EDINBURGH LOG (Feeling alone) (Part 1)

Edinburgh from Calton Hill.

I have spent the last four days in Edinburgh, by myself.

After I had registered at the Priestfield bed and breakfast, just a little out from the centre of Edinburgh I walked into the centre of the city. The bed and breakfast was situated just off the Jedburgh Road and close to the base of Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, a great volcanic shelf of basalts and granites tilted up like a rough lop sided table top, savage and rugged, reminding Edinburgh of its volcanic origins, 

I was in the High Street, the Royal Mile, just by the road that slips down to the North Bridge. The Royal Mile sloped down to my right, grey cobbled, hard granite buildings, four or five storeys high. St Giles Cathedral with its granite crown surmounting its main tower to my left.

I was on my own, in twilight Edinburgh, and the streets were full of people, partners, families and groups of friends, talking, laughing, being together and I was on my own. I began to have that dull feeling, slightly panicky feeling, when you have nobody to talk to; you stand on your own; you try not to be noticed and make people think, he’s on his own. You try to look as though you are about to meet somebody or you are stopping for a short moment before you go to meet somebody. You have a nonchalant air and look about you as though  you don’t care about being on your own, because it won’t be for long. You try to portray that image and I very quickly found myself doing that. It was a subconscious act; a survival tactic emerging from a natural human impulse. I felt uncomfortable and the thought seeped into my brain that I have three more days of this feeling. What should I do?

I walked up and down the Royal Mile, just looking. If I kept active, looking and thinking about things, learning as I went, that could occupy me and create a way of interacting and learning even if it was just with my surroundings. My time would not all be, feeling alone.I was going to be positive or as positive as I could. This would be a good experience

.

The time was getting on towards eight o'clock on that first evening and I hadn't eaten. I started looking at places to eat. All the pubs, their bright glossy fronts, red or green or blue areas of gloss paint, had their menus displayed prominently. The prices didn't matter. How was I to get inside, get a table, order some food? That was what concerned me. On my own in those packed establishments heaving with people who all knew somebody, who all had somebody to talk to, how was I going to do this? I didn't have the courage at first to just go in and brave it.

Deacon Brodies on The Royal Mile.

I saw a pub called Deacon Brodie’s that had a garish life size portrait of the deacon on the outside in his 18^th century attire. He looked coarse, a little worse for drink with pink cheeks and his black bushy prominent eye brows. He was not judging me anyway. I thought, if I just go into this pub, find a quiet corner at the end of the bar, out of the line of sight of everybody, just order one pint, drink it slowly and then leave, maybe that’s what I would do. It would be a start. So I walked in and sidled past people and said, “Excuse me,” to get past a couple and then three tall young blokes parted to let me continue through the middle of them and eventually I got to the end of the bar. There were two bar maids dressed in black blouses, black pencil skirts and black tights. Their costumes fitted the dark sombre feel of the place with its dark brown stained panelled walls and leaded windows looking out on to the street. I called to one who was standing waiting. To be truthful she had already spotted me and was making a gesture towards me.

“Could I have a pint, please?”

“What would you like sir?”

Her voice sounded bright and welcoming, a smile split across her face parting her lips, bright red with lipstick. Her eyes showed friendliness. Her voice, a mixture of that gentle Scottish lilt and an element of  toughness, a confidence against the world, underlying the softness that shows the Scottish character. She was not judging me because I was on my own.

“I’m a southerner as you can tell.” 

She smiled  some more.I began to smile too. Her look encouraged me, lightened my mood and I asked.

“What would you suggest?”

“Nicholsons is a local brew. Would you like a dark beer or a light beer?”

”I don’t mind, which one you would suggest?”

“The brown beer has the best flavour.”

“I’ll have the brown beer.”

She smiled again. I could see the other barmaid smiling at me too. They were both welcoming and made me feel relaxed.

I noticed there was a menu. I asked them about food. The taller of the two barmaids, the one who had served me said,

“If you want to sir, just go upstairs to the restaurant and our colleagues will sort you out.”

She made me feel, after my earlier apprehensions, that I could do that. So I drank the brown pint. I enjoyed it very much. The beer tasted slightly sweet, but it had a hoppy smell and flavour to it. The pint went down very nicely. I said thank you to the two barmaids and they looked at me.

“I’m just going upstairs to try my luck,” I said. 

That feeling of nervousness made me seek reassurance again.

”OK,” said one.

The tall barmaid said.

”Enjoy your meal.”

“Thanks.”

And upstairs I went. The staircase was lit dimly with lamps on the walls as the stairs twisted to the right. Wood panelling lined the walls of the stairwell and large ornately framed prints of old Edinburgh hung at each stage.

When I got to the top there was a small lobby area before the restaurant room opened out in front of me. The lobby was brightly lit and a young couple stood waiting. In front of us a red rope looped between short posts barring our way. The young man said in an Italian, accent,

“If you wait here they will see you.”

His young lady looked slight in build and shy with a gentle unassuming prettiness about her and she stole a glance at me and smiled. She didn’t say anything.

“Are you from Italy?”

“Yes, we are from Rimini, do you know it?”

“I’ve been to Rome and Naples and Venice but not to Rimini, I hear it has a beautiful coast. I will go there one day.”

A young waitress, small, slim and neat with red hair cut in a short tight Joan of Arc crop came and asked me if I would like a seat.

“There is only me. Can you fit me in? I’ll understand if that is difficult. Don’t worry. “

“No trouble sir, I’’ll find you a place. Don’t you worry now. You might have to wait a minute or two.”

