THE DAY I LOST MY NERVE

On the tops of the cliffs at Burton Bradstock there are sheep fields with dry stone walls.

This morning I emailed a friend to say I was about to walk beside the Broadchurch cliffs near Burton Bradstock.

Quick fire he replied; he'd be frightened to go to the Broadchurch Cliffs but for someone living in Midsommer it would probably feel like a holiday.

Explanations.

The cliffs along the short stretch of Dorset Coast between Burton Bradstock and West Bay are integral to the plot of the television drama 'Broadchurch'. They loom over it. They set the atmosphere.

In the first series a boy's body is found beneath them. (Not a spoiler - the start of the story.) I'm not sure what happened in the second series because it was all a bit of a blur - so very much overloaded with events and surprises it's forgettable; all but the scenery. - the scenery can never be ignored. We're into the third and final series now. It's about rape. It's not cheerful TV. The music is drone. It never lets up. The action is slow. Little happens. But it's well plotted and well acted so each hour-long episode flies as fast as twenty minutes. (Come to think of it, there are three advert breaks in each so it probably is only twenty minutes.)

Midsommer Murders is a long-running detective series set in rural Oxfordshire. There are so many people murdered in every episode it's a standing joke there's anyone left to kill. For the residents of Midsommer, one dead boy is nothing. (They are different genres.)

That's all fiction.

What is not fiction is that these cliffs are terrifying.

They are so terrifying I didn't take any photos.

I didn't walk beside them.

I didn't walk beneath them.

I ran away.

The sea was magnificent.

The waves were enormous.

The roar was exciting.

There was a small crowd of people waiting for the tide to turn so there would be enough safe space between cliffs and water wide enough to pass through safely.

I was terrified. It wasn't just that the cliffs might crumble (which they might) . . . I couldn't stand the feeling of being loomed over. Nature-bloggers aren't supposed to scream inside and flee from their subject matter. But these cliffs are big and red and cracked and gold and they ripple like tall curtains from sky to beach.

I don't like them.
(Shame you can't see them!)

Fortunately, cliffs have grassy tops as well as pebbly bottoms so I walked along up high instead - where there were gulls and fulmars and larks and crows and sunshine and drizzle.

Of course these tops are the earth and rocks which would fall to the beach if the cliffs were to crack, so the choice was not between living and dying but between being crushed by hundreds of tons of rubble or being part of the rubble hurtling down. But light is good. And it's reassuring to imagine one might be able to leap fast enough to cross an unfolding chasm and run inland if necessary. (Through the sheep-field.)

I didn't walk far. When I reached the mouth of the River Bride, I turned back. Rain threatened. 

If I could have turned it into a sunny day for you, I would have.

The River Bride is a pretty little river - and pretty creepy too. Here, as it fights its way into the sea, it carves the most extraordinary shapes. (Its birth at Little Bredy, six miles inland, is the setting for the first Broadchurch rape.)

Dorset is a weird county. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth yet the fiction it inspires is cruel.

Take Thomas Hardy. He wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs.

Mayor of Casterbridge - a drunken man sells his wife to a stranger.

The Trumpet Major - a young woman is sexually harassed by the nephew of the local squire. 

Tess of the d'Urbervilles - a young woman is raped, her baby dies, there are all sorts of complications, she eventually kills her 'seducer' and is executed.

Because I didn't walk below the cliffs I can only show you views from the top!

I had a nice walk though.

P.S. If this were a literary blog I would be wanting to know why there's a cheerful picture of someone hanging out washing on the front cover of Tess of the d'Ubervilles and how come Penguin can describe The Trumpet Major as 'Lyrical and lighthearted'.

The links between literature, landscape and sorrow can be pretty weird.
Humans are weird.
Wouldn't you say?

P.P.S. Readers who've never visited these cliffs may be disappointed there's no picture to show what it's like to look up at them. I just say they frighten me because they loom and might fall over. . . . So I suppose I'll have to go back soon and have another bash at being brave. Not brave for long, you understand. Just brave enough to aim my camera at their stark and dark and rippled faces - before running.

