'The Narrow Sea' by Peter Unwin, published by Review (Headline Book Publishing) 2003.

Sub-titled Barrier, Bridge and Gateway to the World; The History of the English Channel, this sometimes surprising and always fascinating history of familiar waters evokes a presence at great events from the failed invasion by Caesar in BC 55 up to the D-Day landings and the opening of the Channel Tunnel.

The exact locations had me rushing for my OS maps to find Richborough, the site of main Roman bridgehead in AD44 and also where Hengist & Horsa camped when invited by Vortigern to help repel the Franks and Saxons in 443. Nothing is left out as Unwin later skirts the Belgian coast in search of the Armada of 1588 and relates the Royal Navy's action in the Napoleonic Wars two centuries later.

Robust Hurst Castle, built by Henry VIII and heavily reinforced with granite in the 1850s on the initiative of an ageing and anxious Wellington, fearful of the power of the new steam warships, emerges fresh and explained. The Channel weather which cut short many sea-borne invasions and other ventures threatening both shores held off just enough to allow Operation Dynamo to evacuate Dunkirk and was good enough to only nearly put paid to D-Day.

I found a new copy in Bookthrift for £3.99 and couldn't put it down. The juxtaposition of all that history with our very familiar Channel will never let me take this particular bit of coast for granted again and underlines the respect which we should all have for its history and its dramatic weather.