After months of touring overseas, Whitecliff, a secluded stone farmhouse on the north side of Swanage Bay, was offered as a retreat for Nash and his wife. Paul recalled the sanctuary it afforded him as he struggled with intermittent poor health, noting in his autobiography: “We are lent a house by the sea. Blessed escape. Enchantment of the Ballard.”

Despite the faltering progress of ‘Unit One’ 1935 proved extremely industrious as Nash once again took refuge in Dorset. His London exhibitions feature many works derived from the Isle of Purbeck and he was commissioned to create the Shell Guide to Dorset. That year he met and befriended the painter, Eileen Agar.

The ‘Dorset Shell Guide’, written and illustrated by Nash is published. It gives vent to Nash’s fascination with nature at its most oppositional and dichotomous. That year, he writes of Dorset having ‘a dream image where things are so often incongruous and slightly frightening in their relation to time or place’.

Nash’s exhibitions in London include many paintings and drawings derived from Dorset; many combine the influence of Surrealism with the natural and archaeological forms of the Jurassic coastline. Although these are personally turbulent years, Nash produces some of his finest work.

Nash is appointed artist to the Air Ministry in March 1940, giving renewed opportunity to pursue his fascination with animal and manned flight. ‘Down in the Channel’, and ‘Raider on the Shore’ (both 1940) feature views of the chalk cliffs of Swanage Down.

Unwell and unable to stand at his easel, Nash writes to Archie Russell in Swanage expressing a wish to see the sea one last time. In July Margaret arranges for them to stay at the Florida Hotel at Boscombe, where they might be close to medical support if needed.