‘Swanage is where I love making new memories’
‘As a teenager in the late 1970s, my best friend, Karen, and I liked to walk up and down the Swanage promenade. We would hang out in the beach hut her family hired each summer or amid the flashing lights of the arcade. Since then, I’ve gone back to that area of Dorset – the Isle of Purbeck – many times to make more memories: with my own children when they were young, with them and their friends when they were teenagers and, now that they’ve left home, with just my husband, Tim.
My life has changed but Swanage hasn’t much – it’s still full of fish and chip shops and amusement arcades. Yet only a few miles along the coast, the Isle of Purbeck becomes a sandy, hilly, heathy place. And it’s here, around the village of Studland, that I set my book, Swimming Lessons. Like me, the main characters, Ingrid and Flora, love to swim in the sea; although while they’re happy to take a dip whatever the weather, I prefer the sun to be shining and the water to be warm.
Even out of season, the place helps me to think about what I’m writing – its long stretches of sand backed by dunes are always inspiring. Just behind the dunes is an area of swampy woodland and a bird hide that overlooks Littlesea – a freshwater lagoon visited by geese.
Many visitors stay within sight of the car parks, but my favourite walk is a few miles long. It cuts through the village and up beside the playing fields until the road peters out and I’m into the heath. The sandy tracks have been worn into hollows by deer and walkers so that the views, when you suddenly break out into higher ground, are breathtaking. A giant limestone boulder known as
The Agglestone sits in the middle of this landscape. Although it’s possible to climb it, you can simply stand, like I do, and look out over the gorse and heather to the sand and the sea, far below.
If it’s summer and hot, I like to walk back to the water and go straight in for a swim; but beware (or join in!), there is a nudist section of beach. If I’ve had an inspiring day, I might have a drink at The Bankes Arms in the village, and think about the new memories I’ve made.’ Claire’s novel, Swimming Lessons (Fig Tree, £14.99), is out now.