The fisherman was striding in a military fashion in unfashionable rubber Wellington boots along the pebbled ridge of the shoreline by the Old Fort. He was glaring in my direction, having been disturbed from the task in his hands. War trauma hanging like a dark cloud over his head.

Wandering with a freshly brewed flat white down to the waterfront for a hit of early morning solitude, I was greeted with an ‘Internationale’ scene from Mortimer & Whitehouse’s ‘Gone Fishing’. Anglers from across the global diaspora, lined up in a synchronised casting exercise, all looking to land a fishy breakfast treat.

While fishing was no spectator sport, having stopped short of the lapping water’s edge, I began to observe the fishermen camped in their regimented spheres of solo activity. My presence, an immediate intrusion of assumed space and occupation, on this frontline of a battle for passage and fishing rights access to the English Channel. 

And peering back into the eyes of the rattled fisherman, beard black as Blackbeard’s, witnessing a mercenary darkness of piracy and plunder lurking deeper, so I mentally doffed my hat and began trekking back over the pebbled beach towards the battlements of the Old Fort.