Ronald Blythe becomes part of the wildlife at a birthday beach-party

AFTER a little service for St Barna­bas, a favourite of mine, we are off to the birthday party at Suffolk’s ultima Thule, Shingle Street. It is where countless stones breed count­less flowers, and the North Sea, when it is in a good mood, becomes an amethyst wall of water.

Everyone we all know is present. The rain has been specially turned off for our benefit. The sky matches the ocean. The Martello tower frowns in the distance. The guests shape their bottoms into the shingle, or sit, good as gold, at round tables. There are cries of joy as people who have not seen each other for at least a month embrace. Never such hap­piness, never such thankfulness.

And the weather — who could have imagined it? Accompanying our cries there is the coastal din of sea­birds, warm wind, and that low hubbub which marks the shore. Old ladies come up and say: “I’m Diana,” and I say, “Of course!” Leftover Jubilee flags whip from the coast­guard houses, and the entire scene is a Dufy watercolour.

The only comparable geography to Shingle Street is Dungeness, and Chesil Beach, in Dorset. Ceosol, cisel, gravel, shingle. But our Shingle Street is by far the ciselest. It de­scends to the water’s edge in ranges of flint mountains that are gemmed with — if you are lucky — amber.

Today, forests of valerian, white and purple, have to be negotiated before our feet sink into a token strip of sand. This is where we East Anglians expected Napoleon and Hitler to arrive. So, in 1808, we took Captain Ford’s advice, and built more than 100 Martello towers, from Norfolk to Kent — and, in 1938, no end of pillboxes. But no one came.

Although the towers were 33 feet high and eight feet thick, the North Sea washed seven of them away com­pletely. I feel it looking at us, frail children of dust, as we pass the birthday wine. It sees us as no more than part of the wildlife. It hisses through the countless stones, rub­bing them into spheres and ovoids to the tune of Benjamin Britten’s sea music from Peter Grimes, and fondles our toes. Oh, frail children of men. But the bright June day, and the 60 close friends — who could better it?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am cutting the grass. It stands tall, and has quite forgotten that it is a lawn. Birds sing tumultuously. I think back to Barnabas, who had to fill the gap left by Judas, and make the round dozen. Twelve was the perfect number. There were not only 12 apostles, but 12 articles in the Peasants’ Revolt, 12 great feasts in the Early Church, 12 months in the year, 12 patriarchs, but 13 loaves in a baker’s dozen.

Barnabas was a Cyprian Jew. He had the unenviable task of intro­ducing Paul to the eleven. Later on, he fetched Paul from Tarsus, and made arrangements for his first great missionary journey. So, not just a son of consolation, but an outgoing organiser of the infant Church. He was, Luke says, “a good man”. He is, says the hymn, “For ever lost in sight.”

This would not be possible at Shingle Street, where one can see a gull at a mile. Clarity, candid and stony, is the rule there. Thick walls, thick jerseys, but never thick heads. It stands on the edge of the sand­lings, the ten-mile border of marine Suffolk. It provides not so much a feeling of well-being as of an eternal elation. A human footprint doesn’t last a minute.