“Thank you. That would be nice.”

I was beginning to feel good. The two barmaids downstairs, the Italian couple and now the the waitress. It wasn't so bad being on my own. I could talk to people and feel good.

The two Italians went in first.

“Enjoy your meal. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” said the young man. His girlfriend smiled again.

The Royal Mile.

It wasn’t long before the little waitress came back and showed me a table by the window overlooking The Royal Mile and St Giles Cathedral.She gave me a menu to read and left me to it. I sat in a position so I could look out of the window and also into the room at all the other diners. I could see the Italian couple ordering their food on the other side of the room. They looked happy. They looked in love. They looked so easy together. I thought of home and Marilyn and Abi and Alice and Sam and of course Emily in Cardiff. I wished that they were with me. Marilyn would have enjoyed being here.

The little waitress came over standing in front of me talking with fun and happiness in her voice. I’d overheard her at other tables. She appeared so happy to meet everybody and to talk to them and she was being happy and fun with me too now. I loved the experience of ordering my meal. I could feel my mood becoming lighter and a good feeling was coming into my voice and I could hear myself sounding light and funny.

“This is my first time in Edinburgh. This is my first time in Scotland. I must have a haggis.”

“Haggis and tatties, sir?”

“What are tatties?”

“Tatties are mashed potatoes. They traditionally go with haggis.”

“Yes please.”

“What gravy would you like? There is a lovely gravy we do with whisky in it.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

She had been writing down the codes for the different things I had ordered and I felt tempted to try another pint of the Nicholsons brown brew, so I ordered another pint.

I was warming to Edinburgh and Edinburgh people and Edinburgh eating places. This was going to be alright. My feeling of apprehension when realising the consequences of being alone were beginning to dissipate.

The haggis and tatties with a jug of the whisky gravy arrived. The brown pint came and I began on them. I was hungry.

Now, haggis is a mixture of things and if I was to describe what went into a haggis, a lot of unmentionable parts of a sheep, my description might make you utter the expletive,”Ugh!!”  All I will say is that it tasted wonderful, meaty, aromatic with herbs and the texture was like warm porridge and the gravy indeed had a tang of whisky to it and the, "tatties," were soft and fluffy. The eating of it all and the drinking of the pint was a real joy. The meal filled a space, I can tell you and this second pint of the brown stuff began to make me feel a warm comfortable glow inside.

When I paid the bill and walked out into the night air I was beginning to feel good about this whole adventure, this whole escapade.

Holyrood Palace in the dark.

I thought I would walk to end of The Royal Mile in the dark; there was some moonlight. I gazed at Holyrood Palace through the railings of the gate and saw the massive hump of Arthurs Seat looming behind it. I spent a moment looking at the modernist architectural confection of the Scottish Parliament building across the way and then walked all the way back to Priestfield and sleep.

WEST BARNES LANE, MOTSPUR PARK in THE LONDON BOROUGH of MERTON

Where I am sitting now, in my kitchen, this very spot, just a little over eighty years ago, a cow could have been standing ripping grass up with its teeth and gently chewing away, ruminating. There could have been a haystack or perhaps just a muddy patch in the middle of a field where the fridge freezer is. Up to the late 1920’s this, here, where I live, was farmland. A family called the Raynes had their large farmhouse,  about seven hundred meters from where my house stands just to the north west of me. A little over to the east is Blakes Lane, named after Farmer Blake who owned the land  where Motspur Park Railway Station is now. And, the name of the road I live in,  West Barnes Lane, recalls some large barns that stood along this road when indeed it was a country lane.

West Barnes lane, just outside my house.Notice the preponderance of trees in a garden suburb.

To be precise,my house is 83 years old. It was built in 1930 and was first owned just before the 6^th June 1930. The pond in my back garden has a rough, pebbled concrete border around it and in the concrete is marked, “6^th June 1930.” All the houses round here were built in the 1930’s. It is a time warp. We live here in a time gone past. We don’t actually think we are living in a museum, but I suppose if you stop to think, we are custodians of this bit of built British history. The thing is, the houses are good and solid, made of brick and hefty timbers and good weatherproof clay tiles cover them. They have been loved and cared for and extended and improved over the decades and the generations. They are almost the perfect house for the British. We have been born, brought up in them and continue to live in them. 

The bureaux on the left of the fireplace was bought by my great grandmother, in Southampton, in the 1930's.

The 1930’s in Britain were not a good time. We were not recovering well from the First World War. We had, The Depression, a time of unemployment and poverty for many.The traditional industries, coal mining, shipbuilding, iron and textiles were struggling. The infrastructure was old and needed replacing. We were not competing in the world markets as well as we used to. There were hunger marches coming down to London from Tyneside, the traditional shipbuilding areas. Oswald Moseley’s fascist party was vociferous but didn't ultimately gain significant support. Communist groups were popular too but again they didn’t make headway either. What people wanted were jobs. Many of the industrial cities and major conurbations were blighted by old Victorian terraces, back to back housing with no lighting, and poor sanitation. The toilet facilities for one of these slum terraces would have been in a small shed at the bottom of the garden. Flush toilets did not exist for the working class. The toilet was a bucket with some soil in it which ,once full, was emptied into a cess tank. The tank was emptied, every now and then, by the local council. Clean water for the house was provided by a tap in the backyard. Hot water had to be heated over a fire, using precious coal,  and bath time happened in a zinc tub placed in the middle of the kitchen floor.

The Art Nouveau style glass next to my front door.

