David Andrews muses on where we are and where we’re going

Not long now.

Autumnal leaves will soon be falling. Another seasonal change, triggering, inevitably, introspection. How many more seasons do I have left? How many more winters? All the old cliches creep slowly yet firmly into the consciousness.

“We could,” said a friend from university days, “be in our last decade. Who knows?”

Like me, my old buddy, a recently retired professor of sociology, has seen many summers, and is a fully paid-up member of the grey hair tribe. The palette we both now share leans towards the pale, washed out. Like flicking through one of those Farrow & Ball colour taster cards.

On a recent trip to the Isle of Wight with my two kids (Hurrah!! A staycation!! An escape!! A breakout!!) I – literally – saw my life flashing before me, eerily seeing my 29-year-old son leaning against a railing I had leant against decades before, as a 10-year-old child on my family’s annual pilgrimage to Ventnor.

The shadows which crisscrossed the road, thrown by the venerable, ancient oaks, now a metaphor for my coming time. And of course, they will be there for my children’s children. As Cormac McCarthy wrote, ‘the plains, they do not change. We change and age and disappear and the plains and their long timeless shadows, they do not disappear. They stay.’

But hey! Let’s not get maudlin. Let’s get out and see ….see the world. If we can. While we can. The doom which has engulfed us all in the past 18 months is gradually beginning to lift, albeit a patchy recovery for an economy riddled with heavy machine gun fire.

Walking down my local Western Road en route to Waitrose – a hazardous journey on foot at the best of times, running the gauntlet of street sleepers and shuffling morning-after drunks – I was struck by the extraordinary number of closed shops. Not just closed. Boarded up. Like the owners had wind of a massive riot about to kick off.

It looked like a combat zone, shortly after the last grenades had been lobbed. Most of those names will not return. Debenhams, gone, New Look, gone, Gap, about to be vapourised, the list is long and deadening.

Yet at 9 am on a Saturday morning there was already a huge queue snaking around the block for Primark, standing now like the stoic Alamo fort surrounded by thousands of Mexican soldiers. Here, on this chill mid-summer’s morning, are dozens of expectant shoppers, mainly with very young children in tow, waiting to pounce. Maybe for school uniforms, I thought.

Am I, I reflected while stepping over a rogue guy rope anchoring a street-sleeper’s pop-up tent, witnessing the beginning of the end? It’s not coming back, is it?

The journey which, by stealth, began in the mid-90s with the advent of online services, is just a few nails away from the complete, ready to rock coffin.

We have all seen it coming.

Problem is, our local council services can barely cover the cost of bin collections, let alone plan for what must now replace these once bustling precincts.

Logically, what we once knew as ‘the shops’ will become the new high density housing zones. With any luck we may see a return of the kind of retailers we could actually use, as opposed to another Chunky Funky Chicken – but I am not optimistic.

The realist in me sees a drab, colour-drained landscape, where human interaction is pared down to a minimum.

The snaking Primark queues will also be gone before too long, as the retailer throws in the towel and joins former stablemates like Gap in dispatching its gear online.

Which means – what? – more DPD vans screaming around the corner just when you managed to dodge the guy in the low-slung black helmet on a souped up moped, making an urgent McDonald’s breakfast delivery to the flat where they have the full symphony fast-food app addiction.

Apart from the clear fact that our roads are overstuffed and drastically over polluted, is there anyone among us not driven crazy by the incessant demands by the likes of Deliveroo to utilise its food delivery services?

The over reliance on kamikaze youngsters urgently revving their leased motorcycles to invade every corner of our lives is whipping up a perfect storm of polluted obesity, sending us hurtling to an end of days scenario of toxic corpulence.

A

part from all the grievous harm we are inflicting on the planet, am I alone in wondering how can people afford to call on the Mad Max brigade to deliver a cheeseburger and fries? And this, when data suggesting that three in five of under 10 are technically obese.

For the most part those children are raised in poorer homes, yet data points to those on lower incomes being far more likely to be drawn to fast food services.

But no worries if you can’t afford it, as there are always the fast loan crew who will help you out if you find yourself a bit short.

Plus ca change.

