Is Read online

  I never got any money back on my investment though.

  I ended up working as a journalist for a local newspaper and then for various magazines in London. And it was while working for one of them that I found myself having to do some research about Brunel for an article I was writing. I spent some time in the Science Museum, which I hadn’t been to since that day when Is first showed me the model of the Great Eastern. It was still where we’d left it, in its glass case. The Caerphilly Castle, the steam engine where Kevin Ryder had accused Is and me of having ‘a little cuddle by the choo-choos’, wasn’t there any longer, though. It was moved in 1999 to the Great Western Railway Museum in Swindon, where it still is as far as I know.

  I also spent a few hours in the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe, which is at the other end of the tunnel under the Thames where Is first announced to me her conviction that she was Isambard Brunel reincarnated. It was there I first heard about Brunel’s older sister Sophia. She, it seems, was extremely talented – able to discuss engineering matters with her brother and father with complete authority. In fact, her knowledge of engineering was so good that she was described by Lord Armstrong (another famous Victorian engineer) as ‘Brunel in Petticoats’. I wonder if Is ever knew that. It would make her smile, I bet. Sophia went on to marry Benjamin Hawes, who became a government minister and Sir Benjamin Hawes – so she became Lady Hawes. In Victorian times, of course, there was no chance of her becoming an engineer like her father and brother even if she had wanted to.

  Finally, about three years ago, having got fed up with the rat race, I and my family moved to West Wales. We moved to Pembrokeshire away from all the hustle and bustle of London. As it turned out, though, I didn’t get away from Brunel. Where we moved to was a few miles from a place called Neyland, a small town with a few shops and a marina on the banks of Milford Haven. A hundred and fifty years ago it was where Brunel decided to site the far western terminus of his Great Western Railway.

  Despite having lived in Pembrokeshire for three years, I hadn’t actually been to Neyland until about six months ago. There’s hardly anything left of what was a major railway terminus now; just a few lengths of railway line buried in tarmac. But there are some railings actually made from Brunel’s original broad-gauge track, which must be very rare. From Neyland, packet steamers and other boats would go to Ireland and beyond. The water in Milford Haven is incredibly deep and so the largest ships can come in and out easily. Today huge oil tankers use the haven all the time. And I wasn’t surprised to find out that Brunel’s monster ship the Great Eastern twice came into Neyland for repairs. The Great Eastern! I can remember the day Is stormed out of Mr Phillips’ class as if it were yesterday. That great ship – a ship that was really too big, too ahead of her time – only managed to make money laying the first telephone cables across the Atlantic. She was the only ship large enough to carry the 3000 miles of cable needed to reach America. Another connection with America was made that day I went to Neyland. To be honest I’m not even sure why I went, but I parked the car and walked along the quay where the station would have been. I’d bought a sandwich and newspaper and I sat on a bench overlooking the haven, watching some yachts sail up and down. I opened my packet of sandwiches and took a bite while enjoying the sun and light breeze on my face. Then I opened the newspaper… and couldn’t believe my eyes. Staring back at me was Is! It was definitely her. I hadn’t seen her for more than 30 years, but it was unmistakably her. I was so astonished at seeing her photograph that it took me a couple of minutes to realise why it was there. Underneath the picture the headline read: ‘British Engineer in First Manned Mission to Mars’.

  My hands were shaking with excitement as I continued reading. ‘One of the teams working on the project,’ the article said ‘is led by a woman engineer from Britain called Isabel Williams.’ Not only a British engineer; not only a woman engineer – but Is! As if to convince myself that it was true, I read it out loud: ‘NASA describes Isabel Williams as an extremely talented engineer whose contribution is invaluable to the project. She has the flair and imagination to think the unthinkable, to think big and to make things happen.’

  ‘Of course she does!’ I yelled. ‘Of course she does!’

  Realising I was shouting out loud, I turned around nervously to see if anyone had heard me. And my eyes were drawn across the grass to a statue on the other side of the road. There, in bronze, with his trademark top hat – clutching a ship in one hand and a railway engine in the other – was a statue of Brunel. I left my sandwich on the bench and ran over the road.

  I was still holding the newspaper as I looked up at Brunel and suddenly I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There was something about the set of the jaw line, the proudness of the lips and the way the eyes looked that seemed so very, very familiar.

  I looked at the photograph of Is in the paper. I looked back at the statue. I felt tears well up in my eyes.

  ‘Is, you did it!’ I cried, ‘You did it!’

  I stood looking up at that statue for ages.

  People probably thought I was barmy.

  Isambard Kingdom Brunel was probably the greatest engineer of his time, some say the greatest engineer ever. He was born at the beginning of the nineteenth century and in his lifetime he was responsible for the Great Western Railway and twenty-five other railways, more than 100 bridges, eight dock systems, three ships and a pre-fabricated hospital.

  Everything he did had to be bigger, better, longer, faster. He worked on the first tunnel ever built underwater. He built the longest tunnel and the fastest train. Each of the three ships he built was the largest the world had ever seen when launched. He was only five feet tall – but in engineering terms Brunel was a giant.

  Derek Webb was brought up in Portsmouth (where Brunel was born) and now lives in Pembrokeshire with his wife and son. He spent many years working as a creative director in a variety of major advertising agencies, before becoming a freelance scriptwriter and director in 1996. He is also a successful playwright with a number of stage plays published and professionally produced. His work for children includes dramatising a large number of books for audio, including The Minpins and Esio Trot by Roald Dahl; several of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven stories; and eighty minute dramatisations of children’s classics including The Secret Garden, The Railway Children and The Incredible Journey. He has also written a number of short stories for younger readers called Popplejoy and…. Is is his first full-length children’s novel.

  Find out more about Is and Brunel at

  www.ikbrunel.org.uk

  Parthian, The Old Surgery, Napier Street, Cardigan. SA43 1ED

  www.parthianbooks.com

  The publisher acknowledges the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.

  First published in 2010

  © Derek Webb

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 978-1-909844-65-0

  The right of Derek Webb to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Find out more about Is and Brunel at www.ikbrunel.org.uk

 

 

 
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