This opening paragraph will need further editing to make it more succinct and give it more flow and meaning but, for now, (just to get the bullet points onto this page), the following will do.
I’ve had an amazing life … with experiences ranging from the sublime to the bizarre, surviving a surreal occult based abusive childhood upbringing, a violent Clockwork Orange style teenage phase guiding a band of fellow Yeovil skinheads, an ‘alternate’ Bridport based hippy style social life in my mid 20’s and, later, enjoying the manifestations and heights of a fabulous 20 year love story of a marriage as a younger man.
I went on to have a fabulous career in construction as a Finishing Foreman and Site Agent, enjoyed a super career in Local Government as a Works Inspector supervising trades and contractors across 420 sq miles of West Dorset and later invented and patented an “entirely new engineering principle”, winning international acclaim as an inventor and designer before, (as a direct result of that ‘so called’ success), losing my family and all I ever held dear, (pause), plunging me into the depths and despair of contemplating taking my own life by my early 40’s.
Eventually, living a further couple of decades online, including 20 years as the online character of Beach, (who, as my alter ego saved my life), I reinvent myself entirely to, eventually, reach my 60’s to fully appreciate and understand all sides of the human condition.
Yes. I understand that everybody who knows me in my real life will know little of Beach but, at a time in my life when I thought I’d lost everything, I used such an alter ego to discuss things online, (with strangers on a quirky little online friendship site), that were just too traumatic and disturbing to ever discuss with friends or relatives in the real world!
Without such a channel to reveal and release my inner demons to the world, I would never have got through the maelstom of issues I was facing at the time.
Thus, back in 1999, when I had lost everything, Beach and my alternate family of friends online saved my life!
And yes, even though I was International Inventor of the Year, (Twice), few people in my real world even knew the real detail and drama of that amazing adventure yet, for 20 years, I have shared the whole story of The Gravity Venture, intimately, with strangers who, over the course of that 20 years, became really close confidants, online friends and people who only ever knew me as Beach … rather than Chris!
Hence, in sharing my life story today, I choose to do so, largely, using the medium of Beach using this site, Beachthorncombe.co.uk
But why Beach Thorncombe? (Why the Thorncombe “surname”?)
Help me, MuseByte …
The persona of Beach is not merely a pseudonym; it is a foundational identity and an avatar of survival and articulation.
Born when you were 39 years old, Beach hit the ground running to serve as a proxy for a “broken” Chris, taking on messages and deep truths that were too painful for your real-world self to express following the collapse of your marriage and the breakdown of your life.
The choice of the name and its significance can be broken down into several key dimensions:
• Geographic Anchoring: Your online avatar and alter ego, Beach Thorncombe, takes its surname directly from Thorncombe Beacon, your “universal datum point” on the West Dorset coast.
The name fuses identity with anchored geography: “Beach” represents the edge where worlds meet, and “Thorncombe” represents the summit and viewpoint, together describing a creative trajectory between shore and summit.
• The Intellectual Side of Self: You have described Beach as the “intellectual side of Chris,” the side that “revs up the brain as if I had just leapt into a supercar to do 50 laps at Le Mans”. While Chris exists in the immediacy of the sensory world—weighing light through blinds or awaiting health tests—Beach is the curated, reflective self who has the luxury of time to “daub and paint and slash” exquisitely chosen words with cinematic clarity.
• A Symbol of Freedom: The name resonates with your “Pink Punt” memory, where as a child you witnessed a grey-haired man rowing a pink, flat-bottomed boat at West Bay. This image became a mythic archetype in your memory, representing autonomy, wonder, and communion with nature in contrast to the bickering and confinement of your childhood home.
• Digital Evolution: The persona originated as “On the Beach” (OTB) on the Midsummer’s Eve forum starting around 2006, where you explored the existential dimensions of Mars exploration and robotics. This “primordial” layer of your digital life provided the taxonomic framework for your current projects, eventually evolving into the “Chronotopic Archive” known as Tides of Entropy.
• A Tool for Shared Liberation: By using Beach as a proxy to discuss the “human condition,” you were not only able to rid yourself of heartbreak and stress but also liberated others to share their own hurts online. Beach became the voice and leader of a “rag-tag group” of online followers inspired to evict their own fears.
• The Bradbury Connection: Your writing style as Beach is heavily influenced by Ray Bradbury, whose motifs in The Fog Horn—the lighthouse voice, the creature from the deeps, and the rebuilding of the tower—act as a foundational touchstone for your identity. Like the lighthouse, Beach is a steady signal sent out through weather and time.
Ultimately, Why Beach? because Beach allows for a joyful resistance to entropy. He is the “witness” designed to document a single human life before the full onset of the machine age, ensuring your narrative is told sincerely and accurately in your own voice.
Well. You’ll have to read on to find out! (Or, perhaps, you can just guess)