‘Don’t look so glum, David,’ chirped Vinod, who has run my local newsagent/grocers/anything you might need corner shop for the past three decades.

Slowly pushing a heavily laden trolley, stacked precariously with towering rows of canned tomatoes and huge six-pint milk bottles, Vinod paused for breath.

‘The thing is, my friend,’ he beamed, now leaning gratefully against his shop doorway, and flashing a knowing grin,’ it’s the youngsters who are going to have to deal with it all. It is they who will inherit this mess.. Our time is gone now, vanished. Like our youth.’

And he was right. As EM Forster put it in Howards End, it is not the meek who will inherit the earth, but the destroyers. Like Forster’s Wilcox family. The hardened and faceless corporations who have constructed a vast cyber economy, silicon empires controlled, unseen, and without empathy.

But, as Samuel Beckett wrote “I go on. I can’t go on. But. I go on…”. And so we do, beating against the tide. We go on.

Book shops – good book shops – have always been more than somewhere just to buy a book. They’re places to hang out, to read, to meet people, to just be. Now there’s a new book shop that’s all those things – and more. 

The Book Makers is a volunteer-run community project where established authors support local writers from diverse backgrounds. And it’s a book shop. “It’s a space where established authors commit to welcoming new voices into the community of writers. It’s a place where people can learn about the craft – and business – of writing”, says local author William Shaw who, together with Brighton-based arts charity Creative Future and local bookshop Goldsboro Books, is behind the venture. 

In September, Creative Future New Writing South and Writers Mosaic will be starting a full programme of workshops in the space to further inspire creativity. Go and support. Go and hang out.

The Book Makers,  15 Cranbourne St BN1 2RD

I’ve lived in Brighton for more than two years now and every day I love it a little bit more. Daily compound interest over 800 days adds up to quite a lot, so I’m very happy here. Except for the seagulls.   

The thing is, you cannot have Brighton without seagulls. The idea is ludicrous. In West Hill, the gulls are relatively discreet. I had a soft-headed next-door neighbour who used to leave an open packet of Wonderloaf on the front porch for them but eventually she was lynched and thrown into the sea. After that the seagull menace at 42 Dyke Road was a spent force, and we went back to our daily routines. 

Elsewhere it’s a different story. By the sea they become aggressively predatory. You can always spot tourists because of the unguarded way they saunter around with their chips. Sooner or later they are going to learn the way to eat them is to hunch over them, maintaining ceaseless vigilance. This is not easy, and can make you look furtive, as if you are concealing a dirty secret. 

But you don’t have to be a visitor to become a victim, as I found out a few weeks ago. I had decided to treat myself to a bacon double cheeseburger from the Burger King in North Street – I allow myself about two of these a year – and was enjoying it mightily, until… There was a sudden blur of white, and a BOF noise and the next thing I knew my hand was empty, and four seagulls were picking over the scraps of bacon double cheeseburger a couple of feet to my right. 

One does not expect altruism or even basic consideration from the animal kingdom, but even so I was outraged. My initial instinct was to call the police. Those burgers cost nearly a fiver, and I am not made of money. I was impressed, though, at the clinical way the operation was conducted. The seagull is a large bird, but at no point was I struck or even touched by feather or beak. As impressive a piece of flying as I have ever seen. What also impressed me was the reaction of my fellow humans. Instead of laughing, they stopped to console me. I wonder whether I’d have reacted in as kindly a fashion. But then these were Brightonians: they knew the score. They know the menace that lurks in the air above, that perches on the chimney-tops, or struts around the streets as if they’re saying “come and have a go if you’re hard enough.” 

   I’ve recently heard that black-headed gulls are now invading the town and destroying seagulls’ nests. These are twice as big as native seagulls, show even less fear, and do not bother with humans. Until they do, they get my profound encouragement.

THE JOLLOF CAFÉ is a project of the Sussex Refugee and Migrant Self Group working to support people “trapped on the wrong side of the UK’s immigration system”. They “work together to resolve immigration policies and navigate the hostile environment”. Collaborating closely with migrant housing charity Thousand 4 Thousand, they’ve set up the Jollof Café to show what hospitality looks like. It’s also a space where asylum seekers and forced migrants can come for love and support. 

