Friday morning, early January 1904.

Edward had managed the mill at Marple since moving from Bangor in 1898. The winters in Cheshire were foggy, wet & cold. The white snow-drifty slopes of the High Peak hills looked down upon him as he waited for the local photographer to capture his stance.

His favourite place by the coast was the three beaches at Prestatyn. Sandy terrain with rocky groynes, 55 miles from Marple. The beaches looked north into Liverpool Bay. Prestatyn was the northern end point of Offa's Dyke, constructed along the western border of Mercia. Sitting beside these ancient & modern cultural boundaries, the beaches felt limininal. But how blessed he was to have felt many summer days of sunshine on his skin as the salt-sea air eddied across the sands.

Marple was a pleasant enough town, with traditional butchers & greengrocers. He could even get ready supplies of pheasant or partridge from the moors. The River Goyt, and the local canals, while enabling mills and the movement of coal & goods, were not the fresh saltwaters of the coast.

The photographer started to dismantle his camera and wooden apparatus. Edward shivered a little. His thoughts turned to those summer days along the North Wales coast. Thoughts of his new wife back home. Thoughts of warmth beyond the weak January sun and the melting snow.

One day they would follow the flow of life back to the sea.

One day.