Thursday 16 March 2023

A Small Book + Day 10 of the Value Range Experiment

  This small book (115 pages including index and bibliography) about pebbles came from the charity book sale at Westleton last year.

 Words by Christopher Stocks and Illustrations by Angie Lewin.

Christopher Stocks lives by Chesil Beach, the strange 18 mile long shingle spit that stretches along the Dorset coast. Somehow the sea manages to grade the stones and pebbles from pea size to the eastern end where they are the size of a fist.


When asked about why he wanted to write a book about pebbles he always replied "how could I live on Chesil Beach and not want to write about pebbles?"

Angie Lewin lived in Norfolk and walked on the beach everyday picking up any interesting stones she found and using them in her art. Later she moved to Scotland and discovered the range of different stones on the Scottish beaches.


Dice Cup and Feather

Sea Pinks, Island Shore

The Beach, Aldeburgh


Chapter headings include 

Sir Mortimer at War
Picasso's Pebbles
Eminent Victorians
At the Natural History Museum 

and pages about the types of pebbles found on various beaches around our island.
This is what he writes about Shingle Street in Suffolk.........


The Clue is in the name. This isolated little scatter of houses on the south Suffolk coast overlooks a steep shingle beach which is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest, with a thriving population wild sea kale, horned poppies and tree mallows growing beyond the reach of the waves. The beach - mainly composed of flint pebbles - can be thought of as an extension of Orford Ness, the great bank of shingle that blocks the route of the River Alde at Aldeburgh and diverts it ten miles south until it finally escapes into the sea just north of Shingle Street. Accessible only by a single track road, overlooked by Martello towers and haunted by Avocets and Little Owls, it's a place of beautiful desolation.

I've been there a few times and it really is a strange place. There are ghosts .........

(info from Wiki)

Several buildings were destroyed during World War II, including the Lifeboat Inn.

After World War II many strange happenings were reported to have taken place at Shingle Street, including a failed German Invasion. Since the civilian population had been evacuated in May 1940, there were no eyewitness reports, although official documents remained classified until questions in the House of Commons led to their early release in 1993. These papers disclosed no German landing. Rumours of a failed invasion on the South and East Coasts were commonplace in September 1940 and helped to boost morale. Author James Hayward has proposed that these rumours, which were widely reported in the American press, were a successful example of black propaganda with an aim of ensuring American co-operation and securing lend lease resources by showing that the United Kingdom was capable of successfully resisting the German Army.

Burned bodies were reported to have washed up on the beach after the sea was covered in oil and set alight. I had a book about the story for a while 'The Bodies on the Beach' by James Hayward who, as mentioned above, decided it had never happened.

Day 10 of the experiment and the main meal was a roast dinner using a chicken thigh. I added roast potatoes and parsnip, the remains of the broccoli, gravy and a couple of the hilariously small Value Range Yorkshire puds that came from Asda (15 for 50p so I wasn't expecting much!)


I cooked a second chicken thigh at the same time to use in sandwiches for a few days.

Cost of things bought so far = £49.12p

Back Tomorrow
Sue

27 comments:

  1. This brought back happy memories of walking along Chesil Beach when we lived in Dorset. The book illustrations are delightful.
    Regarding the VRE - I can understand why you would use frozen yorkies - they take a lot of heat to cook from fresh, and I need to be doing a full roast dinner for the family to justify the oven use. But those are "hilariously small" as you say. Did they taste OK?

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    1. We often use Aunt Bessies Yorkshires when juggling cooking for 12 at Christmas. These value ones were OK - not a lot to them.

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  2. The book sounds most interesting and the illustrations look beautiful. I just looked it up and it's available on Amazon for £10:50! You got a bargain, I think!

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    1. I'll not be keeping this book so will be selling it on to Ziffit now I've read it.

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  3. I am interested to know what you thought of those yorkies. I have tried frozen ones - once - and they were absolutely awful!

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    1. Aunt Bessies Frozen Yorkshire Puds are good, big and light, handy sometimes

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  4. Those illustrations are beautiful, covet-able. F understands why one might feel Ordfordness has ghosts, it does indeed have a ghostly atmosphere. As for Yorkshire puddings - after reading JayCee's comment F suspects she has only ever been offered frozen ones as she has consistently failed to see what the attraction is in having pieces of cardboard on your roast dinner.

