I may be the first sports writer who’s willing to admit that I am not that good at the sport I write about. This possibly isn’t news to anyone who has seen me play football, but recent advancements in modern technology such as the video camera have enabled yours truly to watch games I’ve played in and finally understanding why I quite often didn’t play the closing stages of games. Or the opening stages either.
It raises interesting questions around perspectives in grassroots sport because before the advent of video evidence, I was convinced I was playing exceptionally well and was harshly substituted and although I rarely challenged the coach understanding they had decisions to make. (The few times I have been recorded serve a similar purpose to Colonel Nathan Jessup in A Few Good Men by screaming “You can’t handle the truth.”)
Similarly, I’m not the first sports writer to have outlandish opinions about a sport I know very little about. I have never once picked up a cricket bat, but it is my steadfast belief that if I did and could be bothered I would be one of the finest batsmen the world has ever seen. People often say they would love to see me deal with a ball traveling towards me at up to 80 miles an hour and my response is I would simply just whack it as hard as I could. This was often met with uproarious laughter like every single one of my anecdotes. Those of you that have played cricket may scoff and spit out your tea and scones having read that but I have played hurling – Ireland’s bat and ball game in which everyone carries a stick at all times and striking the ball unopposed like you do in cricket is a pipe dream.
Some may question if I claim to be so good at cricket then why don’t I make a lucrative career out of it. The main reason being I am not motivated by money, I am motivated purely by Montpelier Women’s Football Club. The other thing is I don’t want to travel as much as any top class athlete has to and although there is travel involved with MVWFC it never takes up any more than a day of traveling.
You never truly know what someone thinks of you until you die and all those lovely things are said about you at your funeral but I have found a shortcut with cricket fans. I simply offer my opinion on how good I am at cricket and what I get in return is a summation of my personality. Recently someone agreed with this and pointed out that I would take great pleasure in winding up bowlers by staying in for as long as possible. Which takes us to the current Ashes series – or, by the time you read this, the last Ashes series – which has been incredibly entertaining and equally vindicating. Although as a coach I understand a defensive style and the importance of staying in for an extended period of time, where’s the fun in that? I’ve always enjoyed coaches whose modus operandi is to win in the most entertaining way possible and Brendon McCullum certainly falls into that category because, although there is a thinking that all sport is a results based business, I couldn’t disagree more. The verb used to describe sport at all levels is play and with that there are connotations of being child-like and free from the realities and responsibilities of the big bad world. We play sports to exercise, to socialise and to entertain ourselves and others. There is something incredibly beautiful about athletes at the pinnacle of their career being reminded of this and being told to just whack it as hard as you can.
It’s 10 o’ clock on a summer Friday morning at the Gardener Café. Mick is carrying a box of red peppers down to the kitchen where vats of black beans and quinoa are bubbling. Sarah is making pastry for scones, sweet and savoury, cartons of yellow label strawberries, just on the turn, piled behind her ready for Karen Lloyd to reduce them into an accompanying jam. Elodie is chopping pretty pink radishes, and the air is fresh with camaraderie.
This is the Real Junk Food Project’s central Brighton kitchen, bang in Gardener Street in the middle of the North Laine’s most vibrant shopping and café area. Mick and Sarah are volunteers, Karen and Elodie just two of the few paid staff, and the red peppers, black beans, quinoa, flour and strawberries just part of a massive haul from the overnight supermarket waste run.
The Real Junk Food Project, whose mantra is “feed bellies not bins” was created by Adam Smith in Leeds in 2013, and has since grown into a national and international movement of cafes, projects and pop-ups with one core objective: To intercept food waste destined for land fill and use it to feed people who need it, on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. With afterschool clubs at its sister café, The Fitzherbert Community Hub in Kemptown, and pay as you feel cafes at St Lukes Church, Hollingdean Community Centre and Bevendean Hub, it’s a busy operation.
“We have volunteers driving electric vans to supermarkets across the city picking up amazing food that would otherwise go to waste,” Karen told me. “We get cakes and breads, flour, dairy, all sorts of vegetables. A lot of it hasn’t even got the stickers on it. It’s just surplus. There’s literally nothing wrong with the food at all. But if it’s not collected that will just go into the bins and into landfill. It’s absolutely disgusting.”
