Long life: Watching the opera Peter Grimes on the beach was cold and uncomfortable — just as it should be

The Martello Towers — that chain of 103 little fortresses built in the early 1800s along the south and east costs of England to repel a feared Napoleonic invasion — were condemned by William Cobbett at the time as a huge waste of public money; and so they turned out to be, for the British victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo ensured that Napoleon would never invade. And in fact, during the 200 years of their existence, no gun has ever been fired from any of them, with the one exception of the Martello Tower at Aldeburgh in Suffolk, the northernmost of them all, which was used by anti-aircraft gunners during the second world war.

Before that it had belonged to my wife’s aunt, the late Audrey Debenham, who bought it, derelict, in 1936 and painstakingly restored it, only to have it requisitioned by the army four years later. It had become derelict again by 1971 when it was acquired by the Landmark Trust, which restored it once more and adapted it for holiday lets.