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    1. Some frozen ones are OK. If they are like cardboard they are probably in the oven too long, they only need 3 or 4 minutes which is the useful thing about them

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  5. I stayed down on the shingle spit for a week once in the Nature Conservancy hut which was there in the 1970s, I guess it will be long gone now. We dodged the army boats that were still around then. It was very lonely and felt odd with the presene of the military and nobody else. I have shown photos on my blog of me down on the Spit. My boyfriend of the time worked for the Nature Conservancy and we often used to stay in these odd places. I like the look of the book illustrations. It certainly is very stony and shingly on that part of the Suffolk coast.

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    1. Shingle Street is a very odd place - Colin had to go there every two years to check some footbridges so I went with him sometimes - a bit spooky

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  6. Living just a stones throw from our beaches I can understand how pebbles could be fascinating. Our beaches are pebbles and when the kids were yound we always came home with some interesting one's. The only drawback to them is walking down the beach to the sea for a swim with bare feet, lol
    Briony
    x

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    1. Hag stones is what I tend to look for on our beaches in Suffolk - mostly shingle here

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  7. I've never known much about Chesil beach, aside from literary and music references. Thanks for the information here. I understand its attraction better now. But, bought up in North Yorkshire, where beaches were wide expanses of golden fine sand, I've never understood why strips of pebbles are called beaches, but that's me!

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    1. We have very uncomfortable shingle beaches in Suffolk - even worse than rounded pebbles

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  8. We lived in Dorset for a while and chesil beach is a magical place.
    Good tip about aunt Bessie puds.
    Alison in Wales x

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    1. I know I've been to Portland and other places along the coast but missed knowing about Chesil Beach apart from geography at school and long shore drift

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  9. Fascinating book. Rocks and pebbles are lovely to look at when walking the beach. I always come home with an unusual rock when visiting a rocky beach. Our beaches are either very rocky or largely sand with maybe an outcrop of very large rocks that become visible only when the tide is out. Forty nine pounds for groceries in 10 days is impressive. I hope large families are realizing that expenses can be held back while still having good healthy meals.

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    1. £49 has bought nearly everything for the rest of the month too!

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  10. Shingle Street sounds very eerie for sure. So, you have just read a book about pebbles (glorious illustrations by the way), you have a book about posh toast ... I wonder what's next. This is a definite side step away from murder and crime. ;-)

    I wonder if those titchy little Yorkies would make good Toad in the Hole's. Well you could call them Toadlets in the Hole's. Half a little cooked sausage in each one and lots of gravy and mash. I've never had a frozen Yorkshire Pudding, but I should imagine they are a great time and energy saver.

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    1. Mini pork balls in the yorkshires is on my plan!! Frogs in a hole?

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  11. Yes, I’ve visited Shingle Street and it certainly is desolate and isolated, but then so is Orford Ness. The one time I visited Chesil Beach I really didn’t enjoy walking on the pebbles. Your book made me think of the Louvre of the Pebble, aka Kettles Yard in Cambridge. East Head which juts into Chichester harbour from West Wittering beach is a lovely spot to walk around. But because it is composed entirely of sand dune held together by Marram grass it is extremely fragile. I’m going to see Women Talking tonight with book group friends, the film is based on a book which in turn is based on real life events in Bolivia. The menfolk will eat sausage, mash and baked beans once I’ve gone and I’ll make an omelette for one and enjoy a glass of wine watching the film. Cycled 10 miles this afternoon and made a start on cleaning the greenhouse when I got home so hope I stay awake! Sarah in Sussex

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  12. What a charming book about beach pebbles, lovely.

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  13. Lovely illustrations. Your meal looks wonderful, your experiment with value products is going very well.

    God bless.

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  14. I was walking the beach this afternoon looking for agates. I am so very fortunate to live in Yachats on the Oregon coast. We have such a spectacular variety of beaches, wonderful rocky sea stacks and coves, and beautiful unspoiled sandy beaches where you can walk for miles and maybe only see one or two people.

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  15. A day later, I know, but your Yorkshire puddings made me smile. They made me think of bite sized hors d'oeuvres. Next time, just put a little bit of roast beef and a horseradish cream dollop on top. Posh food for 50P.

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    1. Still having to publish anonymously. No idea what the heck is going on. Deb in Wales.

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  16. The illustration in that book are wonderful! You always manage to find the most interesting books at sales!

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