This is my little dog Lupin at the Shingle Street shell line yesterday evening. Shingle Street is a beautiful, desolate, eerie, otherworldly beach on the Suffolk coast.
The shell line was started in 2005 by two Dutch women who were childhood friends. They had both been diagnosed with breast cancer. After their treatments concluded, they went to stay at Shingle Street to breathe and recuperate. One day they started making the line out of white whelk shells, maybe as a form of therapy, maybe also as an act of hope.
They agreed to re-meet at the beach every six months to mend the line and tidy it up, and every time they went they found that people had looked after it and added to it. The line is still there, much longer now, and people still carefully place shells along it.
It is very moving to see it. However wild the weather, however strong the gales, the little line endures. Here’s a wonderful short film about it. Have a lovely Sunday!
I can’t see the film?
Oh my...thank you so much for sharing this. what a wonderful thing. Love these women and hearing their powerful story. Love and friendship...it's everything.