Fallon’s Angler editor Garrett Fallon introduces ‘Desert Tench: In the depths of Dungeness’ — a blending of film, poetry and prose.

Dungeness

I see the shingle stretching, like a memory, grey and thin, and tired at the edges,
And wonder at the changes it has seen,
Where the wind and sea have met here,
And pushed and pulled until it rose like Atlantis.

And what of the people who talked to the birds?
Where the sky falls to the floor.
Their voices shuffled on the breeze until only echoes remain.
Time does not forget them, their footsteps still found in moments.

I see the shingle stretching, catching flickering light as it beckons moths,
Like travellers, called as many before and still to its bosom,
Where the salt splits the air and sits in dew drops,
For the sun to burn when the grey is tired.

And what of the things that live here, on the edge, under a shadow?
Do they speak or sit in happy silence?
While countless pebbles shift and move,
To cover up the flaws in this world.

I see the shingle stretching, changing still,
And wonder at the new worlds it will see.
The things that man has made here, testing will,
This place that swallows dreams, that rise and fall like empires.

And what of the people who look out to sea?
Where the waves wash their sins away.
They echo here, mirrored in the still behind,
Where only the gulls can hear me now.

A cornerstone of Fallon’s Angler magazine is a theme, chosen to add some meat to the bones so each edition stands out as separate but cut from the same cloth.

In many ways, editing the magazine feels more like curating an exhibition and is a very collaborative experience with a lot of input from me (the editor), Kevin (the deputy editor), and Nick (the contributing picture editor), as well as our writers. 

Occasionally, we embellish an edition with a film courtesy of Nick, but which again can be surprisingly collaborative. These allow us to push our theme beyond the pages and ask questions about the relationship between the written and the spoken word, between writing and film. The two mediums don’t have to be at odds with each other.

As Nick says: “Angling writing and its modern counterpart, angling films, often find themselves in safe water, a pedestrian journey filled with cliché and repetitiveness. It’s a challenge that the Fallon’s Angler editorial team — Garrett, Kevin and I — try to be aware of and do our best to avoid. Our contributors are aware of this too, often toing and froing between edits, coercing each final draft into shape so that the story is told in a new light.”

I believe we’ve cultivated an approach to magazine production, as well as to film production, that goes beyond the mainstream into more thoughtful spaces, and in our most recent edition, I think we pushed this into some place new when contributor Dan Rudgley wrote a deeply evocative and personal account of fishing in Dungeness. 

It was a rewarding experience for the editorial team and the writer because of the collaborative nature of attaining the final draft. But the trip had been filmed, and when Nick presented the first cut, Kevin was quick to realise that the images told the story better than a simple narration over the top. Nick had captured the starkness and depth of the Dungeness landscape that echoed so beautifully in the heartfelt words of the angler’s writing. Yet we still needed something that allowed the film to sit alongside the magazine, not just a simple replication of the written piece, but something extra, complimentary, separate but cut from the same cloth.

I have been to Dungeness many times and know that stretch of coastline well, and Dan’s words inspired me to write the first poem I’ve written in many years. As the grandson of a poet, I was nervous putting it out there. But we all felt it added something. Yet how it happened was fulfilling. We were so immersed in Dan’s writing, Nick’s filming, and the beauty of the place that the words came easily, after a good night’s sleep, before even breakfast, as the birds in the garden were waking to the world.

The end result is something different, something else, and not your typical angling film. I think it stands out as a collaborative example of how the arts can intertwine. As somebody who has worked in the design and publishing industry for nearly 35 years, I find it especially rewarding that there are still surprises in my creative life. 

Desert Tench is available to watch via the Fallon’s Angler YouTube channel: