It’s true, I’m not much to look at:
a couple of ramps, leading up to a sturdy platform,
abandoned amongst the nettles and wild flowers.
To oneside, there’s a path,
where people occasionally stroll by,
often without giving me a second glance.
Why would they?

I used to have a function, obviously,
a role to play, a purpose,
but now I’m obsolete,
and have been so for decades.
This is something I’m trying my best to come to terms with,
but these things take time.

I was once part of a radar system.
In World War Two, when radar held the balance of power,
Flat Holm became a radar island.
Radio Detection and Ranging (an American acronym),
the miraculous, all-seeing eye.

Visualise this:
resting on my back, is a van,
the radar tramsmission van,
a windowless container on wheels.
Attached to its metal frames are radio antennas,
which transmit wave signals, out towards the open sea.
When these hit an object, they bounce back.
This echo is registered and amplified,
and read by operators, couped up inside,
staring intensely at little, bleeping screens.
They can see at a distance of a hundred miles,
even at night, even in fog.

Surrounding us on all sides
is an enormous bed of wire mesh:
chicken wire suspended high above the ground.
It’s vast (120 meters in diameter),
and octagonal in shape,
forming a perfect, flat, horizonal plane,
which corrects the island’s uneven, sloping terrain.
It was called a false horizon,
necessary in order to recalibrate the signal,
preventing the radio waves from bouncing off the ground,
causing interference.

I was the plinth that supported the radar van,
allowing it to stand tall at the heart of this web, like a spider.
A menial role, you may say, but absolutely crucial.

Anycase, that was then and now is now.
Yes, I’m an obsolete pile of bricks,
(and ugly, by all accounts),
however, there’s honour in being a relic:
I’m the island’s sole remaining survivor of the technological wizardry,
which is radar.
I may not be beautiful, but I’m full to the brim with pride.