Do join them at West Hill Hall on Wednesday for a chat and to share a meal. Always remember, it’s worth talking to strangers, quite  a lot of them have sweets.

Whenever I wander along Upper Gardner Street in the North Laine I get that Proustian rush, that time and place thing. For Proust it was smells and tastes, for me it’s the colourful local architecture and that central Brighton bohemian vibe which is pretty much unchanged since I first arrived here in 1979.

It was a time of massively high unemployment (Thatcher had come to power that year, go figure…) but I was miraculously offered a job shortly after graduating as a supervisor on the Government’s Youth Opportunities Scheme, known back then as YOP.

Upper Gardner Street, 1980s

The money was poor, but I thought here was a chance to give something back to the community, helping out these kids who were deemed unemployable. Most had left school at 15, as you could back then.

Some of their own volition, but most because they were thrown out, had been branded as trouble-makers. Most came from broken homes in the problem areas of Brighton. But one thing they all had in common was that they wanted to belong somewhere, to be part of something. Be part of the world of work, where they could transition from boys to young men.

I had a gang of around 15 boys in all, with a brief to go out into the community and do up dilapidated buildings which could then be used by local people. Most of the work was straight forward painting and decorating, and the boys were given a small wage each week, more or less equivalent to today’s minimum wage. It was designed to be a learning experience and help prepare them to enter the work force.

Every day we’d go out in a transit-type van, descending noisily onto whatever project we happened to be engaged in. Sometimes the boys would moon out of the windows at startled passers-by, and as their boss I was supposed to be unamused. But it was a laugh, and we bonded.

Lunch times were a challenge. The boys were supposed to bring a packed lunch, but many didn’t because there wasn’t anyone at home to prepare them.

One boy, Trevor, often missed out on food altogether, having to scavenge what he could from his reluctant peers. One day he did, to my surprise have a modest lunch box with him. This unusual development was the subject of much speculation by the other boys. What was in Trevor’s sandwiches? You don’t want to know. That kind of thing.

We were at the time giving the old Brighton Boys Club in Upper Gardner Street a lick of paint, and all was going well. The boys were – by and large – hard-working and keen, until Trevor suddenly announced he had had enough, was starving, and was going to have an early break.

Off he went to get his tupperware container, and he tore into one of his sandwiches. It may have been spam, I can’t recall. What I can recall is that it was far too early for a break, being around 12 noon and, starving or not, lunch time was never before 1pm.

With 15 boys – all ravenously hungry seemingly all the time – it was important to keep to the routine. So I asked Trevor to put the sandwich away until 1pm, when we could all eat.

“No”, he said, glaring at me like a feral dog protecting a bone. “Fuck off. You can’t make me”.

“Trevor, please put the sandwich away, or I’ll have to send you off for the rest of the day. You’ll lose half a day’s money, and you could lose your job here place on the scheme”.

He looked at me. “I mean it”, I said, trying to sound more authoritative than I felt.

Trevor, who had severe learning difficulties and an absentee mother who was known to be a working prostitute, was a strong kid with a shock of bright red hair and a face bedecked with large freckles.

He leapt up, furiously tearing at the remains of the sandwich, and with a wild growl seized a fire extinguisher from the wall.

“Put it down, Trevor”, I said.

But Trevor was determined to show who was the boss, and instead of putting the extinguisher down, lifted it above his head and stumbled towards me, snarling, trying to catch his breath.

“I… WANT… TO… EAT… MY… FUCKING....SANDWICH“.

The other boys found this hugely entertaining, and there were shouts of “Do ‘im Trev, go on, do ‘im”.

It was as if I’d walked inadvertently into a dog fighting ring, and Trevor, playing to an enthusiastic crowd, strutted like a victorious gladiator in a particularly bloody arena.

Looking back now, I can tell you that all my romantic notions of doing something real and putting something back into the community left me. I wasn’t much older than those kids and I was about to sustain perhaps a severe head injury.

