Time drills holes in stones
Porlock Bay 1891 - Charles Napier Hemy
Just completed the first interview for a film about coastal change in Somerset with Philip Ashford, a wonderful maritime historian. Crunching across the vast shingle bank at Porlock he took us back two hundred years and explained how the road and several cottages had been swept away in winter storms. As placid as the bay looked, I began to visualise the corrosive power of the sea. Further on we came to the famous Porlock breach where an overnight storm had punched a vast hole through a twenty foot high shingle bank and flooded the marshland behind it. Later that afternoon the cameraman Alex Butter and I interviewed one of the local fishermen. Had he noticed any changes in his time as a fisherman? ’Well I’ve been fishing out in Porlock Bay for forty years, but in the last ten years I’ve noticed the sea has become a lot more violent and unpredictable’. You can line up all the climate change deniers that you like, but one person with local knowledge will skewer their complacency.
Tags: Climate Change, Philip Ashford, Porlock Bay