Sand and The English

Picture a sandy beach anywhere in the world.

It will no doubt be a relaxing scene of softly lapping waves supporting drifting and leisurely bathers, a few less courageous tourists paddling at the edge, rows of neat sun beds shaded under bright and gawdy coloured canopies or authentic coconut palms, beachfront concessions for that chilled soft drink or something a bit more sophisticated and alcoholic. It is a place of Bronzed and beautiful people, stretched out in sun worship or chilled out with a book or magazine.

Then you see the English family, fully clothed, any exposed skin very red raw , undertaking a full scale excavation and civil engineering project to build a replica of Windsor Castle in the sand, complete with small paper Union Jack and Royal Standard Flags that they carefully packed and brought with them.

We have all perpetuated the very English activity of digging in sand wherever we may find it.

Think back to your own childhood days and the presence of a sand-pit or sand box in just about every back garden. Of course, without a plywood or polythene cover this play facility rapidly deteriorated into a very large community litter tray for the local cat population but we were more resilient to infectious and debilitating illness in those days.

Unfortunately the sand pit went through a high tech phase from which it never recovered. This consisted of mainly shell or turtle shaped moulded plastic, with a cat deterrent lid, and clean and sterilised play sand. This combination ruined the engineering capabilities of sand as far as young children were concerned.

The demise of the sandpit is illustrated by a foray onto Google Earth over any UK suburban area. Once the proving ground for sand based architecture, such a satellite study today reveals the very common phenomena of small black circles in back gardens. This contrasts sharply with, say, an equivalent residential area in the warmer parts of the US where there is the bright blue rectangle of an outdoor swimming pool.

These strange circular images are a consequence of the very clever marketing of trampolines as a combined play, leisure and fitness item. I am not sure if they were given away free with a Nintendo Wii or similar given their significant numbers. However, I have never seen one in actual use. Give the youngsters of today some credit in that just jumping up and down or attempting, at great risk of injury or death, a somersault is no way to wile away the hours.

There must however be a very English genetic trait that demands that sand be dug wherever it is found.

I was watching a very interesting TV programme last week about a return to the Stalag Luft prison camp from where the actual Great Escape took place. The Allied internees were of course duty bound to try to break out and much ingenuity and inspired improvisation was applied to that purpose. I hope I am not being disrespectful to either the prisoners or their captors but for some reason the authorities felt it necessary to;
a) locate the camp in a sandy area and
b) spread extra sand over the site to make it easier to spot spoil and waste produced by tunnelling.

Talk about providing subliminal encouragement to the English POW's to dig.

There is a considerable difference across the world in the quality and suitability of beach sand to keep us English happy in the creation of a deep hole, an intricate network of sea-water filled canals and rivulets, or an almost life-size sculpture of the Tower of London complete with a wildly imaginative collection of stout ramparts and fortifications.

The much admired beaches at Anse Lazio in the Seychelles, Ka'anapali in Hawaii, Coronado in California and Cas Aboo in Curacao may have the climate, ambience and sheer beauty elements but frankly, these would all fail the sand elasticity test conducted by filling a small brightly coloured plastic bucket using the  matching spade, tamping it down and then upending the whole contents in search of that perfect sand castle.

Our first proper continental holiday involving flying was to the Greek Island of Kefalonia.

We had read the book and seen the Hollywood movie of Captain Corelli and were enthralled by the dramatic landscape of the island on which the story had unfolded. We were not disappointed and indeed most of our exploration of the island in a small Hyundai Atoz was done with clenched hands on the steering wheel because of the many sheer drops and limited barrier provision below the roads carved out of the steep hillsides.

We had saved a visit to Myrtos Beach until the latter part of out ten day holiday. The beach, one of the most photographed on the planet is a crescent shaped strip at the base of impenetrable cliffs, onto deep, clear and treacherous waters and with a tortuously winding roadway down.

The best viewpoint was from a dusty lay-bay, again with no protection against plummeting over the edge.This only strengthened our resolve to put our feelings of self preservation aside and get down there. I cannot remember the descent which is understandable amongst those who are exposed to extreme trauma in certain situations.

We got to the sweeping beach in late afternoon, the inland sweltering heat tempered by a coastal breeze. In the Corelli movie the beach is the setting for a raucous party, some toplessness of the female kind is shown, (available on Total Film, 1 hour 37 minutes and 20 seconds in).

We were not all interested in re-enacting that particular scene. We were there for a higher purpose.
What better way to celebrate our first overseas holiday than to build something on the best beach we had ever been to outside the UK.

A few seconds later we were hurtling back up the cliff road or as much as that is possible in a compact, under powered and overloaded hire car.

We were a very disappointed and devastated English family.

I was , in my outraged mind, already composing a letter of complaint to the Holiday Tour Company. We had found, on close hot footed investigation that Myrtos Beach was a travesty.

The whole bright white and promising strip was in fact made up of small sun bleached pebbles.