It didn’t seem worth it. Fortunately, even in his temporary fury, the heat of Trevor’s rage, my assuring him he would be locked away for a good while if he went ahead with the attack managed to seep through. I held my ground and talked Trevor down.

There were no mobile phones to call the police, and it was with great relief that I warily watched a panting Trevor lower the extinguisher to the floor.

I resolved not to let the incident put me off my job. But in truth it was never the same again. The trust had gone.

Having reported back to my boss on the episode, Trevor was quietly removed from the programme. I recall him mournfully taking his leave of our base camp, never to return.

Whenever I wander along Upper Gardner Street I wonder to this day where Trevor and all those other boys are now. Did they ever make it into the work force proper, did they grow up to have families and ideals of their own? Or did the hand they were dealt simply mute all enthusiasm for life, take away any desire to progress in the world of work.

Did they ‘do battle with the world ‘ere all eternity,’ as Sophocles might have it.

David Andrews is a writer and media consultant.

www.davidandrewsmedia.co.uk

The most lovely space in the centre of town, a haven from the bustle, a world of its own. Bob Young and, below, Amanda Ogilvie look at the wonder of St Nick’s Rest Garden  

Opposite St Nicholas Church on the other side of Dyke Road is a handsome Grade II listed archway. If you push through one of the heavy green gates beneath it, you’ll find yourself in a spacious and delightfully leafy park. Even though this space has always been open to the public, it’s one of central Brighton’s largely unknown and hidden places.

This is the St Nicholas Rest Garden. It was the third of the burial grounds associated with the old parish church, the earlier ones being the Churchyard itself and the ‘new’ northern burial ground (now the children’s playground). When these two cemeteries were full, land was acquired on the west side of Dyke Road and the eminent Brighton architect Amon Henry Wilds drew up a scheme for its layout.

Wilds proposed a long row of 23 burial vaults on the northern edge, an entrance gatehouse in the form of a small fortified castle and, most intriguingly of all, a ‘burial pyramid’ with room for several thousand coffins. In the end only 14 of the vaults were built, the entrance gate was simplified, and nothing more was heard of the pyramid!

Burials started in the Rest Garden in the early 1840s but stopped in 1854 when new public health regulations designed to control cholera came into force. In the 1940s, the central area was cleared of its memorials by the Council and the displaced tombstones were used to line the perimeter of the space. Fortunately some of the more splendid of the big ‘box’ tombs were left undisturbed in their original positions.

Before any tombstone was moved, Council staff meticulously recorded the wording of the inscription. A record of these can found via the Brighton Mortiquarian website. There also you can find the life stories of some of the more extraordinary ‘residents’ of the Rest Garden. Here are a few:

Sir Richard Phillips (1767-1840) whose massive box tomb is just inside the gates devised and published class materials for schools (part of his ‘pioneering system of education’) and wrote many very important books — or so he claimed! If you read the inscription on his tomb you’ll see that he was also an absolutely exemplary family man. Do take all of this with a pinch of salt though because Sir Richard concocted the wording of the inscription himself.

Baroness Erskine (d.1851) and her aunt Rachel Bond are buried in a splendid ‘tabletop’ tomb beneath the tree next to the Tierney family vault. The carved stone decorations along the top edge and the sides of the tomb are very beautiful.

One of the most eminent of all the people in the Rest Garden is Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850). He was President of the Royal Academy of Arts and a top-ranking portrait painter. The aristocracy and even Royalty were amongst his clients. As such he could have been interred in Westminster Abbey but chose instead to be buried in the leafy surroundings of the Rest Garden.

As well as all the history there is a terrace with roses, lavender, flowering borders, and an olive tree — together with a splendid sea view. 

The Brighton Mortiquarian is at https://mortiquarian.com. Select “Recording Our Deceased” for access to the inscription records and Mortiquaria to reach masses of information about named people.

Not many people know this, but the Rest Garden is owned by the incumbent of St Nicholas of Myra, Brighton – aka the vicar of St Nick’s, so this remarkable place is, in effect, the vicar’s garden held in trust for the parish.  

