Shell Island - Part 4/4

In the final of 4 blog posts exploring Shell Island and the locations there and thereabouts featured in Guy N Smith's Night of the Crabs, I will share a few more scenes from the island before stopping of at Barmouth to show you a few more images of places from the novel.

The dramatic mountains of North Wales dominate the horizon around Shell Island. And whilst he weather during our camp on the island was very changeable, the clouds afforded some dramatic scenes around the various beauty stops:

This is our tent:

These are the dunes on the southern end of Shell Island...

...where visitors are welcome to camp:

The old farmhouse, below, is reputedly haunted by a girl, and has featured on the UK TV paranornal investigation show, Most Haunted:

This is Dartmouth Townhall, where plans on how to defeat the invasion of giant crabs were drawn:

The building now also doubles as a local theatre.

This is Dartmouth harbour, featured in the latter stages of Night of the Crabs:

And finally, here is the bridge that carries the traintrack along which Dai Peters and his passengers met King Crab before being consigned to their watery graves:

And that's all I have to share from my trip to Shell Island. Until, that is, next year when my Guy N Smith's Night of the Crabs pilgrimage will feature in GNS3 - the 2026 issue of the Guy N Smith fanzine.

As 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Guy's introductory novel in his Crabs franchise, GNS3 will be devoted to the author's giant crustaceans. Harking back to GNS1, I will also share a Gallery of Lego book cover mock ups of Guy's recent Crab book reissues. 

And that's not all. Whilst I can happily crack on with further crabby content for GNS3, like GNS2, I would ideally like to feature the creative work of other Guy N Smith fans in the fanzine. So, if you have any creative writing, book reviews, artwokmrk; quizzes or any other crab-related work you would like to see printed within the books covers of next year's Guy N Snith zine, get in touch with me via the new WhatsApp group devoted to the publication.

Shell Island - Part 3/4

Back to Guy N Smith's Night of the Crabs, I will use this post to share some of my photographs of a few other key settings used in the pulp horror novel.

Remember the Royal Airforce base where Professor Cliff Davenport who was interrogated after spying on the unmanned aircraft there to see if their undercarriages had left the strange giant crab-like marks on the Shell Island beach? Well, that RAF base exits no longer and is now utilised as a small airport:

And this is the beach carpark Davenport uses when he started out to explore the beach below:

Later in the novel, Professor Cliff Davenport learns that the giant crabs are not living in the sea, but in the adjoing marsh on the other side of Shell Island:

And here, on the causeway road that separates the marsh from the beach and cuts off Shell Island from the North Wales mainland at high tides, visitors enjoy catching crabs:

I wonder how many of them wonder, like Guy had the imagination to, what would happen if the little crabs they catch before returning them to the water, mutated into monstrous proportations.

I will round up my write-up of my late Summer Guy N Smith pilmrimage in my next post, with some more pretty pics from the island and a quick stop-off at Dorchester, with a couple more photographs of places features in Night of the Crabs.

As next year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Guy's most popular story, I will also add a few details of how the next Guy Smith zine GNS3, will celebrate the event, and how you too can have your creative work featured in the book...

Shell Island - Part 2/4

Crabs aside, Shell Island is as beautiful location as its name suggests. I just hope I managed to capture its splendour on my phone camera:

I will share more photographs of the island in my next post...

Shell Island - Part 1/4

Ignoring the dismal weather forecast, I headed out on a Guy N Smith pilgrimage to Shell Island for a couple of days this morning. This was the setting of his classic 1970's pulp horror classic novel Night of the Crabs. As we neared the place, and saw the signpost mentioned in his crabtastic book, I knew it was going tobbe a hellishly good holiday break.

It was good to see Shell Island still remembers the time of total carnage when crabs the size of cows invaded the resort lol:

And it was impossible to come away from the camping shop without this reminder of my time on the island:

These days, it looks like the local seagulls are keeping residents and visitors to Shell Island safe and sound!

I will be polite and not mention what happened in the dunes overlooking Shell Island beach in Night of the Crabs. Here I am though, just saying hi:

And doing some obligatory reading:

Medieval Lego

Well, it took up a fair chunk of my spare time over the past week, but it is finally complete. 🙂