Disgusting is the right word. “A quarter to a third of food produced globally, is wasted” says the RJFP website, “and yet, there’s estimated to be 795 million people who do not get enough to eat. In the UK, two million people are estimated to be malnourished, while the UK as a whole creates an estimated 15 million tonnes of food waste every year.” If waste was a country, according to the UN, it would be the third largest in the world.
But there’s not much time to chat about the politics this morning. Karen and her team are on a deadline. “Once it comes to our cafes, we chefs look at the food, decide on the menu, and get on with it”, says Karen. ‘We have three hours to get on with service.”
The black beans, which have been soaked overnight, are going to go into a chilli and the Buddha bowls. The quinoa will become a tabouleh, while the pumpkin seeds have been roasted with a little bit of tamari. The mung beans have also been soaking to encourage them to sprout and will be added to the Buddha bowls.
In the walk-in fridge, massive Kilner jars of fermented celeriac, sauerkraut, kimchis and jams line the shelves. Herbs, tomatoes, lettuces, courgettes and cucumbers – often organic and donated from personal allotments, local farmers and Infinity Foods, but most of which have come in on the supermarket run in the last 24 hours, are piled high in boxes, ready to be cooked up over the weekend.
By lunchtime, the tables outside are packed with students, families and homeless people, often sharing a long table. “It’s all pay-as-you-feel” says Karen, “so it gives everyone the chance to get a really good meal.” This is a place to have lunch with a friend, or strike up a conversation with someone with a whole new life view. You choose. “It does get people talking” says Karen, “and hopefully they talk about how good the food is. I think that’s what food does, doesn’t it?”
If people can afford it though, they try to encourage them to pay it forward. And with funding a perpetual problem on top of the cost of living crisis driving people to find food more cheaply, it’s hitting the tills at the Gardener Café hard. “We have a suggested donation of £6.50”, but most people are
giving £1 or £2 for a full meal.”
The daily lunch on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday is just one part of what Karen and her team of volunteers cook up over the course of the week. “This Saturday, we’re doing a 60th birthday party for 100 people. We’re making canapes and Buddha bowls for them. When the clients come to see us, we’ll go through a basic menu and make them aware it can change. We did a canape event on Wednesday for Wired Sussex. They wanted to know what the menu was going to be, but I couldn’t give it to them until three hours before the event because the ingredients can change. But when we got there and they saw the food, they were amazed by it.”
It’s clear that this is much more than a cheffing job for Karen, whose signature red lipstick and bleach blonde quiff suggests an interesting back story. “I moved to Brighton five years ago after living in Spain for 15 years. My partner had died and I was trying to find work and get back into the catering. I did some voluntary work for Junk Food, and I found my family, basically. That’s what it felt like. So, it really helped me to find my feet again after a very sad time in my life.”
If you want to get involved with the Real Junk Food Project, go to its website for more information. Donate if you can, but the real fun is lunch in the sunshine with whoever sits next to you. Just remember to pay it forward.
Since writing this article we’ve learned that the Gardener Street cafe is to close. The Real Junk Food Project put out this statement:
“It is with great regret that the directors of @realjunkfoodbrighton have decided to discontinue their lease for the cafe on Gardner Street and, as a consequence, the Gardener will close on 25th September 2023. When we first signed up to take on a city-centre cafe using the pay-as-you-feel model, we knew there were going to be many challenges. We could not have foreseen the imminent Covid-19 pandemic, but we managed to weather the associated lockdowns and have continued to provide much needed meals to thousands in our community over the three years since.
Sadly, the current economic crisis is putting extra strain on the food industry and this, combined with soaring energy bills and ongoing building maintenance works, mean that the costs are just too heavy for us to keep the Gardener open. The latter is also taking its toll on our staff and volunteers in a way that is simply not sustainable. Whilst the doors of the Gardener are closing, the mission of The Real Junk Food Project continues and we are optimistic for the future. Our customers in Hollingdean Community Centre, St Luke’s Prestonville and the Fitzherbert Hub in Kemptown will still be able to benefit from pay-as-you-feel lunches created by our wonderful teams.
