Having made a prodigal’s return to this coast, I find myself remembering…
Walking along a harbour wall with my grandfather – counting boats and gripping the handrail as he told me tales. On the way home we often passed the ‘fisher-wives’ – hands raw as they cleaned the day’s catch and, if I felt brave enough, peered into the deep storage pools.
There are traces of the once thriving fishing everywhere – in the village ports and coves, on the cliff tops and beaches.
Photographers have a particular fondness for the wooden dune-fences and (new word for me) groynes. Is it the sea-air that renders them so soft to the touch?
I imagine them as lines of sentinels rooted in the sand – wives and sweethearts steadfastly watching the horizon.
