Seashore Life and Pattern

"The one I particularly loved as a child was Seashore Life and Pattern , by T A Stephenson. It’s a King Penguin . The book is largely made up of the most beautiful illustrations of sea urchins and sea anemones. The one I loved was the cowrie shell. I’m not sure whether they’re lithographs—they probably are. During the war, we’d slip past the submarines to the Scilly Isles, collecting cowrie shells on the beach. I’m looking here at an illustration of a kelp fruit, with an ascidian and a cowrie. It’s just a beautiful picture for me; it speaks of the seaside and shells and seaweed. You can almost smell it off the page. The next one is periwinkles on seaweed, with gorgeous colours. It’s not even a guide. I think the author just loved seaweed and sea urchins—all of sea life—and did pictures of them. It’s not even an information book; it’s about a passion. The author was more of a designer than a biologist. It’s an arty book, really. It was published in 1944; I must’ve had it around all my life. My father had all the Penguins in a library at home. I could just go and take them off the shelf. I was always taking this one out to peruse, and I still love it. It’s beautiful."