Part 5: Dorset, The Downs & Channel Coast

I awake at my usual time, between 4:00 and 5:00 and it is already light. I want to finish Ian McEwan's novel; it is so engrossing, and so sad, because the principal characters could have saved so much just by listening to what each was saying to the other. The denouement is approaching, and I read:



She watched him coming along the strand, his form at first no more than an indigo stain against the darkening shingle, sometimes appearing motionless, flickering and dissolving at its outlines, and at others suddenly closer, as though moved like a chess piece a few squares towards her. The last glow of daylight lay along the shore, and behind her, away to the east, there were points of light on Portland, and the cloud base reflected dully a yellowish glow of street lamps from a distant town. . . . Now she could hear the sound of his footfalls on the pebbles, which meant he would hear hers. He would have known to come in this direction because it was what they had decided, their after-dinner plan, a stroll on the famous shingle spit with a bottle of wine. They were going to collect stones along the way and compare their sizes to see if storms really had brought order to the beach.

I finish the book and put it down. I let my eyes follow the blurbs:



"Wonderful . . . Exquisite . . . Devastating . . . "
"It is a masterpiece."
"McEwan is the kind of a writer who can say more in a sentence than most can say in a chapter."

I agree with all of these positive comments. On Chesil Beach is beautiful, and I recall seeing the actual beach when flying in from Canada. Plus, one of my travel magazines has a wonderful photo of the Chesil Bank and the Fleet Lagoon. I know about the natural mystery of the pebbles: they increase in size from northeast to southeast due to varying strengths of coastal currents. And then it dawns on me: we are driving along the coast this morning, so why not visit? At breakfast I ask Steve and he agrees.





Sam, Steve and I climb up to the ridge and down to the water. We stand by the water looking back at Mary, who remains on the middle bank. I confirm that walking on these pebbles is difficult--and noisy. I do not take time to check whether or not the size of the pebbles change--I believe it to be true. I do pick up a few pebbles for my "collection" back home. I am just happy to stand here where this fine novel culminates, and enjoy the experience.

Nearby is Dorchester, the town in which Thomas Hardy based his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. We don't take time to stop at Hardy's Cottage, the birthplace of one of my favourite writers, nor at Bere Regis, the Kingsbere of one of my most-loved novels, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the book for whom I named my daughter, Sarah Tessa. Hardy has been praised for his powerful visual style, and I seek out a passage from Tess, early in the novel, as Hardy sets the scene:

This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down. The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through. Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.

We make one final stop in this beautiful countryside, near Dorchester, at Cerne Abbas, to see the 180- foot giant carved in the chalk hillside. I am sure Sam will find it amusing: it is a graphic fertility symbol thought to represent either the Roman god Hercules or an Iron Age Warrior. But my photo reveals that the giant has "lost his head." We are told that when the sheep go in September, the outline will be cleaned so as to reveal the full sight. Sammy laughs out loud that "a sheep is standing on the giant's wiener!"

Onwards to New Forest, a unique expanse of heath and woodlands covering 375 square miles. Named by William the Conqueror, it is one of the few surviving primeval oak forests. The guidebook says "it was the popular hunting ground of Norman Kings and in 1100 William II was fatally wounded here in a hunting accident." (We miss the Rufus Stone, memorialising his death.)

I have a more personal reason to visit here: my old friend, and subject of my book, Henry John Burton Marriott, used to visit here at Brockenhurst; his mother's family lived in West Moors, just eight miles from the Isle of Wight. Also, my step-mother Dianne strongly suggested I stop here, as she had toured New Forest from Southampton on her Cunard cruise last year.

We don't know where to drive, so we opt for the open double-decker bus tour from Lyndhurst, a town that offers an additional note of interest for me, as a fan of Lewis Carroll: Alice Lydell (Alice in Wonderland) lived here all her life and is buried in St Michael's graveyard, a church that also shows the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, my favourite group of artists!




As we enjoy the sunshine and breeze on the two-hour tour, we see again and again the famous New Forest ponies, roaming free and sometimes even blocking the roads. We drive through Brockenhurst to Lymington, where we see the ferry to the Isle of Wight and so many sailboats moored that I am sure my sailing brother, Scurvy Pete, would feel right at home--or overwhelmed. We also visit Beaulieu and Exbury. It is a worthwhile journey, but it is time to move on, and our hotel is in Brighton.


I know of Brighton: its Pier and Royal Pavilion are iconic. I know that Jack Marriott and Leila Talbot were married at the Registrar's Office here in 1912, the very marriage--"beneath his station"--that would cost him the support of his family and precipitate his emigration to Canada a few years later. It was also here that Jack purchased the print of Beethoven that he valued all his life, which is featured predominantly in my David MacNeil portrait of Jack, and symbolised his life-long adoration of Beethoven's Ninth.


Our hotel is on North Street, just a block away from the entrance to the gardens of The Royal Pavilion. It is a balmy evening when we arrive, so we walk along Old Steine and choose to visit Brighton Pier, brightly lit for the night but not crowded. Sam rides the carousel and jumps on the giant trampoline.






We find a very good restaurant called Pinnochio's on New Street and enjoy an excellent, late supper.

In the morning we arrive at the Royal Pavilion only to be told that the workers are having a meeting then and there to decide if they will open for the day. I am puzzled until I see a man with a stack of pickets, and remember that some British workers are staging a one-day strike for more pay. Meanwhile, we visit the Sea Life Centre, the waterfront aquarium built in 1872 as a menagerie and converted to an aquarium in 1929. It was great fun, but does not compensate for our disappointment learning that the Royal Pavilion remains closed for the day. I am left with a few exterior photos and the facts: "As sea bathing became more fashionable in the mid-18th century, Brighton was transformed into England's first seaside resort." The Prince of Wales, who became George IV in 1820, had employed John Nash in 1815 to transform his farmhouse into a lavish Oriental palace. Completed in 1823, the exterior has remained largely unaltered. As for the interior, we shall have to come back to Brighton someday to see that!

We visit Brighton Beach, just off the Pier. Sam and his grampy love beaches, and rocky Brighton is no exception. No bathing houses, or in fact, anyone swimming at all!

We now have a few extra hours, so we surprise Sam by taking him to Pooh Corner, in and around Hartsfield, in the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. We find the most famous of all the "Enchanted Places," the actual Poohsticks Bridge where author A. A. Milne first played Poohsticks with his son, Christopher Robin.


It is a long trek through the woods but we arrive to find the bridge very much as illustrated by E. H. Shepard, immortalised in the second of the two Pooh storybooks, The House at Pooh Corner. We all join for a few rounds of Poohsticks.


"Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over and watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known." -Pooh


Our heads are full of images of Pooh, and Eeyore, and Piglet, and Roo. And the forest rings with the sounds of Heffalumps! All great fun!


We also take time to eat, but no honey pot for us. Instead we opt for a meal at one of the local Hartsfield eateries, The Haywagon. What a wonderful place, full of local characters, tourists, and even a "proper Jack Russell" terrier on his own stool at the end of the bar, his owner feeding him crisps.
We half-expect Christopher Robin, Pooh and their friends to wander in!

We decide we could live in Hartsfield and visit this pub every day. The food is excellent, the ambiance traditional and comfortable, and the visit a pleasure.

We leave East Sussex for home, a respite from Premier Inns, before our day with Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon tomorrow. Besides, I am feeling "just a little eleven o'clockish!" and need to sleep in my own bed!