Thank the Lord. Maintenance of this closed burial ground is still the responsibility of Brighton & Hove City Council as are the other two green spaces around the church. But in a strange twist, closed burial grounds remain subject to ecclesiastical law – which means that to do anything, permission is required from the Diocese of Chichester.

Only one of the 14 burial vaults has an opening door, today used to store equipment for the cheery band of volunteer gardeners who work to keep the space as lovely as it is. Bear them in mind when your dogs are doing what dogs do, and be grateful that the vicar is a dog lover. For years animals were forbidden to come through those remarkable, heavy gates.  

The Rest Garden even has its own angel – a local who takes his nightly stroll with a litter picker, removing debris as he walks.  One balmy sunny evening, wearing a straw hat, our hero was approached by someone who asked if he was the vicar. To which he replied ‘No – but I know a man who is!’

How different this little-known hideaway must be to Wilds’ original idea – used daily by dog walkers, garden lovers, people in need of a peaceful green space in the middle
of this fantastic, mad, busy city.  And the occasional tent.

The other day a friend offered to buy me lunch. This is always nice. “So,” I said, “fancy a trip to Brighton?” What he said next surprised me, which perhaps goes to show that while we are on good enough terms to call each other friends, we don’t know each other that well. 

“I loathe Brighton,” he said. This surprised me quite a bit as it happened, because not only is he very nice – I’ve never heard him say he loathes anything before – he is also gay, and I’ve always thought, lazily perhaps, that if you’re gay you approve of the very idea of Brighton. How wrong can one be? 

I once went out with a woman who, when I told her I was moving to Brighton, said “I hate Brighton.” Why? I asked. “I don’t like it.” Why don’t you like it, I asked. “I hate it.” At this point I realised the conversation was getting a bit circular. So I gave up and moved to Brighton. In her defence, she was very much a posh frocks from Harvey Nicks kind of woman and, I suspect, a Conservative voter, so I could see why Brighton might not have been her cup of tea, but still. 

I suppose you either have this place in your bones or you don’t. Doctor Johnson, whose words I normally hang on, said that the main problem with  Brighton was that you couldn’t find a tree to hang yourself from once you realised how horrible it was living here, but back in his day it was called Brightelmstone and there really weren’t that many trees. I wonder whether Doctor J had an inkling that there would one day be a kind of competition between London and Brighton. That people would leave the capital to come here and say “You know what? This place is loads better. Or at least just as good, and there aren’t any bankers.”

Well, you do get bankers here now, or at least rich celebrities but they tend to stick to one area and don’t spoil the place for the rest of us. Brighton seems to be fairly gentrification-proof, however many heartbreakingly swanky properties there are. The addresses whose names begin with “Montpelier” may be many and costly, but a few seconds walk away and you get to see… well, you know, the kind of people Brighton is famous for. A colourful bunch. 

This is not to sugarcoat things – the dreadful homelessness, the beggars, the addicts, the people who’ve had a
rough time and aren’t going to be having a better time any time soon, but it’s better to have a town like this than to have a town like London that has been hollowed out by wealth. At least here, the views are free to rich and poor alike. 

What a lot of noodles there are in those beautiful Tonkotsu ramen bowls, the iconic soup from Japan which has had London slurping since it first opened behind the Tate Modern in 2007. By Gilly Smith

This pit stop is the latest of Brighton’s mid-market feasting stations, scooching into the wide pavements of New Road where Polpo once served its small Venetian plates.  This is all about home-made noodles; Tonkotsu’s motto is “If you don’t make your own noodles, you’re just a soup shop”,  and are made in three different types in-house daily using mid-century machines imported from Tokyo. And there’s plenty of ‘em, soaking up the made-from-scratch broth of high welfare pork or chicken, simmered for hours and topped with all sorts of ggodies. Try the roast pork belly, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, spring onions, burnt garlic oil and a seasoned Clarence Court egg.   

We loved the Eat the Bits Chili Oil and the vegan Mushroom Miso ramen which we suped up with a spicy scotch bonnet hot shot. On the side, the cucumber with mustard seeds and cauliflower wings were winners and will please the crowds of Brighton vegans demanding super tasty and stylish dishes. The service is great, the design Brighton-made and even the beer comes from local UnBarred brewery. The Sake was made specially for the restaurant by the Tsuji Brewery in Okayama which is very cool indeed.