Eventually new industries began to flourish in the south east and in the Midlands, such as car manufacture, synthetic textiles, chemicals and light engineering and so people began to get money. They also wanted better housing conditions. The dream for everybody was to live in an idealised rural setting, so the garden suburb was invented. This was a mixture of new housing with modern facilities, gardens and parks. A significant feature of these suburbs were trees. People who bought these new houses and moved to the suburbs felt they owned a piece of the countryside. Each suburb had its infrastructure to enable good comfortable enjoyable lifestyles. These modern new houses were a world away from the dirty grimy slums that many had been brought up in. They had electric lighting. They had modern kitchens with cookers and fridges. They had inside plumbing with gas boilers that provided hot water and not just to the downstairs kitchen but to a proper bathroom with bath, sink and a decent flush toilet up stairs. They mostly were built with three bedrooms, two double rooms and single room. The single room, as in my house, were invariably over the front door. Theses house all had front gardens where people grew shrubs and plants and had their little patch of grass. What is more they were all provided with back gardens where they could create their own little cottage garden or their own piece of luxurious parkland. Cooking new things became popular and pamphlets and cookery books were published. In their gardens many people planted fruit trees and dug over a small vegetable patch. My own back garden still has two apple trees, quite old now, but still producing fruit in abundance each year.

This 1930's house has bow windows. A Georgian feature.

The council provided what we term, allotments, for people with smaller gardens who wanted to grow crops. They are still very popular today. Allotments first developed at the end of the 19^th century to provide the urban poor with a piece of land where they could grow good healthy food. Growth of allotments intensified during the first and second world wars when rationing reduced the amount of food people could buy. My mother always says that rationing created a healthier population than we have today. People got a balanced diet and received what they needed and no more. Gluttony didn’t exist!!! After the Second World War interest in allotments declined but they are on the increase again because of green issues and people are becoming more aware of healthy living. It is also a great way to exercise.. Allotments do produce a healthier population. They also can help towards sustainable development. One of the initial benefits seen for allotments was that if somebody was unemployed they could still grow their own food. Some kept chickens for eggs and would be able to provide the occasional roast dinner.

Some Merton Council allotments near where I live. Not only are allotments places to grow produce but the people working on them form societies and hold meetings. They have produce shows in the Summer. A community feel is created. Cultivating an allotment is a life changing experience. 

Motspur Park, where I live, in the Borough of Merton South London was and is one of these ideal semi rural suburban living areas. Within a few hundred yards of my front door, there is a parade of shops that even now, even for the dominance of  hypermarkets such as TESCOS nearby, still has a butchers shop, a green grocers ,a couple of restaurants, two newsagents and a fish and chip shop. On the corner by the railway station, which allows me to get to central London and be standing next to the Royal Festival Hall looking at the Houses of Parliament within twenty minutes, is The Earl Beaty, my local pub and next to that is Motspur Park Library. Just behind the shopping parade is the Sir Joseph Hood playing fields. It has all weather tennis courts, artificial climbing walls, a zip wire and basketball courts. The grassy area is big enough for four football pitches in the winter and a couple of cricket squares in the summer.A little bit of British heaven.

My house in West Barnes Lane. The white is pebble dashing plastered over London Stock Bricks, which helps prevent weathering. An old Roman recipe.

These 1930 style houses have claimed a deep and close relationship with us British. They feel part of us. There is something quintessentially English or British about them which is different from all other styles throughout the world. They draw very much from the Arts and Crafts Movement that developed at the end of the 19^th century, from 1870 onwards, and was pioneered by John Ruskin the writer and art critic and William Morris the Pre-Raphaelite designer and entrepreneur. Ruskin examined the relationship between art, society and labour. Morris put Ruskin’s philosophy into practice placing great value on work, the joy of craftsmanship and beautiful materials. Incidentally Morris’s workshops were situated at Merton Abbey mills and many people in The London Borough of Merton learned the crafts of printing materials, dyeing, furniture making and tile making when they worked for Morris & CO.They learned the skills of the medieval craftsman.

This house in grand drive, which adjoins West Barnes Lane, has many Arts and Crafts features, the medieval timber frame look, the clay tiled farmhouse roof style, the leaded windows, the white plaster facing which recalls medieval wattle and daub , the front door set centrally is a farmhouse feature too and the door has a certain art nouveau look to it with its flowing curved shape. The dormer window and sharply pointed eaves over the front door , are all Tudor features.

If you were to stand outside my front door and look up and down the road,  you would be able to see that all the houses are not exactly the same. They differ in some architectural details. Some are a little bigger than others and perhaps have an added bedroom. Some are detached and some, like mine, are semi-detached. However, essentially they all fit a certain style and have something English about them. If you know your British history it might begin to dawn on you. Many houses have bay windows, a key Georgian feature. Many have peaked eves which essentially hasn’t changed since Tudor and medieval times. Some even, to make it more obvious, look as though they might be timber framed. They are not. A closer inspection will reveal that the timbers are thin wooden cladding attached to the wall surface to make the house look timber framed. Others have oriel windows , which you find in Elizabethan mansions.

As well as the influence of Georgian bay windows in these terrace houses , you can also see small oriel windows positioned above the front doors. This is a feature reminiscent of windows found in Elizabethan mansions.

