Channel of History

Abstract

We are on the beach at Calais, not far from the place where the cross-Channel ferries dock today. From the luminosity of the sky it seems we are in mid-summer. The sea is its usual sandy-brown, with just the occasional fleck of glassy-green atop the waves. There are not many people around, except perhaps a few shrimp-girls bending provocatively over the sand: those same trim girls that will later excite the painter Joseph Turner once the gates of Europe are reopened.