There was that beach — where water spurted from dolphins’ mouths, and fluted lamp-posts were smothered in geraniums, and the brilliance of sunken gardens was doused by the crumpled faces of old-age pensioners.

And all about us, breaking the magpie chatter and overwhelming it, was the measured fading and falling of the waves on another beach far below. I gazed out at a sea that broke in splinters upon black rocks and licked feverishly at a buff half-moon of distant sand. I peered through the chinks in the creaking planks at my feet, and it sprang strangely close. I heard it slap tarred piles starred with barnacles; I saw it swallow bootlace weed and wrack, sport with a shoal of swimmers and a flotilla of little boats that skimmed its face.

And on the buff sand, dwarfed by all that reassuring splendour, mesmerized by the sun, were tiny people and scattered tents — pale blue, lemon, orange, and white. Strewn about the people and the tents were seaweed and pyramids of clothes, sun-umbrellas that looked like bent-stemmed flowers and more tiny people in deckchairs.

Then without warning, the sky clouded over; the sea was flecked with rain. The sand was flecked too, and all the people disappeared: through the flap-mouths of tents, under the jetty, into the sea. Nan and I sheltered with the others beside the kiosk, and soon only forgotten clothes, and children frolicking in the shallows were left on the beach below.

The rain stopped; the sun came out, and Nan said it had been playing fox-in-the-grapes. The people reappeared too, my sandals squeaked in puddles — it was hotter than before.

We sat on the sand that already was dry: my grandmother, with a hat of tight felt flower-buds on her head, and the marcasite elephants pinned to her front; me, in my sun-suit and floppy bonnet. We watched leaping figures run laughing into the waves, beach photographers walking backwards in Panama hats, proudly-strutting lifesavers. There were family parties with thermos flasks and bottles of Woodroofe’s under the jetty; and behind us, rows of changing sheds where other families celebrated the sun over stale newsprint. Next to us lay a stout woman in a bathing suit camouflaged with sand. She yawned languidly, scratched her head; I saw a black powder-puff shimmering with sweat.

I undressed beneath a towel, and ran over a drift of crumbling ivory which soon became wet and firm.

The water was quite warm. I danced in a clasp of seaweed; dug in my toes, and made a storm of clouded brown. I waded out further, and did wee through my bathers — felt the comforting warmness change into stinging blue. And watched a girl swim with a gold watch on her wrist; thought I saw a shark; was frightened by a head in a rubber cap. Then I swallowed a bitter draught of salt. I felt sick; my ears began to hurt. I pushed through the waves; ran out in an aching agony of shivers. Nan waited at the water’s edge, her arms spread out like Jesus — caught me in the towel.