They all have clay tile roofs which give a mellow warm feel to them. You will find clay tiled roofs in every country village throughout the land. Many of the shops in the parade down the road, in the centre of Motspur Park, are built in brick with a herring bone pattern to their construction, a Tudor feature. I have stained glass set within a frosted oval at the top part of my front door. It has Art Nouveau design features. Many of the front doors in my road, indeed my front door is just such a one, are constructed from heavy timbers like a farmhouse door. Although there is a preponderance of brickwork, many of the houses in my road are pebble dashed on top of the basic brick construction of London stock bricks. Pebble dashing is something the Romans used to weather proof the surface of some of their buildings. Some houses, and these are fewer than the arts and crafts style  houses, are art deco,with clean smooth white walls, austere flat roofs and curved glass windows framed in thin steal frames.

An art deco house, Church Road , Worcester Park, near Motspur Park. It's clean efficient lines appealed to a few.

The appeal is that these garden suburbs are really a mixture,a coming together, of all the great architectural features that England has produced. They are distilled Englishness.  The garden suburbs, Motspur Park and all the others put together, comprise four million homes built in the 1930’’s

Tudor timber frame exteriors, or not!?Notice that the top floor appears to overhang the ground floor. This is a feature of Tudor town houses designed to create more floor space in cramped conditions within  a walled city's confines. 

We do not live in the past in these 1930’s homes. We change with the times. My own house has had a double story extension added to it in the 1970’s. The extension doubled the size of the kitchen and added a fourth bedroom. This year Marilyn and I have been lucky enough to save enough money to extend and renovate the house further. We will add a fifth bedroom with en suit bathroom, and create an open plan living, eating and kitchen area along the back of the house. We will create a modern patio where we can have barbeques if the weather allows, next summer. Bifold doors will open up the back of the house and make the garden into an extra room on balmy summers evenings. The chimney pots on the roof now vent the central heating. We still have our old analogue TV aerial attached to the roof. We do have broadband and television cabled into the house so the aerial is just one of those historical features from the past. The walls and roof have been insulated so the house is more energy efficient. However, on the outside it still looks as though we are in the 1930’s and we are proud to retain some of the 1930’s features inside the house too.

The 1930's fireplace in my living room.It is constructed with tiles and creates a farm house feel.

In some ways we are very lucky our house is still here. Mr Hitler tried to remove it from the face of the earth. Between the 7^th October 1940 and the 6^th June 1941 the Luftwaffe bombed London,all the major ports in Britain and the industrial areas of the Midlands. It was called the Blitz. The history department at University College London have produced a map documenting where all the bombs during this period, landed on London.

West Barnes Lane is my address. You can see how close the high explosive bombs got. Often houses that were not apparently affected by a bomb blast later formed cracks in walls and inside their roofs. Local builders had a boom time during and especially after the war repairing the damage.

 Looking at the part of the map that shows West Barnes Lane, one bomb landed at the far end of West Barnes lane near the station. Another landed in Station Road, it seems they were trying to obliterate the station. Others destroyed the Church of England Church round the corner in Adela Avenue, a bomb landed in Arthur Road a mere few hundred yards from my house, another landed in Marina Avenue and one in Byron Avenue. These were high explosive bombs that took out half dozen houses in one blast. My house survived.!!! In Motspur Park there were a lot of small manufacturing units and it was these, as well as the station, they were trying to destroy. Half a mile from me in Raynes Park there was a  film unit that produced training films for the military. A couple of other factories produced the new radar equipment.

This was taken in Woolston, Southampton, with the railway station in the background. An exmaple of how railway stations such as Motspur Park station were targetted by the Luftwaffe. I live in Motspur Park but my family lived near this staion and lived through the Southampton Blitz.

One bizarre story from our local park is told of a German pilot baling out over Motspur Park and parachuting down to land on top of the  gasometers that stored and supplied gas for many of the households in South London. These gasometers are still there beside the Sir Joseph Hood playing fields although not used nowadays. He apparently landed on the top of these great cylinders and then promptly fell off to his death.

As an addenda to all of the above, and just in case you are interested, a house in West Barnes Lane cost between £500 and £600 when they were first built. In the year 2013,a kind of symmetry has been achieved. They are valued at between £500,000 and £600,000. 

LYME REGIS

Lyme Regis looking back from The Cobb

On the 6^th August I was driving back to London from Newquay in Cornwall along the A30. The A30, the road of dreams, a route right through British history that lays England bare. Neolithic, Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, Norman, Tudor and on, right through the whole of history like a scalpel to the heart of the matter, it wends it long beautiful way. Parts of the route are variously replaced or bypassed by the A303 and other variants or extensions named A3… with a selection of digits added and finally on to the M3. It is almost an arrow straight route from Penzance at the very tip of Cornwall, the heel of land attached to Cornwall’s leg, right to the heart of London. Marilyn, Abigail and I had set out early from Newquay. We had all day. London is 250 miles from Newquay. We decided we had time to visit places on the way back. Abigail, at first said she would like to walk around Bath. I was happy to do that. Marilyn suggested finding a village in the Cotswolds such as Castle Combe or Laycock. It was a lovely sunny day. I then thought the beach at Lyme Regis would be a pleasant place to sit, eat ice creams and watch the sea sparkling in the sun, its waves breaking into surf on the shingle beach. Abigail and Marilyn thought that would be a good idea too.Ice cream!!!! Marilyn took Abigail and Emily to The Natural History Museum in Kensington last year and there they saw one of Mary Anning’s Ichthyosaurus fossils displayed. There are many fossils to be found as you walk beneath the cliffs at Lyme and there are an abundance of fossil shops selling exquisite ammonites. I suggested it would also be good to walk along The Cobb at Lyme like Jane Austen. It was decided, we would go to Lyme.

 Lyme, a very British place.

