ON THE SOUTH coast of the United Kingdom, in the county of Devon, there’s a triangular sprawl of land that juts out into the English Channel. At its southern tip lies the wealthy sailing town of Salcombe, where a latte costs as much as it does in Shoreditch, and in peak season you’ll queue down the cobbled street for half an hour to get it. Approximately thirty miles up the coastline, there is one of Devon’s most deprived conurbations, Torquay, which sits at the heart of an area known without irony as ‘the English Riviera’. Halfway between the two is Slapton Sands.

Slapton Sands is not that easy to get to if you don’t have a car – the nearest railway station is Totnes, a three-hour train ride from London, and from there it’s a bus to Kingsbridge and another to the Sands. When you arrive, you’ll find that the beach is actually made of pebbles, but that’s not important right now.