We hope that by unburdening ourselves from the financial liabilities of the Gardener, we will be able to focus precious resources and energy into our existing venues and commitments.
A massive thank you to all staff, volunteers and everyone who has been involved in our lovely cafe. And thank you Infinity Foods Co-operative for being a supportive landlord.
We care about where we live. Jim Gowans is West Hill’s voice on the City council’s Conservation Advisory Group
I’ve represented West Hill on the Conservation Advisory Group (CAG) for over a decade and I’m keen to involve others in the Group. You don’t need particular qualifications other than an interest in our environment.
CAG is a collection of local groups and societies independent from the council, and provides advice and comments on planning applications affecting listed buildings, conservation areas and so on. An elected representative of CAG is entitled to attend meetings of the Planning Committee and speak in support of CAG’s comments.
In my opinion, it is regrettable that the majority of planning applications are of poor quality and fail to preserve let alone enhance the character of our city’s conservation areas.
The first two applications featured here are such examples, the third shows 76 to 79 Buckingham Road which has greatly improved the street scene. For each, CAG’s reasons and other details are available on the BHCC planning website.
BH2022/02722 17 Buckingham Rd BN1 3RH
Demolition of existing garage and erection of a detached two storey plus basement, one bedroom dwelling (see pic, top right). The Group recommended refusal. Planning officers also refused to grant permission for this development on the corner of Buckingham Rd and Albert Rd.
BH2022/03758 Footway Opposite 43 Dyke Rd BN1 3JA
Installation of 20m high telecommunications monopole supporting 6no antennas and the necessary supporting cabinets and equipment. The Group recommended refusal, asserting that it would cause serious harm to the character of the area. Again, planning officers subsequently refused to grant permission for this 5G mast and its ancillary cabinets.
BH2016/01766 and further applications 76-79 and 80 Buckingham Rd
CAG recommended approval in 2016 for the first of these proposals and is pleased to see that the restoration and development of the four Victorian properties is now complete. The re-instatement of cast iron railings is particularly well executed (see picture), while the plaque to the former headmaster of the Brighton Grammar School, which once occupied the site of no.80, has been preserved.
Unfortunately the corner of the site (no.80) remains derelict. There have been six more planning applications since the 2016 application was granted and one wonders how many more applications and how many more years it will take before the site is built out.
It should be noted that the “affordable units” are now proposed for this site, but how much longer can those in need of such housing afford to wait?
Do contact The Whistler if you would like to involved.
It was like when Usain Bolt was at his peak. Everyone would line up, but everyone knew they were racing for second place. No one minded. It was just the way it was. It was like that when the Bravos were announced and there was a category for “The Best Local” and The Eddy lined up on the grid. You see, the Bravos aren’t voted for by industry or by commerce or so-proclaimed experts, they’re voted for by the public. By us. (Ed’s disclaimer. The Eddy is The Whistler’s local and yes, we’re a little bit biased).
Gilly: Congratulations. First of all, how does it feel?
Hatt: I think it’s the reward of all the hard work. It’s great to know that people obviously love our pub as much as we love it ourselves.
Gilly: What does it mean “Best Local”? ‘The Pub’ in Britain has always been about community. It’s somewhere you go to be welcomed into a place that you’d call a second home. And in a time when people are so wrapped up in the social media world, this is the real world, isn’t it?
Hatt: We’ve always tried to get to know the locals, been aware of people in the streets, recognise people, say hello. And then call people by their name. It’s all about remembering the people and knowing that they’re important. Welcoming people when they come into the pub and when they leave the pub saying goodbye, thanks for coming. All those little details make people feel special. When we took the pub over (Hatt and Mark Reed took over the pub the month before the first Covid lockdown) we had to really work at it because nobody used to come in here. The locals hated this pub because it was like a club with horrible music and drugs at the weekend. So it was a lot of hard work. Mark’s pretty good at schmoozing people and we just really put our arms around the neighbourhood.
We’ve got a fantastic team. People like Bethany are so important to us and to the locals who come here.