At Honiton we branched south from the A30 along the A35 which took us directly to Lyme through woods of oak, elm and beech, fields of Dorset sheep and a rolling and dipping landscape. Dairy cattle  grazed in small thickly hedged fields  that dipped into  steeply dropping and rising valleys that made me think of Thomas Hardy’s Blackmore Vale , The Vale of Little Dairies, and home to Tess of the Durbevilles. Blackmore Vale is actually in the north part of Dorset around Sturminster Newton. I can never travel through Dorset without thinking about Hardy, his stories ; the  deeply passionate rural life he described, an age gone by, that provided me with a deep love of Dorset and Dorset people and set many feelings and emotions loose inside my fevered adolescent mind; especially after reading Far From The Madding Crowd.

The Lias clay cliffs and undercliffe near Lyme

Lyme Regis is set on the side of Lyme Bay that is edged by tall cliffs consisting of marls, which are a mixture of clays and shales. They create impressive cliffs. However the cliffs are liable to landslides. This geological structure has lead to land slips along its length  either side of Lyme Regis and this has created wide shelving. These ledges have been named, The Undercliffe. Their location facing south and towards the sea , sheltered from the cold which comes down from the north  in the winter, has formed almost rainforest conditions against the face of the cliffs. Because the cliffs erode relatively quickly, fossils are revealed everywhere. The coast has been called The Jurassic Coast and it is against the steep sides of these cliffs Lyme has grown and developed. It is a fishing port and was a trading centre. It is ideal for taking holidays because of its mild climate and beautiful seascapes.

We drove down a steeply inclined road, round winding country lanes into Lyme. I put the car into a low gear and used the foot break on tight corners. Because of the sharp winding turns going down a steep incline I focussed carefully on the bends ahead watching for cars and vehicles coming up and ready to break if necessary. We were all concentrating hard, Marilyn, Abigail and myself as we wended our tortuous way into Lyme. A white signpost with a large blue letter P denoted the way to a car park. We took the left turn, following the signpost. Down we plunged again, carefully, slowly, an ever steeper incline. It felt almost vertical in its steepness, to a car park next to the town library at the bottom of the valley.

Once we had parked the car we had to walk back up this steep road before turning left into Lyme High Street which then dropped down sharply itself to the glistening sea in front of us. The sea looked like  a carpet of bright light, reflecting jewels.

The seafront at Lyme.

Lyme Regis is a lovely English seaside town. In some ways it is typical of its type. It has buildings from different periods in our history, some modern buildings from the 1960’s and 1970’s and one or two even more recent. It has a variety of grand Victorian shops and houses and quite a range of Georgian buildings too. Some may go back to Tudor times and fragments of buildings, foundations and walls, may go back earlier still. This lovely mixture gives a place character, a certain Englishness, something that has taken time to create and form. As we walked down Lyme High Street to the sea we passed, clothes shops with displays behind their small Victorian and Georgian windows, fossil shops, cafes and restaurants, a cheerful and invitingly picturesque children’s bookshop with  pictures and books on display in the window. The Royal Lion Hotel, a grand Georgian inn with an archway to the right of the main entrance where carriages would have entered to the stables behind, came up on our left. Opposite is a tiny house with its front door straight onto the street with a plaque displayed above the door saying, Pyne House. This is the most likely lodging of Jane Austen, whose visits to Lyme in 1803 and 1804 gave birth to her novel, “Persuasion.”

Pyne House, where Jane Austen reputedly stayed.

Marilyn, Abigail and myself walked further on the to end of the street near the sea and beach where a large black painted 18^th century cannon from an ancient man of war, points out to sea. The town was crowded the day we were there. Some clouds above shaded us at times but mostly bright sun shone down from blue skies. People were all over the beach on deckchairs, lying out on towels and plunging into the sea. I overheard one young girl say to her friend as they walked near us, “Its just like the magazines and picture books.” Indeed the scene was picturesque, a view of England and the English at play in the Summer.

We found a beach side café, bright and white in its décor looking out onto Lyme beach and harbour. We had cool drinks sitting outside the cafe, at a table next to the sand and the sounds of the sea surf. Children and adults were playing beach volleyball, making sandcastles and burying their brothers, sisters and dads under great patted down mounds , leaving only heads and feet visible.A notable thing  about  Lyme are the sea front  lampposts. They curl at the top into amazing ammonite shapes.

Ammonite lampposts.

There were many activities going on, on the beach; a sandcastle competition with entrants creating elaborate castles out of wet sand and some deckchairs were displayed in a curve on the shingle part of the beach. Their canvas seats showed intricate designs displaying a different theme for each deckchair. One deckchair was a history of fossil hunting and the life of Mary Anning. Another showed typical seaside activities. The designs and pictures were created with an appliqué technique.

Artistic deckchairs.

 Near the deckchairs children were being guided and taught how to make pavement art using chalk on concrete paving stones. Further along the beach there was positioned a brightly painted 18^th century bathing machine. It was painted with broad vertical stripes of bright red and pastel blue. Its doors,one at either end and its sloping roof and its wheels and wooden steps up to each door, were gloss white. It looked  picturesque set there on the seafront beside the beach. A lady and her daughter sat next to it in deckchairs and invited passers-by to step inside the bathing machine.  A board resting against the wheels explained that the contents of the machine were the results of a project carried out by Lyme Museum. Lyme Museum had got school children to spend an afternoon in the museum and asked them to find their favourite objects. They used the objects to inspire them to create a work of art. The display inside the bathing machine were  the artefacts the children had made.

The stripy bathing machine cum museum.

