North Devon Coast - AONB

Excerpt from a double-page spread in the Western Morning News of 23 Nov 2013
"Stunning book is a love letter to the coast"

"Martin Hesp meets a man who turned his childhood love into a career and lifelong passion."

“[The book] is a real treasure trove of discovery for anyone who loves this unique, remote, deadly, beautiful, historic, geologically remarkable littoral [landscape]. The book is about far more than an account of just one single flight up the coast – it is about one professional geographer’s lifelong love of and passion for the area.

There are hundreds more photographs other than those taken on that memorable flight - many from long, gruelling and perhaps perilous days Peter spent kayaking up and down sections of what is sometimes called The Wreckers’ Coast – and there are notes from what he calls his “commonplace” book, better described as a lifelong diary of jottings and observations taken during the explorations . . . many of these observations, anecdotes and other bits and pieces have now found their way into the new book – attached to the relevant cliff-scapes, head-lands, inaccessible bays, strands, coves, rock stacks, sea-borne forests, hanging valleys, shipwrecks and so on that this most jagged of all coasts hides and nurtures.

It is this kind of intensely personal relationship with an area that allows a person to enjoy a spot of topophilia [love of landscape]. We who exist outside that hidden world should be glad of this, because people like Peter Keene and the books they write open up the last truly secret places this overcrowded island of ours has to offer.”

“What a splendid publication - a real treat. I think that it hits the spot in so many ways. The photographs are stunning; the information is enough for the market aimed at; the personalisation gives a feeling of identity; the easy references to further reading lead one on in an effortless way and the links to literature add a wider perception. It is so refreshing to see physical landscapes viewed in this broad way and I am sure that it will appeal to a wide readership of the "intelligent laymen" who so often fall between the over-simple tabloid-type tourist view and the too detailed almost nerd-type geomorphology with its built-in assumption of background knowledge and its daunting jargon.” (Paul Pickering 2014)