If you turn your back to the sea you are met by a prospect of unimagined despair.

There are no trees.

The country is flat and barren.

A dismal creek runs miles inland--an estuary fed by the River Murgle.

A few battered cottages, a general shop, a couple of low public-houses, and three perky red-brick villas all in a row form the city, or town, or village, or what you will, of Murglebed-on-Sea.