Dungeness 2

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I couldn't quite believe it when I stumbled across the picture on the internet last night. 'Lighthouse For sale'. And there it was, the Old Lighthouse of Dungeness, for sale for the meagre price of £150,000. Dammit, if it hadn't been snapped up, and 'this property is no longer available' printed across its peak.

This is the same lighthouse I climbed on Sunday with B. We stood in the gale force winds at the very top, looking out over the bleak landscape and mused with him about how it would be to own such a magnificent beast of a place.

"You could throw some great parties here" he considered.

The only kind of parties I could imagine B throwing were ones he could immediately depart from, even if he were the owner of such a cool pad. No, he would be slinking off as the champagne corks popped, up to the very top, alone, watching out to sea or maybe spotting passing gulls in the darkness with his binoculars, pointing out star constellations.



I've wanted to be a lighthouse keeper ever since I can remember. Preferably somewhere off the coast of Scotland or Wales, wild and rugged, only reachable by a wobbly, dangerous rope bridge. I imagined the copious amounts of tea I would drink, alone and startled awake through to dawn. I imagined sailors I would save and the shipwrecks I would salvage from days gone by, pieces washed up on the shore. I imagined the joy of absolute solitude, and the beam of light that I would direct all around the stretch of coast, keeping all sea farers safe for another night.

Another fantasy went like this. One night whilst rambling out on my own, I would stumble across a lighthouse via the dangerous wobbly rope bridge. I'd pull at the clunky door and find to my surprise and delight that it opened. I'd then climb the tower of steps up to the top and find the Old Lighthouse Keeper sitting there. We'd sit together through the night, and he'd regale me with exciting tales of sea and shore. Occasionally he'd get too drunk (for he like a tipple), and I'd be forced to take over, hence saving numerous sailors from certain death had I not been there.

There is something mad about lighthouses, something deranged. And something so beautiful, I can only compare it to the cracked glacier or the uncrossed desert. Yet it's man made, the last outpost of humanity in an inhuman natural world. The Lighthouse Keeper is the last person to stand between this world and that.

I heard recently that before lighthouses became automatic, they employed three men at a time to work in them. Apparently, at first they were manned only by two men, but in one occasion a Keeper died up there (or was murdered by the other Keeper) and so the other was left to man it alone. Since there was no communication with the outside world for months at a time, he sat, alone, and slowly went insane. So apparently they changed it so that lighthouses had three men at a time, just in case one man dies or loses his mind.

So when B and I found the 'new' working lighthouse at Dungeness at nearly midnight on Saturday evening, that stands only a few hundred metres from the old disused one, we were excited. A beautiful thing. Its beauty is a perfect balance of masculine and feminine, towering upwards in spirals, a curved thing of wonder yet tall and erect, reaching high and proud upwards in the sky. I wanted to break in.

We were both convinced that if we did indeed hop over the fence, pull the door, find that it had been mistakenly left open, that what we would find when we reached the top would be my very own flat, supernaturally transported from Hove through time and space to Dungeness. For there appeared to be a curtain in each of the lighthouse windows that was coloured Brighton Rock pink, and behind that, a wall of duck egg blue, both colours just like I have in my living room. I imagined tiny white polka dots on the curtains and an ageing Keeper in a smoking jacket and pipe up there, listening to Parisien cafe music and doing the Times crossword. He would smile as we stumbled in and offer us Port.

But we didn't break in, instead crossing the heavy shingle to the shoreline, where in the wind and darkness, the waves looked huge and ghostly. They looked as though they were moving backwards rather than towards the shore. Strange and chilling.

sunday service

Sunday, i watched the waves at Cuckmere, looked for fossils in the middle of the rocks. I was reminded of Dungeness, with it's glow in the dark country, it's power station blues. Those pink grey vistas kill me, they eat into your skin with their glory, leave you bitterly fed, broken and alive. And that is how it should be. Beauty like the corpse of an angel.

The sky line that blends from all those blackened sea side towns - Brighton, Peacehaven, Newhaven, Seaford, Birling Gap and all along to Eastbourne, flickers with death. The colours are all too dense, heavy, bright. I love that stretch of coast, and the pinnacle is Beachy Head, rising like a white cut demon from the sea. The straightest cliff before Dover, and you don't have to look too hard to find the tiny crosses in the grass, dessicated flowers for those who fell, jumped, and were pushed, over the edge.

We got our boots wet, and heaved stoutly with cold. The light was fading, but not too fast, and i could still see the houses on the cliff edge. We talked about black and white photos and what you think about when you are eleven. We tried to talk about infinity and the cosmos, but I just got confused, stumbling over my words and feeling silly. So we talked about a funeral instead, and animal rights.

I wonder if beauty can ever come without a price. Or was the price always already there, before beauty was even a twinkle in our eye?

The hills are soft, the river winding. But fences show us where we can and cannot go, these green spots hide the tears and fighting, the nearby country pub is full of fake charm and malice, they built "Tandoori Cottage" on the homes of badgers.

I love charcoal skies, barren beaches. I love walking with someone you like, when you can feel alone but together, together but alone. We were both happy as we greeted the bus to take us home. The moon was rising behind our heads as we sped off up country lanes, and i saw a shooting star. Away from Eastbourne, back to the living town life.

That evening, we ate Thai food and warmed our toes in the half light of L's bedroom. She had an altogether darker glow about her than us, upright in front of the window like a wax chinese doll, wanting Nick Cave, not happy sea side stories. So we all talked about why everyone we knew was fucked up, and it dawned on me that meant I must be too.

I was filled with sea breezes and mulled wine. And I love the people I am with. And this is no country idyll.