I was particularly excited to see and read a handmade book with pieces of descriptive writing, stories and poems inspired by museum objects. The book had not only been written by the children but also made by them. They  designed the cover, invented  lettering for the title page, sewn the pages of the book together from some coarse heavily textured paper and used scrim, webbing and card to make the hard board cover. The sewn pages had then been glued into the cover. The whole book was a work of art in itself. It brought back some wonderful memories of  when teachers created a topic based curriculum for children. Those were the days of glue and paper and needles and thread and marbling trays and rolls of scrim to be cut up. Making a whole book in this way is a very satisfying thing to do. There were also puppets inspired by Punch and Judy, pebbles off the beach painted with seaside pictures, wooden models of people dressed for the beach, postcards designed by children and pieces of ceramics beautifully sculpted and glazed, paintings and posters. This little exhibition inside an old brightly painted bathing machine was a real joy. 

Some of the children's work inside the bathing machine.

We walked on along the seafront and sat on the sandy part of the beach for a while and ate ice creams. I had a Magnum. Its an ice cream covered in a coating of crisp chocolate. I know what you are thinking. Ok I love the sound of the chocolate coating cracking as I bight into it and then using my tongue to lift pieces of the chocolate off the ice cream part and eating it before I get my lips and tongue around the ice cream itself. It’s just one of those fads I have.

Just behind us were situated a row of beach huts. Beach huts are a particularly English thing. They are like small sheds or bathing machines without wheels set at the edge of the beach. They might be rented out by the local council or they might be owned by an individual family. The idea is very simple. Inside, deckchairs, tea, coffee, a small stove perhaps, a mini fridge , in fact all the comforts the family might require on the beach are stored. They are  much prized. To buy one of these small ,"home from homes," on the beach you would have to pay a small fortune.

Beach huts.

After that delicious ice cream moment we walked on along the seafront to The Cobb, past  two Georgian cottages called Harville and Benwick. Only a Jane Austen fan would know!! And, then we came across a  shop, just before The Cobb, called, Persuasion, no less. We were, persuaded, and spent sometime inside.

Persuasion.

After that The Cobb beckoned. The Cobb, a massive curving and twisting harbour wall that protects the small fishing community at the far end of the beach, a little distance away from the main part of the town, is made of enormous limestone blocks. You can see how the limestone surface is becoming pitted and  fossils of small sea creatures embedded in the stone are visible. When we got on to the top level of The Cobb, which slopes quite alarmingly outwards towards the open sea, we discovered that it was crowded with people. My first reaction was that either the Jane Austen fan base in Britain has increased dramatically or The French Lieutenants Woman by John Fowles has suffered a resurgence in popularity. However, it was neither of these. A long boat regatta was taking place from The Cobb. Twenty or thirty brightly painted longboats manned by rowing crews, each sporting their own teams coloured shirts, were racing against each other in  competition.

Long boat racing competition from The Cobb.

We stepped down Grannies Teeth, a series of limestone blocks that protrude from the inner side of the Upper Cobb wall as a series of steps to the lower part of The Cobb. It is these steps it is presumed Jane Austen referred to in Persuasion, as the steps Louisa Musgrove fell from.

From the far end of The Cobb we looked back at Lyme and the cliffs surrounding the bay. Lyme looks huddled and small set in this impressive Jurassic landscape. We could follow the line of the Undercliffe with its luxurious vegetation.

The bottom of Lyme High Street near the sea.

Here is short of history of Lyme Regis to wet your appetite.

Lyme Regis is situated 25 miles west of Dorchester , the county town of Dorset and the home of Thomas Hardy who recreated Dorchester as Casterbridge in his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.

In Saxon times the abbots of Sherborne Abbey had salt boiling rights next to the mouth of the River Lym. The Abbey once owned land covering part of the town. It was mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086 which incidentally was recorded in Winchester in the county of Hampshire. By the 13^th century it became a major port and was regarded as more important than Liverpool tight up to 1780 when it then began to decline because it could not handle the larger ships that were beginning to be used. A Royal Charter was given to it by Edward I in 1284 which added the, Regis, to the towns name. John Leland visited the town in the 16^th century. Leland was a poet and reliquary and began the convention of studying local history. It was his idea to study the history of each county.

He wrote,

“ a praty market town set in the rootes of an high rokky hille down to the hard shore.”

In 1644 during the English Civil war it withheld an eight week siege under the Royalist Prince Maurice.

The Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme 11^th June 1685 to begin the Monmouth Rebellion. This was a rebellion based in the West Country attempt to overthrow James II who had become very unpopular.

News of the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805, arrived in England at Lyme when the Bermuda sloop HMS Pickle docked in the port. It was re-enacted in 2005, the bicentenary of the battle.

In 2011 the town census showed that 3,671 people lived in Lyme.. It is situated in Lyme bay on the English Channel. The town is famous for its fossils. It is part of the Heritage Coast also known as The Jurassic Coast and now a World heritage Site. The Jurassic coast stretches for 153 kilometeres from Orcombe Point near Exeter to Old harry Rocks in the east. Geologically the coastline exposes a continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and cretaceous rocks spanning 185 million years of earth’s history. The Blue lias clays around Lyme are home to a whole range of Jurassic fossils. It is a very important geological region. There are many well preserved remains. Some are displayed in Lyme Museum and in some of the fossil shops in the town. Some of the most important and spectacular examples are now in The Natural History Museum in Kensington. Many of the earliest discoveries of dinosaur and other prehistoric remains were found in the cliffs around Lyme. Mary Anning 1799-1847 is the most notable of the early fossil hunters. She found almost complete examples of Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs, Dimorphodons, Scelidosaurus ( an early armour plated dinosaur) and Dapediums. A fossil of the worlds largest moth was discovered in 1966 in Lyme.

