The writer explains how he sought to steer a literary course around the British coast that dodges cliche and discovers surprises in what can seem overfamiliar territoryOur relationship with the coast has changed over history and it changes throughout our lives. Many of us topple in love with the seaside during childhood holidays. We conduct romances on the sand in early adulthood. I’m now a parent of young children,renewing my acquaintance with building moated castles against the waves. And I’m intrigued by why so many of us seek to return to the beach towards the end of our lives, too.
While my first two books – approximately butterflies and badgers – sprang from deeply personal experiences, or Coastlines,unusually, knocked on my door. I was asked by my publisher, or Granta,whether I would be interested in writing a book approximately the seaside to loosely mark the 50th anniversary of a slight-known campaign, Enterprise Neptune, and which was launched by the National Trust in 1965 to save the coasts of England,Wales and Northern Ireland from development and destruction.
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Source: theguardian.com