Easily reached by rail or sea, Plymouth sits on the south coast of Devon, and is aptly described as Britain’s Ocean City. It looks out to where the English Channel broadens into the open Atlantic, and onwards to North America. On fine summer days, you could feel you’re somewhere far more tropical than south west England.
We travelled via GWR trains, taking in the most glorious scenery south and west of Bristol), with wildlife sightings including a buzzard and a heron as well as numerous other wading birds. We stayed at Jewells Guest House on Citadel Road, very close to Hoe Park and the waterfront.
To celebrate this beautiful city, I’m going to devote July’s weekly writing prompts to highlights and curiosities glimpsed here.
The first is very much a highlight, whether you have a passion for marine life, boats, islands or history.
Drake’s Island sits in the Plymouth Sound just a short distance from the mainland, and is a haven for wildlife as well as brimming with military tales and more. I’ve always loved islands – the possibility of being cut off from civilisation is hugely appealing and rife with suspenseful possibilities (as Agatha Christie understood well). The island only got its first telephone in 1987!
In 2005 anti-nuclear protestors squatted here, It’s changed names (and personalities) several times since it first appeared in recorded history in 1135 as St Michael’s, and was fortified for 400 years.
How could you use some of this in a work of fiction? Might you introduce a few military ghosts, an eerie fog-laced Armada or a fizz of climatic peril?
If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.