Back in 1992 I had the briefest of encounters with Derek Jarman. And I like to think that it was one of the more eccentric encounters he had at his shingle-home, Prospect Cottage.

Seriously LOADS of (though I say it myself) gorgeous photos on the Substack version ...

There was some stiff competition. Just a couple of weekends before I arrived the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence had been performing a ritual - fully robed up in tunic, veil, scapular, cincture, and wimple - much to the shock of the more conservative visitors to the Dungeness Bird Observatory. I was lucky enough to film them rollerskating through the streets of London at Pride, a few years later.

So how was little old me able to compete with the Sisters? At night I was walking over the strange landscape of shingle, and during the days I was knocking on doors, asking whether people had seen any hedgehogs!! The reason being that in the 1950s a paper had been published suggesting that black headed gulls were losing eggs to hedgehogs - and I had been investigating this phenomenon in Orkney.

Reality was that Dungeness had, and still has, very few hedgehogs. Lots of people remembered one that had been seen squashed on the road, but that was it. And Derek Jarman just looked slightly bemused, though remaining charming, as we chatted at the front door of Prospect. No, he had not seen any hedgehogs!

Very late to the party, I only read Modern Nature, his diaries, largely based on his time developing the magical garden, recently. It is a superb book that I really did not want to end - but I knew it had to, when I met Derek he was already very poorly with HIV.

I was also getting excited - would I have made it as an anecdote into this amazing book? I deliberately did not check - and just let the days, weeks, months and years unwind with his meandering lyrical insights into nature, art, politics, and health.

Four pages from the end, diary entry Tuesday 7th August, 1990, reads:

“Full dusty moon glimmers over the sea, climbs over the house. A midnight hedgehog rustles through the flower bed. I switch the light on in the kitchen and the spiders scatter. Over beyond the Long Pits bush fires flare. A house burns down in Lydd.”

That was my 24th birthday! Shame he had not remembered that when I called! And my visit came too late for this book … I wonder whether he maintained his diaries? Would be lovely to know whether my visit made it onto those pages.

Here are some of the photos I took from my visit to his old home. It really is a place of pilgrimage for many. The garden and house have been maintained by Creative Folkestone, and I met the boss of the charity as he was locking up - Alastair Upton. I am so thrilled that people care enough about this place to invest the time and energy in keeping Derek’s spirit somewhat present.

Even without the cottage and garden, I would still be drawn to this unusual spit of land. The looming, and now decommissioned, nuclear power station is impossible to ignore and shingle landscape is peppered with other relics from different industries.

Dungeness has become rather sought-after - and at the bird observatory there were mutterings about the insanity of people paying £250,000 for what is essentially a wooden beach hut with very tight planning restrictions. So, many of what used to be fisherfolk homes are now second homes and Airbnb lets … a precarious place to choose to live. When the nuclear power station was being planned the locals pointed out that it was a bad idea. They were dismissed …

The observation that people who know this place made was that the shingle on which the power station would be built is fluid … the tides keep moving it around the coast.

They built it anyway - and to this day, still have a fleet of lorries collecting the shingle from around the coast, and bringing it back up to protect the power station. At least things have improved - for much of that time, the power station had to BUY the shingle back from the landowner on whose coast it landed!! Now they have bought it and are just repositioning it until such time as the site is cleared (maybe another 100 years!!)

My visit was for just one night - dormitory accommodation for £20 makes it very much more affordable than the Airbnbs, and you are supporting the research that helps us understand how best to conserve the natural world. Lovely, eccentric, dedicated people - I really enjoyed their company and their capacity to answer my very basic questions. I know a bit about birds, but just scraps compared to this lot! So I joined them sea-watching … this time of year Dungeness is an amazing place to watch returning migrants as they swing up the English Channel before heading up and out to the north.

The excitement was for Pomerine Skuas, I did not see them. But I did see things I had not seen before - Black Terns and Sandwich Terns - and others I had but would not have noticed - the Whimbrel, Bar-tail Godwits, Arctic Skuas, lots of Great Crested Grebes, and loads of porpoises! Okay, I would have noticed the last two - but still - a great thrill.

As I walked back to the observatory I was observed by some very relaxed foxes! And also met flocks of gorgeous Small Copper Butterflies. Go on - I know you want to see the photos ... they are here!

All it takes is for me to say - go and visit! Say hello to Prospect Cottage (read Modern Nature!) - and go and look at the sea - a beautiful meditation.