London Letter: It’s a far, far cry from the wild South Coast

In the days of old Africa, my grandparents bought a cottage at Southport on the South Coast.

It was only one of a handful of cottages on the ocean side of the railway line that slices down the South Coast like surgical scar, so it was a prime spot. They got it for a song as this was long before the days of beach development – in fact there was only one other beach cottage there, as well as a basic shop just above the surfing beach. It was magnificent; overlooking the sea and a mere 100 yards from the tidal pool.

Although we lived in Mozambique, every couple of years we would spend a lengthy holiday with my grandfolks and aunt. My sisters and I would roam the rock pools at spring low that teemed with fish, squid and even baby octopus. The rocks were thickly carpeted with mussels and oysters and divers would return with sacks of foot-long crayfish, caught just metres from the beach.

Once I found a 2kg Blacktail swimming in a tiny rock pool and, thinking this was normal, scooped it up in my net and ran off. The fisherman who had hooked the Blacktail and was just keeping it fresh wasn’t amused as he gave chase. I was suitably apologetic, but the point was there was such an abundance of marine life that a large fish in a small pool didn’t seem unusual to me.

It couldn’t last, of course. Developers moved in and no longer were there only two beach cottages. The village population quadrupled, the rocks were scraped bare, the crays dived out, and today, the pools are barren except for mudhoppers.

Despite that, I have always loved the South Coast, even though it is far less pretty than the North Coast and sprawling developments have done their best to ruin it. But to me it was always the place of wild surfing without the Durban hordes, the sardine run, and surf fishing on windswept beaches where I never learnt to master the Penn reel.

The family cottage had a panoramic vista of the sea and my aunt always had a pair of binoculars nearby where she would watch dolphins and whales cavorting behind the backline. It was inexpressibly soothing to sit on the verandah and gaze at the passing marine parade.

My aunt died earlier this year, leaving a void we still feel. While my sisters and I were clearing out 95-years of living in that magnificent, albeit now somewhat rickety cottage, one of them passed me the old pair of binoculars and asked if I wanted them. I could picture clearly my Aunt scanning the horizon as if it were yesterday.

The strap was rusted and the green paint rough from sea salt, but I snapped them up. That, and a painting of a hardy old Cornish fisherman in foul weather gear, were the two mementos of her that I really wanted.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to use the binoculars for in cramped England so plonked them on my desk. I work largely from home now and have moved my desk so I can watch the fish swimming in our pond and to add variety in a tiny garden, placed a couple of bird feeders nearby. I was watching a flock of Blue Tits pecking at the feeder and almost instinctively, grabbed my Aunt’s old binoculars. The tiny Tits loomed large, tweeting furiously at one another, and a whole new world opened up to me.

I am no twitcher – apart from Robins, Starlings and Magpies, I have no idea what I am looking at. To me they are just things of beauty, and in this glorious summer we are having, they are out in their scores.

In fact, I have to force myself to work now instead of gazing at feathered creatures I had no idea existed that put on a show right in front of me.

Of course, for my old Aunt’s binoculars, checking out little brown jobs in a manicured English garden is a far, far cry from whale watching on the wild South Coast.