text: COASTLINES: THE STORY OF OUR SHORE . by Patrick Barkham . (Granta Books £20) We are an island race, — which means, in practice, we are a coastal people. No one in Britain lives as much as 70 miles from the sea. Our coastline of 10,800 miles is longer than India’s (Unbelievable? Try measuring the ins and outs of Scotland’s). Many people in the U.S., Russia or China never see the sea in their lives. But most of us are saturated with it in childhood — in holiday homes and beach huts with deckchairs and sandy sandwiches, shivering and occasionally baking in the capricious arms of the sea. People are drawn back to the sea in their retirement, staring once more and feeling as they did as children. Our attachment to the coast is strong. Popular television series explore it, gliding over the cliffs by helicopter as if in a dream. Coastal paths are never short of walkers. Barkham’s book is written to celebrate 50 years of Enterprise Neptune, the National Trust’s campaign to save our coastal beauties from being spoiled — by purchasing them. Beginning in 1965, the Trust has by now acquired 742 miles of coast. Our attachment to the coast is strong. Popular television series explore it, gliding over the cliffs by helicopter as if in a dream and coastal paths are never short of walkers . Naturally, the National Trust mainly bought up the wilder shores to preserve their wildness, which is why you won’t find any popular resorts among them. This suits Barkham’s taste, because his childhood holidays were partly spent on Scolt Head Island, off the emptiest part of the Norfolk coast — an island with only one hut, where his parents chose to stay. He goes back to stay on Scolt alone, evoking not only its emptiness, but also its dreamy union of sea and land — good for meditation for a night or two, though not for a fortnight’s holiday. He also waxes fondly on the loneliness of beaches and headlands. He even has a love affair with Orford Ness, Suffolk, a radar spying station kept top-secret and out of bounds by the Ministry of Defence for 80 years. He likes the spookiness of its decaying laboratories, toxic testing sites and the tales that were told about the secret base called Cobra Mist, which was rumoured to have housed the UFO that supposedly landed in nearby Rendlesham Forest in 1980. But who would want to visit the Ness now we can, heaven alone knows. Barkham sails keenly for two of the inhabited islands off the coast. Lindisfarne and its attendant islands were places of monkish contemplation for Saints Aidan and Cuthbert. Lundy, with a permanent population of 28 get-away-from-it enthusiasts, in summertime adds 60,000 visitors, who come to see the puffins. He loves the cliffs and chasms off Cornwall. Walking the tops of them is, he says, ‘the next best thing to flying’. When I was young, we stared with fascination at another mysterious island because no one was allowed to land on it. Brownsea Island, in Poole Harbour, had belonged since the 1920s to the eccentric Mrs Christie. For 40 years, she kept all human beings out (with an armed guard), while allowing only animals running wild to share it with her. When she died, in 1961, the Trust was given the island by the Treasury in lieu of death duties. It took nearly 50 years to clear the wild rhododendron that had overrun it. Now, it is partly open as a nature reserve, but it lacks its old mystery now it’s no longer surrounded by notices, saying: ‘Keep Out!’ Barkham has provided a tempting introduction to many little-known stretches of our coastline, with helpful instructions on how to get to them (although they do not include places to stay). He is the right man to salute the preservation of our coast: the National Trust’s miles are the only part we actually have the right to stand on as common land. The rest of the waterline belongs to the Crown Estate. As a true coast-lover, Barkham once proposed to a girlfriend by drawing the invitation in the sand and taking her up a dune to read it. She said: ‘Yes’.
target: As an island race, no one in Britain lives more than 70 miles from the sea .
  Enterprise Neptune is the National Trust's campaign to save the coastline .
  Since starting in 1965 the Trust has acquired 742 miles of the British coast .