Because the coast around Lyme is mostly clays it is prone to landslips. One of the most spectacular slips occurred in 1839 when three miles of cliff slipped. Another smaller slip happened in 1840. In 2005 work began on £16 million of engineering works to stabilise the cliffs.

Cottages along the front including Harville Cottage and Benwick Cottage.

The Cobb is one of the most famous places of interest in Lyme. It is a major setting in Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion published in 1818. In chapter 11 Jane almost becomes a writer of guide books.  She must have been very taken with Lyme herself.

“ …the remarkable situation of the town, the principle street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb skirting round the pleasant little bay, which in the season is animated with bathing machines and company, the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the strangers eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme.”

 But of course the Cobb is where the scene of the most dramatic consequence to the whole novel occurs.

This is about the midway point in Persuasion.

Crowds of spectators on The Cobb watching the rowing regatta.

“There was too much wind to make the high part of the Cobb pleasant for the ladies, and they agreed to get down the steps to the lower, and all were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight, excepting Louisa; she must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth.In all their walks, he had had to jump her from the stiles; the sensation was delightful to her. The hardness of the pavement for her feet made, made him less willing upon the present occasion; he did it, however; she was safely down, and instantly, to show her enjoyment ran up the steps to be jumped down again. He advised her against it; thought the jar too great; but no he reasoned and talked in vain; she smiled and said, “ I am determined I will; he put out his hands; she was too precipitate by half a second, she fell on the pavement on the Lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless.”

Grannies steps on The Cobb. Louisa Musgrove fell to the  pavement below.

John Fowles,until his death, lived in Lyme. His house is open to the public on application. He used Lyme and specifically the Cobb in his novel, The French Lieutenants Woman. The film of the novel, starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep was actually filmed in Lyme and used  the Cobb in one its dramatic scenes. I like The French Lieutenants Woman and I think it is one of John Fowles best books. The time shift concept in the film, an adaptation by Harold Pinter,creates  comparisons between two historical periods and especially the exploration of Victorian attitudes is very good.The novel itself has three endings and again the exploration of human nature, good and bad, is interesting. I read The Magus just after returning from holiday to Ios and Naxos in the Aegean sea many years ago. The story I found dark and intimidating and I know, with all literature, you have to suspend belief at times but the amount of belief I found myself required to suspend in The Magus was too much. I couldn't work out why Nicholas Urfe really got involved  with that Mephistophelean character. Would boredom really get him that interested in such an uninteresting person? The mind games  rather bored me. I know how the poor chap felt!!! I still don't get the book. Maybe it is just me. The Collector once again explores mans darker nature. His deeper needs and urges. I haven't read this one but I saw a dramatisation of it on TV many years ago.

Looking up Lyme High Street with the sea behind me.

The house that John Fowles lived in ,"Belmont House," used to be owned by Eleanor Coade (1733-1821).
She invented and manufactured coade stone. It was a very tough ceramic based stone. It was purported to be virtually weather proof. It was used to create statues and the front ornamentation of houses. Belmont House is  trimmed with coade stone. Another famous example is the lion statue on the South Bank end of Westminster Bridge. It is next to what was County Hall where London used to be governed from.
County Hall is now a Marriott Hotel, A Premier Inn, London Aquarium, an art gallery and London Dungeon.It is right next to The London Eye.

The Royal Lion Hotel where Ann Elliot probably stayed in the novel Persuasion. It is the most prominent inn in the high street and it is positioned directly opposite Pyne Cottage where it is thought Jane Austen herself stayed.

A PROUD DAY IN BRIGHTON

THE PAVILION

Saturday 3^rd August, another hot day in Britain reaching to 30 degrees centigrade and above. The night before, in Wimbledon, thunder had rumbled and lightening split the heavens followed by a heavy deafening downpour. It didn’t last long. The morning brought blue skies and the promise of more heat. Marilyn, Abigail and myself thought a day in Brighton would be a good idea.

DRAG QUEEN!!!!!!!!!

We drove down to Brighton at about 10am. It is only fifty miles from where we live in South London. As we approached Brighton, driving through the South Downs and passing the iconic concrete pillars with Brighton’s coat of arms emblazoned at the top of each pillar ,announcing  your entrance into Brighton, we noticed groups of people, wearing brightly coloured clothing, pink boas and many faces painted in rainbow stripes walking towards Preston Park. Then we saw it. A large poster advertising Brighton’s Gay Pride March!!!! Cars were being parked at the road side and in streets branching off the main thoroughfare into Brighton. We realised we were not going to be able to drive into the centre of Brighton so we found a parking spot in Clermont Road  that leads up to Preston Park Station. We walked into Brighton as far as Preston Park. The park was full of fairground rides and a gigantic arena set out in front of a  main stage. Other stages were set up in other parts of the park. Large banners advertised Paloma Faith’s DJ set, Alison Moyet, Sugababes, Stooshe and MS Dynamite.

WITH MOUSTACHES

The crowds were gathering and yellow vested security marshals were keeping the crowds on the pavements. The Gay Pride march was on it’s way with floats, banners, flags and thousands and thousands of participants. Leading the march was an open top sports car with a naked gentleman with breast implants, jiggling his breasts and waving and smiling at everybody to the cheers of the crowd.as he was driven ceremoniously past. Then followed float after float carrying people of every  sexual orientation. The drums and the music blared and people waved and people smiled.

