The Daily Telegraph - 16.08.2019

20 ***^ Friday 16 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph

FEATURES

ServeS 4

IngredIentS

850g large tomatoes (leaving

them on the vine)

1 whole head of garlic

2 large red onions, skins left on

Olive oil

100ml white wine

220g pancetta, finely chopped

1 tsp chilli flakes

400g penne or rigatoni

1 large bunch basil

100g Parmesan, grated (plus

extra to serve)

Method

 Preheat the oven to

190C/gas 5.

 Char the tomatoes

(vines still on). This is

best done on a barbecue,

to maximise the smoky

flavour, but you could do

it on a gas hob too. If the

latter, use tongs to hold

each tomato over the

flame to blister and char

the skin.

 Put the tomatoes in a

large roasting tin with

the onions and garlic.

Sprinkle liberally with

salt and drizzle with oil.

Add the wine. Roast in

the oven for at least an

hour, or until the onions

and garlic have softened.

Cool for 10 minutes.

 Meanwhile, fry the

pancetta until golden

and crispy and set aside.

While hot, sprinkle with

the chilli flakes.

 Cook the pasta in

plenty of salted boiling

water until al dente.

Reserve a little of the

cooking water.

 Push the onions and

garlic out of their skins

and remove the vines

from the tomatoes. Pour

everything into a

saucepan along with the

red wine vinegar and

basil. Use a hand blender

to blitz until you have a

smooth sauce. Add the

pancetta and chilli and

set the pan over a low

heat.

 Add the pasta and

reserved cooking water

along with the Parmesan.

Stir well so the pasta is

well coated in sauce.

Serve with extra cheese

and basil.

THE ART OF FRIDAY

NIGHT DINNER

ELEANOR STEAFEL

Y

ou know you’ve

reached peak

decompression on

a summer holiday

when the only

conundrum you

have to ponder is what to eat or

drink next. Routines are tossed

aside, powerless in the face of

long, slow days and indecisive

appetites. A mini magnum and

a carafe of ice cold rosé

constitutes lunch, a plate of

local cheese and good bread is a

perfectly viable dinner, and you

find yourself wondering if the

key to eternal happiness might

indeed be a daily supply of

freshly baked pains aux raisins.

After a few days of this fare, it

becomes difficult to imagine a

morning which begins with a

bowl of muesli or an ordinary

Tuesday night supper. And yet,

there is something about that

first post-holiday meal that I

find oddly grounding.

I returned from a few days

away to find the ramshackle

pots on my roof terrace had

pulled a Little Shop of Horrors

routine while I was gone. The

bronze fennel is the height of a

four year old child, the basil has

gone berserk, and there are a

couple of different varieties of

tomato drooping heavily. After

giving everything a half-

hearted tidy and a good

soaking, I had an urge to cook

with my unexpected haul.

I was craving something low

effort, full of flavour, and with a

kick – something that still said

“holiday” (charring sun-kissed

tomatoes before roasting them

will see to that), but felt fresh

rather than indulgent. This

sweet, spicy sauce was the

result, reminding me of

something my brother had

made in France hours before,

but served in my bowl in my

kitchen, and tasting of home.

There’s nothing better

than a little taste of your

summer holiday in the

comfort of your home

L

iving next to Beachy

Head is like keeping a

loaded shotgun on the

kitchen table. You know

what can happen, if

you’re desperate enough.

The famous sheer white chalk cliff

near my home is 500ft high. The

view from the top is spectacular,

looking out across the English

Channel. The sky is so big and the

horizon so wide that you can see the

earth curve. It is absolutely gorgeous

up here, but watch your step,

because the lush downland grass just

disappears, suddenly. Gulls swoop

and soar through the void. Stumble

and fall over the edge and it will take

about five seconds to get to the rocks

and the waves below. Five, four,

three, two seconds of regret and the

last second of your life.

Thirty or 40 people go over each

year, by accident or design. The

Samaritans have a big sign in the car

park to say that they are: “Always

There, Day Or Night.” Pick up the

phone, it’s better to talk. Those of

us who live in the nearby town of

Eastbourne hear the coastguard

helicopter clattering overhead or

see the lifeboat pushing through the

waves and know they’re looking for

another body. So when I first moved

here 16 years ago, I was wary of the

Head. All that has changed.

Now it has become a place of

wonder for me. A place to wander

and think, breathe deep and

remember. A place to celebrate

the joy of being alive. For that I am

grateful to a pair of friends called Ali

and Mark, who are no longer with

us. They changed my attitude to

Beachy Head and I walk there now to

remember them, with thanks.

