‘Ukraine Family – Welcome You,’ said the ungrammatical sign at the entrance to the car park of our favourite West Sussex beach.
The rest of the beach was like a bomb had hit. Mounds of shingle had risen up like statues of mythical creatures
We had arrived for a sentimental visit that might be our last here if the house sale goes through. But Climping was unrecognisable.
Oh, there was the sea, milky blue and churning, beneath a deep blue sky. A few windsurfers bobbing. And there was the vast expanse of sand, dotted with beachcombers, the tide way out.
But the rest of it was like a bomb had hit. Vast mounds of shingle had risen up like statues of mythical creatures, boulders were blown back. On closer inspection, the wooden groynes we used to shelter beside to eat our picnics had vanished – every single one of them, all the way down the beach as far as the eye could see.
Those quintessentially English structures, designed to stop sand and shingle drift, were the perfect places to put your towels down and make your camp. Sitting beside them in our sun hats, the dogs snaffling our picnic, we spent many blissful days.
But every sea defence had blown away since we were last there, so that after one bad winter the shape of the beach was gone.
Behind, where the lane met the fields, a local farmer had piled up hardcore in banks, by way of makeshift defences.
In the usually packed picnic and car park areas, now almost deserted, Ukraine flags flew from every battered structure, from the entrance sign to the beach toilets and café. Nothing unusual about that. Home Counties people seem to like the Ukraine flag a great deal more than the Union Flag.
All the official signage was blue and yellow. All the charges, rules, terms and conditions, which there suddenly seemed to be a lot of.
In blue text on a yellow background was the welcome sign, written in two lines, with two words on each line so it read ‘Ukraine Family’ on the first line, and beneath that the words ‘Welcome You’.
I stared at it, then said to the builder boyfriend: ‘I suppose it’s nice they’re trying to make them feel welcome.
‘But wouldn’t you think the council would use better English than that? Ukraine families, we welcome you.’
‘You’re reading it wrong,’ said the builder b, who was laughing at my mistake. ‘It’s the Ukraine family welcoming us.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes, that makes more sense.’ I meant grammatically.
The dogs were in the back and I wanted to unload. But the other stray visitors arriving were driving past the car park and parking on a single yellow line. I didn’t want to get fined. So I read out the charges:
‘Up to one hour £2. Over one hour £10. During high season £11.’ I whistled, and squinted at the small print: ‘Please pay with good grace. What does that mean?’
‘Eleven pounds?’ fumed the builder b. ‘It was £3.50 the last time we were here.’
We drove in. Half the parking area was gone, most of the surface was holes, almost crater-sized, and aside from one or two cars it was empty. The usual snack bar didn’t seem to be open.
We sat there looking at the smashed tarmac, and everything painted blue and yellow that wasn’t smashed to bits, and some things that were smashed to bits, and the BB said: ‘Has Putin actually bombed it?’
He got out to use the loo and a blonde woman bolted out of a building and ran towards him stopping him in his tracks. I heard her shout something, he talked to her for a few seconds, then turned and walked back.
Whatever had gone on, he declared: ‘I’m not paying £11. Come on, we’re going. I’d rather get a parking ticket.’ And he had a look signifying a mood he has where I am not to ask for further details.
We squeezed on to the single yellow line and as we unpacked the boot, a bespectacled chap in a nearby car, electric, with a National Trust sticker, approached us: ‘Excuse me. Could I just ask, did you go in there? It didn’t seem very um…’
‘Welcoming?’ I suggested, quoting the promise on the sign. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought it was actually a bit…’ He paused as though contemplating saying the unsayable… ‘Much?’ I suggested.
After a walk along the beach with the dogs, we decided to eat our picnic in the car because without those groynes there wasn’t anywhere to sit where we wouldn’t be blown sideways all the way to Bognor.
The BB, chewing scotch egg, stared through the windscreen at the milky horizon. He had googled the local council’s policy on his phone: ‘Light touch management. That’s what they’re doing with everything now, isn’t it? Giving up. Just letting the tide wash everything away…’
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