Tweet

WHEN A CASTLE EXPLODES

Last year some time . . . a man talking on the radio . . . an English  journalist who’d worked as a reporter in Afghanistan and had made friends with an Afghan journalist . . . who, when he later needed to flee the country . . .  came to stay with him in London . . .

. . .  The British journalist explained what happened when he decided to deflect his friend's mind from the terrors of war and exile by taking him on a trip into the lovely English countryside. Where better to go than Dorset? Where better than Corfe - 

Even in Celtic and Roman Times there was probably a castle on this site.
The first castles would have been made of wood but
William the Conqueror built it in stone here at the end of
the 11th Century.

1635 - 1646 the castle was owned
by the Bankes family which took
the Royalist side
during the Civil War.

where castle ruins perch dramatically high on a conical hill 

After its fall to Parliamentary forces in 1646,
the stones of the castle were used for building
houses in the village.

and where seventeenth and eighteenth century cottages are still grouped around its toes? 

Where fields and woods stretch into the distance, 

the lanes are narrow, the parking adequate and the National Trust has a pleasant tea-room?

It’s a long trek from London; not really advisable in a day but just about manageable when it matters  . . .  even when the sun shines and everyone else has decided this is just the right moment for a holiday jaunt. The roads jam and the cars go slower and slower . . . and drivers and passengers alike grow weary . 

. . but when they see that castle, the jagged ruins against the sky . . . wow! Fatigue is drowned in awe. The heart lifts. There’s beauty! There’s history! There will be cream teas, ice-creams, ginger beer. This is Enid Blyton country. Remember Kirrin Island with its ruined castle? Rooks? Dungeons? Childhood adventure? Corfe Castle and the coves and moors of this part of Dorset were what inspired the Famous Five stories. 

Click to find out about the Swanage Railway

You won’t have time to take a ride on the steam train if you’re only here for a couple of hours but you can watch it puff in and out of Corfe Castle station on its way between Swanage and Wareham and simply seeing it will take you back to the childhood you probably never had . . . back to the atmosphere of the original Thomas the Tank Engine illustrations . . . it will be tantalising, you’ll want to come again . . . but for the moment . . . as you come round the bend in the road and suddenly see what’s there, you will experience a wonderful a gasp of surprise, of exhilaration, of pleasure

The castle was
blown up from the inside
by military engineers
when Parliamentary
forces took it in 1645
after laying siege for
six weeks.

 . . . of horror . . . !

Horror?

“What have you brought me here for? Is this it?”

The shock of seeing through someone else’s eyes.

This man had escaped Afghanistan - a land of war, of explosions, of ruins. For him, ruins do not refresh the soul.

We forget what war is.

The National Trust banners on the bridge between the tea rooms and the fortress say ‘Romance’ ‘War’ ‘Treachery’ ‘Betrayal’. Oh yes! All very jolly!

References
I'm giving an Amazon link for The Famous Five books because I'm uncertain what would be better. The Famous Five, as well as giving great delight to several generations of children and giving many the motivation to learn how to read, have been hi-jacked on the internet by some very odd people (with strange approaches to sex) and sites which seem ok at first glance turn out not to be . . .

In the 1960s some librarians took against The Famous Five books because the vocabulary is limited. Some people were also concerned because children in it come from middle-class families which sent their children to boarding school and employed a cook. They were also concerned that Enid Blyton's approach suggest racist attitudes and that the children she wrote about 'looked down' on travelers and the poor.

My own opinion is that children need stories - not just 'education', that if they can identify with wizards and fairies there's no reason why they should have problems with people who employ cooks and that unless we know how people used to behave towards each other, they will not be able to understand where we have advanced as a society nor what is left to be achieved.

For Thomas the Tank Engine . . . so far, I'm stuck because I'm not finding links to the original drawings, only to photos taken from more recent books in which they were replaced with models from the television series.

* * *

Welcome to Corfe Castle  - is a good site for finding out about the castle, the village and the surrounding area.

The National Trust Site about Corfe Castle  - includes information about opening times and entrance fees as well as about the castle's history.

The Swanage Railway Site - tells you about the engines, history, timetables . . . and more.

Here is the Historic Towns Survey of Corfe Castle - topography, building types, archaeology etc.

A touristy page with a map to show where Corfe Castle is. (Which might be quite handy!)

Tweet