton Heston finds himself on a beach gazing at a ruined Statue of Liberty and suddenly all becomes clear – finding the lighthouse in Workington was our moment of clarity, we had found the missing link, other people had built this small port and lighthouse many years ago and the residents of the town had eaten them and deny to this day that they ever existed.

Workington – I’ve been there, so you don’t have to bother, think of it as my contribution to your well-being life.