Tim
Dungeoness, where I found Derek Jarman’s (1942-1994) home. I find later that he is not known by the younger generation, but by us who remember the AIDs fear and Jarman’s on pivotal role in speaking out with his honest campaign about homosexuality, and his public fight for gay rights and his personal struggle with AIDS.
Raised wooden text on the side of the cottage I recognized as the last five lines of the last stanza of John Donne’s poem, The Sun Rising.
Dungeness I read is a cuspate foreland made of flint shingle. I am intrigued by burried shingle banks under my feet as a struggle across the shingle.
Dungeness is the largest cuspate foreland in Britain, and globally very unusual because it is formed predominantly of flint shingle. Cuspate forelands can be described as triangular beaches. They are formed by longshore drift moving sediment in opposing directions. The two sets of storm waves build up a series of ridges, each protecting the material behind it, creating the triangular feature. Cuspate forelands form due to the positioning of the coast and their orientation to incoming tides and prevailing winds.
The beach ridges date from about 3500 years BC and the best-preserved sequence can be traced from the 8th century AD. In addition to exposed shingle covering about 8 square miles, there are also buried shingle banks, which underlie a further 4 square miles. Other large shingle structures such as Chesil Beach in Dorest, Spey Bay in Scotland and Orfordness in Suffolk are comparable in terms of the length of coastline that they occupy, but they do not contain the enormous volume of shingle stored in the shingle ridges at Dungeness.
The Pilot offered free space in their car park for the night in exchange for food. The food was as bad (over done over quantity tasteless packet chips with fish cakes with more packet potato than fish) as the company was good – friendly staff, and a table of Malaysian’s next door to me, who I exchanged with as they were leaving – the patriarch worked in coal fired power stations throughout India. Somehow I recommended Nisagardatta I am that.
Our view that night and come the morning was glorious – uninterrupted shingle beach, huge sky, full moon set, and sun rise. The lights from the nuclear power station illuminated a far corner all night. Ah to be reminded of our place on our planet.
Kalikellett 