ABSTRACT
For me, now, Boumemouth's pine trees mean sleep. At least, my mother tells me that it is something exuded by those ubiquitous pine trees, edging the broad avenues and lining the chines that lead down to the beaches, that makes visitors yawn till their jaws crack, makes their heads thick, makes them long to sleep early in the evening, and makes them rise late and unrefreshed in the morning. Perhaps she is right. Perhaps the fact that I share this response with others who visit the town should wean me away from my sense that the enervation is psychological or emotional rather than physiological. But, having grown up in Boumemouth, a byword for elderly gentility, I cannot help but think that the lassitude that descends as soon as I get off the train is both residual, the remnant of teenage monotony, and protective, guarding against the insinuations of a town left long ago.