There were estimated to be 200, 000 people on the streets of Brighton for the march. The police, the NHS, the fire service, teachers, UNISON, workers unions and rather obtusely, TESCOS and the THE COOP, all had their Gay Pride presence and the march went on and on. The atmosphere was joyous and happy and fun. We were having a fantastic time.

GIRLS ON HIGH

After the march had gone past and entered Preston Park, Marilyn, Abigail and I walked on through the crowds to the centre of Brighton and the sea front. The atmosphere was fantastic. It was electric. The whole of Brighton was buzzing. People were hanging out of windows. They stood on roof tops and balconies and waved and cheered to all of us walking past. The streets were crowded and the parks were full of sitting and prone people, most drinking and lots of talking and laughing. We walked along the seafront and found a fish and chip shop where surprisingly we found an empty table and chairs to sit at. The fish and chips were wonderful. The best chips have a light golden appearance,  and are slightly crunchy when bitten into. The best fish is cooked to a light, fluffy, moist consistency inside a golden crispy batter. These fish and chips were beautiful, sprinkled with sea salt and splashed with  malt vinegar. 

THE BOYS

We went down onto the gravel beach and sat in the sun amongst the crowds and watched the glassy green sea crash it’s waves against the shingle. The sound of Brighton Beach, with the sea crashing against the shore is captured in the opening moments of Quadrophenia by The Who.  It is a refreshing and exciting sound. All around, men were kissing men, women kissing women and a few men and women kissing each other  too. One great big affectionate love affair was going on. We wandered round some of the art galleries near the sea front and I took lots of photographs.

Later in the afternoon when we were making our way out of Brighton to our car next to Preston Station the streets were beginning to fill with drunken and raucous people.. It was getting very loud and crazy. We came across a couple of minor incidents where fights were beginning. The police were keeping a calm presence. Marilyn nearly intervened  when we witnessed a man lifting the dress of a comatose drunken woman lying on the steps leading up to a house and his friend was taking photographs of the woman’s knickers. As Mariyln approached, ready to  pull the man away and give him some verbal stick, she can give some rather aggressive verbal castigation when she needs to, the woman woke and smacked the man around the face with a strong round house lunge, laughing manically at him. It was all a joke. I hope anyway.

STRUTTING HER STUFF



As we approached Preston Park, Paloma Faith was pulling in the crowds at one stage and on the main stage a band was belting out a piece to a massive adoring crowd of tens of thousands.

We got to the car and drove on home.

. A Lambretta Scooter. A Brighton icon from the 60's.

Here is a history of Brighton Gay Pride from their website.

HISTORY OF BRIGHTON PRIDE

BOYS IN BLUE

When do you think Brighton held its first Gay Pride march … 2000? 1990? You might be surprised to hear it was 1973. You probably won’t be surprised to hear it was a very small affair, certainly not the big parade with carnival floats and huge crowds we’re used to today.

Organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front, it was a brave thing to do at the time. Only seven years before that and gay men simply getting it on together would’ve ended in a gaol sentence. The first Pride march may have been small in numbers but they did it in style ending the day with a Gay Dance at the Royal Albion Hotel.

SOMEBODY GET ME DOWN. AN ONLOOKER

It wasn’t until 1991 that Pride came back to Brighton. It was born out of political objection to the government passing laws to ban the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality. Pride in 1991 was very homemade but very ambitious with a festival of events around town over the May bank holiday, ending in a Pink Picnic in Preston Park.

The political pride marches lasted four years struggling against a homophobic local press and pitiful financial support from the local council. Pride 1992 returned to Preston Park but Pride 1993 ended with a Pink Picnic in Queens Park. A taste of the march through town and after-party on the Level in 1994 can be seen in this film – how times have changed…
The following year saw the start of the party prides, though once again Pride took place on the relatively small space at the Level. The organisers managed to convince local businesses and performers that it was a good thing to be associated with and slowly Pride began to grow and change. The classic format of parade/park/street party is now something we all expect.

The organisers have changed regularly over the years and financial problems never seemed far away, yet Pride has endured. In 1996 it returned to Preston Park where it has remained ever since. In a controversial move at the time, the date for Pride in 1997 was moved from the May bank holiday to early August. However, being an outdoor event it has always been hostage to weather conditions and some years have seen merry revellers happily rolling around in mud lakes Glastonbury style.

Marylin. (NOT MY WIFE!!!)

Over the decades Pride has seen a couple of ‘weddings’, ever more outrageous floats and the odd anti-gay demonstrators who have been booed out of the park. In 2004 it was awarded charitable status, and as the crowds grew so did the scale of the celebrity appearances from Lisa Stansfield to Barbara Windsor, and more recently local talent The Freemasons and Fatboy Slim.

The diversity of tents in the park has expanded to reflect the attendees, including specific spaces for women, people of colour, trans folk, bears, cabaret and more, until it was acknowledged to be the largest free Pride event in the UK.

Things came to a head in 2010 when a record-busting estimated 160,000 people celebrated Pride in Brighton, yet it was still dogged by  
money worries. The following year saw the controversial introduction of charged entry to the park celebrations.
From its birth last century to the present day Brighton Pride has meant many things to many people. It has played its part in changing attitudes and promoting acceptance and equality, and of course that being LGBTQ or whoever you are, is something to be proud of.

As with most histories of lesbian and gay Brighton, thanks must go to the work of Brighton Ourstory.
Alf Le Flohic

BOYS WILL BE BOYS. GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS

BRIGHTON GAY PRIDE WEBSITE:  http://www.brighton-pride.org/