Why then does the delicious chilli oil and soy come in unnecessarily carbon heavy plastic pots and the prawns have to travel all the way from India when we live on the coast?  

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It’s a mid-May Monday and we’re watching the world go by, an espresso in one hand and couple of pastels de nata on our rickety pavement table.  

Latina is a little bit of Lisbon on the Dials, and has been serving up much more than coffee and cake in its five years as one of only two Portuguese cafes in town. 

Its bacalhau and suckling pig de Negrais are, according to expats, as close to the real thing as you’ll get around here. When The Whistler put a shout out for the best salads in town for this month’s Feedback (above), the most popular was Latina’s marinaded octopus. 

It’s an unlikely success story. When Adelia Pereira moved from Lisbon to London nearly 30 years ago, and to Brighton 14 years later, she couldn’t even cook. “I loved food, but I never really cooked it,” she admitted. “But now every morning I come in and say ‘OK, I’m going to cook this.’ But I never know what I’m going to do the day before.” Yet the menu is reassuringly familiar. “It feels like home,” said Nino as he waited for his salt cod croquettes take-away.  

Adelia says it’s been business as usual during lockdown with take-aways doing a “good enough” trade. But it’s on the street that this food is meant to be. “We have a thing in Portugal. You drink, you eat. You just get some croquettes and a beer or a glass of wine. That’s it.”

Gilly Smith 

One block, a great pub on each corner. And it just didn’t feel right when The Welly was closed. It felt like a car with one wheel missing. But now the wheel is back on

We think it’s the perfect time,  yeah absolutely the perfect time. I mean, we’ve got a perfect storm of people who’ve really understood what they’ve missed over the last year, what everyone’s really missed. The people interaction, the community. There’s been community spirit, but there’s been a lack of opportunities to engage”. 

The Whistler is talking to Paul and Gabby Wimhurst, the people behind the re-opening of The Duke of Wellington – The Welly – and we asked the inevitable question about the risk of opening up during the lockdown. And Paul’s on a roll. 

“So I think this is the perfect time because obviously, pubs can play a part in that wider community engagement. So as things wake up, this is how we see it, as people start to shake their heads a little bit and wake up, it’s a great time to be opening a pub that’s been closed for a year and a bit. Yeah. So yeah, we think it’s good.”

Paul and Gabby have been “running pubs now for about three years up in Soho. Mainly that was The Red Lion in Kingly Street, and we also had The Lyceum on the Strand for a while, so that was our time running pubs, but we’ve spent a fair bit of time in pubs” 

Doing research? 

“Yeah, exactly.”

Gabby was born in Mouslecoomb “but spent most of my time in and around central Brighton, so we were always knew that we were going to come back to the south coast.

“We heard about this during lockdown – that was just after Bertie, the previous landlord, decided to move on – and once we knew there was an opportunity here, we grabbed it with both hands. Couldn’t wait to get back. All our friends are round here. It felt really isolating being in London, especially during lockdown.”   

Round here, if you like pubs this is a good place to be. “Yeah, that’s something that we can’t wait to become part of, the pub community. We’ve already made contact with everybody. The thing is, they’re all good pubs and we’re not going to try to compete. For instance, we’re not going to do a food offer, and that’s probably been driven by the fact that the others do such good food. So rather than try and compete, we’re viewing it that we want to complement the pubs around the block, you know.” 

And so what is your sell? What’s your USP? “We’re hopefully just going to build on what it’s always been – a great pub for watching sport and taking part in team sport. We’ve also got a great garden which we’ve made a bit more comfortable and spent some money on it. We’ve got the function room upstairs as well, and hopefully (mini theatre) Sweet will be back later in the year, so we’ve got the opportunity to… not change the way it feels, but enhance it and maybe just broaden its appeal a little bit. 

“I think we’ve recruited a super team, that’s something that we’re really excited about. We’ve got four people who we think are really unique in their own way and they’ve all got something really, really great to add. So we’re hoping that it’s the personalities and the people that people are going to come in for.”