June 2018 found me on holiday on the beautiful Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. This area of England is firmly embedded in the imagination of anyone who has ever read an Enid Blyton novel. An area rife with friendly farmers, well spoken children with their dog, smugglers coves, slumbering villages and ruined castles.

The central point of the holiday was the sleepy coastal town of Swanage – frozen in time in a hauntalogical 1940s that never happened. A war free time where children had adventures, people were polite and unintentional racism and classism was endemic .

Steam and diesel trains still provide local rail services, meanwhile on the beach middle aged men wear string vests and sport handkerchieves on their balding pates while struggling to erect rented wooden deck chairs.

Near to the town the cliffs host the spectacular Durlston Country Park and its castle, a once stately restaurant belonging to the wealthy local chap John Mowlem (1788-1868). Education being the key to progress and betterment, Mowlem decorated the grounds with educational monuments and attractions to thrill and excite the patrons of the new industry of tourism.

The biggest attraction there though was the Tilly Whim caves. A network of coastal gullies and chasms created when the area was a quarry which provided access to the lower cliff bases. Sadly, in 1976, following the invention of Health and Safety and the Flixborough disaster, the caves were closed to the public but you can still have a tantalising glimpse of potential broken limbs and crushed bodies should you peer over the wall.