Clive Warner

Adventures
In The Luminiferous Aether

IMAGES

The remains of an underground bunker that I found on my last visit, in 2014.

This is the BOP at the northern end, as seen from the beach. The fence was still a formidable obstacle in 1959 and I soon learned the few places where I could get through and into the Fort area.

The old Hightown Sweet Shop (which later on became the Wool Shop for a while). My parents moved to Hightown when I was 5, and I recall buying a bar of (dark) chocolate. The brand was Oliver Twist. I took this photo in 2014 and was surprised to find the old shop still there, in this decayed state, just opposite the Hightown Hotel.

Fort Crosby, around 1959. Looking North-West along the main street. This is one of the main locations in my novel When Things Go Bang.
The left side, the buildings are embedded in the dunes, and made of reinforced concrete, pretty impressive. The iron stairs were well rotted and quite dangerous by 1959, which is when I first began exploring it. The view if you were to look immediately backward from this point, is of one of the two BOPs (Battalion Observation Posts) which in fact is also a location in When Things Go Bang. Fort Crosby lay around ten minutes quick walk from Hightown War Memorial, to the top of Thornbeck Avenue and then along a cart track that passes between mine craters, to the main gate. Long since demolished, but remains can still be found including underground bunkers.