Landscape can be totemic. The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and Table Mountain have all come to symbolise the spirit of their nations. The UK is blessed with several features that, to the romantically inclined observer, seem to reflect back something about ourselves, our history and character. We have the Giant’s Causeway, the Great Glen and Cadair Idris, but few places loom as large in our collective consciousness as the White Cliffs of Dover. The brilliant white chalk has served for generations as a canvas on which we project our national story.
When I was a child on a wave-tossed ferry reeking of diesel, the cliffs meant home and release from the tyranny of seasickness. Before the age of aircraft, huge numbers of travellers arriving in