Portrush: The Neptunists and the Vulcanists

Start your story with someone sitting on a crowded train and end it with them looking out over beautiful natural scenery.

Portrush: The Neptunists and the Vulcanists

Jennifer Quinn had been listening to the news in Ulster Television about the upcoming golf championship known as The Open. She heard that it had been played at the Royal Portrush in 1951, and it was won by an Englishman, Max Faulkner. There was an air of feverish excitement and sound bites about this being Northern Ireland’s biggest sporting event and the organisers were confident that it would be booked out. A spectator village had been created and no expense had been spared in building the championship infrastructure. And of course the whole province was proud of Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell who had become world famous players. 

Jennifer was not really that interested in golf but she enjoyed reading about how these local golfers had become really famous and had won and were continuing to win lots of Opens and Masters games. Her sister Susan told her that she had volunteered to become a marshal at the Open in Portrush so Jennifer thought she would go down there and meet her for a coffee. She decided to take the train. When she arrived at Yorkgate Train Station, she could see that there were a lot of people on the platform. 

She walked along the railway platform and looked across the station wall and saw the bright lights of Cityside shopping centre. She could make out the word Excite. She thought of two books about railways---one of them was The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit:

There were three of them. Roberta was the eldest. Of course, Mothers never have favourites, but if their Mother HAD had a favourite, it might have been Roberta. Next came Peter, who wished to be an Engineer when he grew up; and the youngest was Phyllis, who meant extremely well.

The other book I thought about was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in which there is a dramatic scene in which Anna throws herself under the train:

Stepping off the train as it stops at Obiralovka, Anna walks along the platform in a despairing daze, finally resolving to throw herself under an approaching train in order to punish Vronsky and be “rid of everybody and of herself.” A train approaches, and Anna impulsively throws herself under the wheels, begging God for forgiveness and feeling a pang of confusion and regret when it is too late. The candle of her life is extinguished.

When Jennifer boarded the train she noticed that it was very crowded as it was packed with people heading to The Open. She managed to find a seat and she fell into conversation with a young woman, who told her she was going to be a marshal at the competition. 

The time passed quickly although it was a long enough journey and the train stopped at Mossley West, Antrim, Ballymena, Cullybackey and Ballymoney.  Usually you had to change at Coleraine to get the train to Portrush but because of The Open, there was no need to disembark as it went straight there. 

Jennifer noticed that there were a few police officers on the train and she saw two at the station when she arrived at Portrush. Although it was quite early in the morning, the town was already quite busy and she noticed that people were arriving by bus and by car.

Jennifer walked passed Barry’s Amusement’s Arcade, and she remembered that when she was young she came here for the annual day out. For a country child, an amusement park was simply wonderful. She recalled going for a ride on the ghost train with her sisters and being absolutely terrified. 

She decided to walk to East Strand, because it was a beautiful morning. She was glad that it was not too busy. From the East Strand you had great views of the North Atlantic Ocean. That morning, the Skerries, a chain of small islands were clearly visible. As the golfers were getting ready for their day of competitive play, Jennifer sensed an air of excitement. The Open would bring thousands of people to this small seaside down and generate 100 million pounds of income for the economy. However, because of the looming Brexit crisis, Martin Slumbers from the R&A had declared, ‘In hindsight would I be wanting to do Portrush in the year that we would be potentially leaving the European Union without a deal? No’. 

She walked along the promenade and decided not to concern herself with the logistics of setting up the venue in the context of Brexit, and or to concern herself who was the favourite to win the competition. Rory McIlroy was expected to win and he was having a good season. Brooks Koepka was also a hot favourite. 

Who knows what the outcome would be as golf was a notoriously unpredictable game.  She knew that behind the sand dunes on East Strand a group of the most talented and famous golfers in the world would battle it out on one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world in terms of breath-taking scenery.  

Everyone would just have to wait until the end before the winner was declared. Her thoughts changed to more geological matters as she looked out at the coastline. She learned in her Geography class the the rocks at Portrush were probably 190 million years old and were formed in the Jurassic age. At first they were just mudstone but they were superseded by dolerite, an igneous rock during the Palaeogene period, which was about 60 million years ago. 

She remembered her teacher had told them that no one was quite certain about the origin of the rocks. The theorists divided themselves into two camps, the Neptunists who argued that the rocks were formed in the ocean and the Vulcanists, who argued that the rocks were formed by the crystallisation of molten material. 

And somehow, The Open and its 1.56 million prize pot seemed to fade into insignificance. This was 148^th Open and the rocks were 190 million years old.