Driving along the lanes of South Somerset and Dorset, the road is lined with union jacks at half mast as well as the now ubiquitous blue and yellow colours of Ukraine. Beside the A35, before I descend the steep hill to Charmouth, a Jolly Roger hangs limply, the skull staring blankly above his bones. It’s also at half mast.
Charmouth beach has people strewn across it. Down to the left are where the fossil hunters go. The bins are overflowing and in the lagoon people on SUPs paddle under the footbridge. Out at sea there are the silhouetted triangles of yachts in a race. There is a feeling of an extension of the summer holidays because of the unexpected bank holiday. But does it feel subdued too? Maybe I’m just imagining it.
In The George Pub (named after another of England’s late monarchs) families are enjoying their Sunday lunches. There seem to be dogs everywhere. A well built man with a shaved head waits quietly by the bar. He has a Royal Marines T shirt on. He tells me he has fond memories of active service. He left in 2000.
‘I’m still in touch with a lot of the guys. Yeah, I’ll be watching tomorrow’.
After I’ve had a pint I stop in the shop just up the main road. The shopkeeper tells me. ‘We’re only open for a couple of hours tomorrow. We’ll, we’ve all grown up with her haven’t we?’
‘I’ll be doing some gardening and pop in and out to watch it. I don’t think I can sit through all 5 or 6 hours.’
I sit next to a smiley woman with a bright colourful hat on. We are sitting on a bench in front of the cafe looking over the beach and into the dazzle of sea glitter. She is from Germany and lives in Bedfordshire.
‘I think the Queen and the Pope are as bad as each other. She has too much money and power. They are all part of the same group – the Templars.’
Oh?
As in the Knights Templar. I think she means the Freemasons. I tell her these sound like Conspiracy theories.
‘Yes I am a conspiracy believer. Like Covid was a way that the government could create fear and control people.’
The country has been in a period of national mourning for 5 days now and it’ll come to an end tomorrow with the day long state funeral of Elizabeth II.
In the background the white houses of Lyme Regis twinkle on their peninsula. The thin bent line of the Cobb sticks out into the sea. On the top I look east towards Golden Cap. It has a flat top and each side a diagonal while the side facing the sea is a gold sandy cliff at the top covered with bushes. It reminds me of a tent.
Behind that the great crescent of Chesil Beach borders the sea, a narrow gold ribbon that ends at Portland Bill. It looks like sand but is actually stones. As the beach curls towards the east the stones get bigger so that they are the size of acorns at one end and bricks at the other. The land on Portland Bill is higher at the northern end and tapering gently as it reaches south out into the sea.
This was where I walked the SWCP in 2018 the summer I decided to leave my teaching job after 10 years. I felt a huge sense of relief then. Here I am 4 years down the line, back in teaching but wondering again if I should give it up for good. What did Dr Korfmeister, my GP in Langport, say?
‘You don’t go to work to get ill.’
What would her majesty say, I wonder? Time to move on.
The Slow Walker 