The Essay: The Meaning of Beaches 

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The Essay: The Meaning of Beaches: Dover Beach

Dover Beach

The Meaning of Beaches

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Professor Fiona Stafford explores Dover beach, an emblem of Englishness for millennia.

Professor Fiona Stafford explores Dover beach, World War II and Brexit symbol, and an emblem of Englishness for millennia.

A further series of essays by Fiona Stafford, Professor of Literature at Somerville College Oxford, following her much-praised The Meaning of Trees and The Meaning of Flowers, Fiona explores the symbolism, importance, topicality and surprises of five British beaches, all of which are unique and quintessentially British in very different ways. Fiona deconstructs what we thought we knew of these five beaches, with the multiple surprises and eloquent wordsmithery which has captured so much attention for her previous five series of essays. 

Dover beach symbolises Brexit, war, resistance, fortitude, commerce, smuggling, desperation and racism. A beach steeped in British history and meaning, yet Calais is visible across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel, attracting centuries of channel swimmers, with ferries and cargo ships bustling in and out by the white cliffs. Dover beach is shingle with the medieval Dover Castle overlooking it. It's now a popular spot with tourists with a promenade, deckchairs and kiosks but it's not your average tourist who comes to Dover beach. It receives a much higher percentage of Brexit voters, Churchill devotees and fossil-hunters than an average British beach. Its former incarnations as hotbeds of smuggling, of goods, contraband and people have echoes of the modern realities facing this beach which is at the forefront of the UK's future. It is the inspiration for one of the UK's favourite poems, "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold, a really pertinent poem for Britain today.

Producer - Turan Ali 
A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 3

The Essay: The Meaning of Beaches

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Fiona Stafford's portraits of five iconic British beaches.

Fiona Stafford, professor of literature at Somerville College, Oxford, with portraits of five iconic British beaches.

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