Ali Adeney Lawrence was a

beautiful woman, a mother, a

wife, an artist and a campaigner

in Hackney with a strong sense

of community. She was a magpie

who loved to make art from shiny

objects, turning junk into treasure

While the East Sussex cliffs have a dark

reputation, Cole Moreton finds solace in

remembering loved ones who were lost

Turning woe to wonder at Beachy Head

Tonight’s dinner

Pasta with charred tomatoes, basil and pancetta

Memories: Cole

Moreton walks

along the South

Downs at Beachy

Head thinking of

his friends Ali and

Mark, right

with her skill. She came down with

her soulmate Chris and her children

Kirin and Asha when my wife Rachel

and I first moved to the coast in 2003.

We wanted to bring our children up

by the sea, and frankly we needed to

be able to afford a place big enough

to accommodate our recently arrived

triplets, which meant London was out.

Ali came and saw immediately that

Beachy Head was special.

“This is a thin place,” she said,

recalling the old phrase suggesting

somewhere the boundary between

heaven and earth collapses. Ali was

a Christian, it was the sort of thing

she said – and it was just a comment

on a holiday kind of day when we all

played on the beach and the stones

shone in the sun – but it rang true.

Then Ali died.

She didn’t choose it. Cancer took

her in 2007, at the age of 40. The

grace and dignity with which she

faced death was breathtaking, but

when they carried her out of her

home in a wicker coffin we all still

bawled. I took to walking up by

Beachy Head to remember her on days

when the sea sparkled like diamanté,

which she would have loved. And

Ali is part of the inspiration for the

character of Rí, an artist who appears

in the novel I am about to publish

called The Light Keeper.

I’ve been writing it ever since we

moved down here, inspired by her

comment to look for a way to respond

to this stunning landscape. So it seems

only fitting that Rí is an artist who

makes beautiful art from scraps of

silk and bits of junk. At the start of the

book she has bought an old former

lighthouse called Belle Tout, right

on the edge of the drop. This is a real

place, now renovated at great cost by a

couple called David and Barbara Shaw

and offering luxury bed and breakfast,

with a stunning 360-degree view of

the Downs and the sea.

As I began to write, I was also

working on a collection of poems with

my friends Mark Halliday and Martin

Wroe. Mark had one about the Old

Testament character of Sarah, who

laughs bitterly when a stranger says

she will have a baby in her old age. “It

would take a miracle/ for the promise

to swell inside you...”

This must have led to my character

Sarah, a young teacher who has been

told she will never have children.

At the start of the book she has run

away from her husband Jack, while

she waits to find out if their last-ever

shot at IVF has worked. I know from

experience what a terrible wait that

is. But as I tried to write about it nine

years ago, the death of Mark drove me

once again to the Head.

He was 46 years old. A poet,

a teacher in York, a musician, a

husband, a father. I felt happy when

I was with him and also challenged

to write better, be calmer and live

more generously. Mark was an award-

winning performance poet who

could make a classroom of kids howl

with laughter one day and bring an

audience of adults to tears the next,

with his skilful writing about cancer,

the treatment and his love for his wife

Mary and their children.

One poem promised that if there

was another life, he would wait by the

entrance until they came to join him

The Light Keeper by Cole Moreton (RRP

£16.99). Buy now for £14.99 at books.

telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514

Visit samaritans.org, or call 116 123

too. When the news came through

that he had gone on ahead, in 2010, I

didn’t know what to do but walk. Hard

and fast, as if walking could burn off

the rage. Out of the door, up the street

and on to the Downs, as if searching

for something, until I found myself

on the cliff edge again. The thin place.

Somehow, feeling closer to him.

“Are you OK, mate?” The voice came

from nowhere. A stranger appeared at

my side, dressed in a red sweatshirt.

The Beachy Head chaplains are

volunteers who patrol the edge at all

hours, in all weathers. In 2014 I was

the only journalist ever allowed to

join them on patrol, for the Telegraph.

Readers responded with donations

that kept the chaplains going for a long

time, saving hundreds of lives. But all

that was to come on the day Mark died.

“No,” I said. “I’m not OK at all.” And

the chaplain listened to my sorrows

and said kind things. It helped. So I

hope he doesn’t mind that I created

a fictional group in The Light Keeper

called the Guardians, who also patrol

the edge. One of them gets up to no

good. The chaplains are nothing

like that, in real life. They’re good

people. I see them often as I walk up

on the cliffs at Beachy Head, which

is not at all the gloomy place you

may have been led to believe. It is

astonishingly beautiful.

And now, thanks to all the walking

and the passing of the years, it is,

for me, a place to remember Ali and

Mark and be grateful for the gift of

life. So when a chaplain stops me

and asks if I’m OK, mate, I can say:

“Yeah. I really am.”

When the news

came that he’d gone,

I found myself on

the cliff edge again CHRISTOPHER PLEDGER FOR THE TELEGRAPH

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