Chesil Beach from the Heights Hotel, Portland

Portland is Dorset noir.

Lines of beach huts brace themselves, facing France.
Tanks, fences, gouged-out quarries, an existence scraped out,
exported, making mansions and palaces for the Others.
Children climb on the stone Olympic rings. Sculptural playthings now, but once, the eyes of the world were on this isle.
Once, American soldiers and sailors trod this stiff soil, and roared off by night to Normandy.



TV cameras have wheeled away now, leaving behind the coach park, the visitor centre.
Lighthouse and teahouse endure.

The people of Portland endure.


(Weymouth and Portland hosted the Olympic sailing events as n 2012).
Portland was a training ground for practising for the D-Day landings in 1944.
The lighthouse is Portland Bill; I'll try to add a pic in extras).