Gilly: As a punter I know I’m going to get looked after, I know there’s not going to be any trouble. It feels really safe for women coming out on their own, they can sit at the bar knowing that they’re completely safe.
Hatt: We have our eye on everybody, we’re here all the time and know how it all works.
Jess: People don’t realise how much work we actually put into the pub and what makes all our events successful is the amount of detail that we put into it. Hatt and I are really good team. We’re absolutely on the same page. We both come from fashion world, the art world, and we’re used to organising shows.
Gilly: So take me through the Bob Ross Night as an example. (Bob Ross is painter, big hair… you’ll have to go to one of the nights and see) Tell us about the presenter, Dolly Rocket.
Jess: Dolly Rocket and I were together in a cabaret group in the 1980s and Dolly has gone on to become a notorious Brightonian. She runs Proud Cabaret in Kemp Town. And when we realised that Bob Ross Nights were a thing, we decided to make it more fun, throw in a bit of glitter and glitz, So we asked Dolly and she jumped straight on board.
Hatt: She’s the long lost love child of Bob Ross, so she comes in this Bob Ross outfit and she’s larger than life and really funny. It puts all the painters at ease.
Jess: When we organise an event, we think how would we like it to be. Each time, we set up an easel and get everything – all the brushes, the paint,the palate, everything in place. We ask oursleves: ‘Have I got somewhere for my drink? Have I got somewhere I can sit down? Is it comfortable?’ This is how we plan our stuff. We have very high standards, and we want our guests to really enjoy themselves and go away.
Hatt: All the events are really good fun. Quite a few people just come to sit and watch. I don’t think we’ll ever do events in the pub where we’re closed for private parties birthday parties. It has to be open to the public, you know, otherwise it becomes an exclusive thing. And we don’t want that. We live upstairs, so it’s our home. It’s as important to us as it is to everyone else.
Do yourself a big favour and go to the Brighton Museum and see the exhibition of Roger Bamber’s photography. I’ve written about him before here: he was a friend, and he died last autumn. The exhibition has the splendid title “Out of the Ordinary”, which is beautifully double-edged, for he would turn settings that were ordinary and make them extraordinary. I wonder if this is why he moved to Brighton: because this is a town like no other, where surreal moments are a daily experience. (I was staying with him when the Grand was bombed in 1984, and, alerted by his News Desk, we raced down to be among the first on the scene. That might not have exactly been surreal, but it was certainly out of the ordinary.)
He was both a news photographer and a – what is the term? Art photographer? That doesn’t seem right, but his photographs are definitely art. I would tease him that his job only took him 1/250th of a second to do, but this was nonsense: he would set up his shots meticulously to get the right effect, often at great personal risk to himself. You look at his photo of men working on the Clifton Suspension Bridge and ask: hang on, how did he get up there? He would scorn safety harnesses, saying they got tangled up with his camera straps. There’s a photo of a microlight pilot achieving the world height record. Look at it without reading the caption next to it and it might not occur to you for a minute: this picture is taken from above.
He got along with everyone. The pop stars here include Freddie Mercury, Bowie, Mick Jagger, Suzi Quatro, but he also captured the working lives of railwaymen (he had a thing for steam trains), fringe performers, toy museum curators, the eccentric and the unusual. These latter he never mocked or ridiculed: he brought out their essence in a manner of pure celebration. He also had a thing for buses, and when he told the editor of Bus Times that his was the most boring magazine he’d ever seen, he followed this up with an offer to take the front cover photo for each issue, the condition being that he be allowed to borrow a bus for a day to get it into an unusual situation. Fittingly, there is a bus named after him now, as Brighton honours its best children: the 25, which takes you to the Amex Stadium.
Brighton was where his heart was. Come not just for the celebrity and news photos, but for the pictures of thew Fringe, the West Pier in flames, the seafront covered under a rare fall of snow. The people in it look like Lowry stick figures: the effect was deliberate. Few people has a way with a camera like Roger did. When his pictures were in the paper (which they were for decades; and he won numerous press photography awards), you could spot it was his from across the room.
The Whistler 