This series by Paul Kilgour is a fantastical yet realistic escape from urban reality.

It’s a journey through space, but also through time.

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On the south-east coast of England, around 100km from London as the crow flies – or any other bird, take your pick – lies the headland of Dungeness. Its claim as Europe’s one and only desert having been debunked in 2015, it remains one of the driest areas in the country, though not exactly one of the brightest, if the day of my visit is anything to go by.

You can reach Dungeness via the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway, or walk the approx. 21km coastal route from Hythe, taking in Dymchurch, Littlestone and Lydd on the way.

Not much seems to have changed around here in the last fifty or sixty years. In fact I’m tempted to ask for a pint of mild in the pub and hand over 2 Shillings, sure they’ll have Semprini on the Home Service!

The route is peppered with old fashioned seaside caravan parks, occasional semi dilapidated funfairs, public toilets (closed), and row after row of beach huts, some looking like they would crumble to dust if someone started whistling the theme to The Shipping Forecast. A solid sea wall reminds you of the damage that nature itself brings when there are no bombers around to trouble the land. The waves come crashing as the sky lowers itself ominously. Rain, responsibly neglecting to perform its God fearing duties. Though lurking I’m sure. Biding its time.

As I come to St. Mary’s Bay I realise that I last visited here some 50 years ago as a 15 year old schoolboy, on a geography field study trip. I remember us all sleeping in bunk beds in two large dormitories; boys in one, girls in the other, with a private room for the teacher at the end. I imagine that this may have been an old WWII prisoner of war camp. The food certainly made it seem that way. Several of the tallest of us, who by nature therefore looked a little older, even managed to get served in the local pub after curfew. Until one evening we ran into one of the teachers, and that was the end of that!

Moving on past Littlestone, and around mid morning the sun makes a brave attempt at doing what it’s paid to do, and people start emerging accompanied by assorted children and dogs. The sea retreats and the clouds part to create a kind of temporary serenity. 

And onward, to the almost desert of Dungenesss.

The cloud will just not go away completely, so we’ll just have to become friends. If you’ve never been to Dungeness, I have one solitary piece of advice: wear good, stout walking boots. The shingle will take one look at your feet and say (using its best Tony Soprano impersonation) “is that what you got?”, and promptly die laughing. Your first impression of the place will most likely be – why did I walk all this way to see a bunch of derelict old huts and dilapidated old wooden houses – as a rather large train set rattles past you! But stand for a moment or two and take in its sheer splendour. Weatherboarded beach houses and converted railway carriages. Fishermen’s Huts, upturned boats, a couple of lighthouses, and two nuclear power stations!  And the smell of fish! What more could you ask for?

Film director Derek Jarman’s ‘Prospect Cottage’ which sits roughly halfway in, is testament to the persistence and perseverance of the people who call this place home. Its garden, built on shingle and made by arranging flotsam washed up nearby, interspersed with endemic salt loving plants, has been the subject of several books and exhibitions.

Despite the Channel Tunnel, and its ease of travel to France and beyond, this area is steeped in history. One can almost see the flotilla of small fishing boats setting off to Dunkirk in 1940; hear the sound of Messerschmitts and Spitfires circling each other above, and the flashing lights of the wool smugglers signalling to each other 350 years ago. A monument to the past.”