This week Helen's out and about around the Dungeness peninsular in Kent.

She's being guided more by her ears than her eyes. It's apparently a peaceful, quiet area of rolling marshland and shingle beaches. But if you just stop and listen, it's amazing what you can hear.

Helen begins her visit sitting outside Prospect Cottage - Derek Jarman's inspirational and inspiring garden right at the end of the promontory. But even here, the air is full of noises - from the gentle hum of the power station across the water to the pebbles under her feet.

A bit further north, Owen Leyshon from the Romney Marsh Countryside Project is listening out for one of the characters of the area - the Marsh or Laughing Frog. Its Latin name Rana ridibunda really does translate as "laughing frog". Originally from Hungary, just 12 animals were introduced to a garden pond near Stone in Oxney in 1932.

This species then spread to all the corners of the Marsh where its characteristic croaking laugh frequently disturbs the sleep of many Marsh residents. The Marsh Frog is the largest European frog - a bit like the common frog but greener and its head is more pointed.

Romney Marsh Countryside Project

Then it's back to school for Helen - Brockhill Park School at Hythe where the pupils have been taking part in "listening" projects. Sound artist Robert Jarvis worked with the children on a project called Europhonix - the launch project for Creative Partnerships Kent. They work to give young people in disadvantaged areas throughout England the opportunity to develop their potential, their ambition, their creativity and imagination.

Together they created and recorded a series of atmospheric compositions which were played to an invited audience as they travelled between Calais and Folkestone on the Eurotunnel train. The project changed the way the children listen to the sounds around them, challenged their perceptions about music and sound in general and helped them with other classroom skills such as concentrating and teamwork. Robert is now enjoying continuing sound projects at the school.

Robert Jarvis

Brockhill Park School

Creative Partnerships

At Denge, Helen discovers some giant "listening ears"- huge concrete concave structures facing the southern coast. Local historian Richard Scarth explains they're actually acoustic mirrors, made to catch the sound of approaching aircraft, and were a primitive early warning system between the wars but quickly rendered obsolete by radar. Trained listeners huddled in bunkers at the mirrors' feet, using a kind of stethoscope to pin-point distant noises from the sky.

They're now scheduled ancient monuments. A combination of extraction and erosion of the gravel beds of Dungeness have threatened their stability, but Dr Andy Brown of English Heritage tells Helen that they're now repaired and will soon be a feature of the local nature reserve.

English Heritage

The listening ears of Denge may be defunct, but just along the coast, Danish artist Lise Autogena is planning to build a 21st century version - two, in fact. In a project, which intertwines the remarkable origins of the historic mirrors with their presence today as poetic metaphors for cross-Channel relations, she plans to build two new acoustic mirrors.

One mirror will be placed on the cliffs above Folkestone, the other will be placed in Sangatte, on the coast of France, 25 miles across the Channel. Using the latest communications technology, visitors to the new mirrors will not only be able to listen to the sky - they will be able to talk across the sea to those standing on a listening platform in front of the other mirror on the other side of the Channel.

Lise Autogena


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