The Last Sunbathers Beach Club LP

The Last Sunbathers Beach Club*

Have released their debut album 'Albion Hotel' on Soul Bay Records. 

The 'Things I miss about England' blog wholeheartedly endorses this release! 

(click pic for link) 

*AKA - The Last Sunbathers Beach Club for Gentlemen of a certain age who should know better... 

Day in the life

A Moment in Meads (Part 1)

-- The Sussex Sun 

hovers over Rye,

beaming along 

the paradise coast,

illuminating a 

third floor room 

somewhere in Meads.

On the wooden table

-- A bowl of fresh 

chopped tomatoes,

spinach, cucumber

and onions, 

smothered in 

olive oil, lemon

and chopped garlic.

'King of America'

on repeat --

A white cotton dress

with red poppies

swishes in to the 

kitchen. 

A broad smile and 

hint of Chanel. 

-- Time to open

the Pinot Grigio.

Time to dance...

A day in the life...

DownLand

-- Stale hay clings 

to the memory

of walking barefoot

across the Downs 

at dawn.

Alfriston flickering 

below the low slung

clouds -- rain heavy.

--- She strides ahead

100 yards, 110 yards

120... 

It is never a good time

to say goodbye...

on DownLand.

Day in the life...

Orpheum

Found myself 

in the cinema

slightly drunk

mid-afternoon.

The long walk

from happiness

to Seaford Head.

-- The battle

with the bottle --

Staring into

rockpools and 

chalk caves.

The delicate

twist of an

ozone breeze

gliding North

--- Time to take 

a deep breath

a small step.

Day in the life of... (September 2020)

Onyx 

-- White crows arrive,

as the fret moves out.

The garden is yet to fall

to the clutch of the sea.

Grass stoached though.

An olympic white Fender

leans against the bookshelf.

Mustang ---

The notebooks red, filled

with black ink spider 

scrawl and sprawl. A long

black hair trapped

in the stapled pages. 

---- Tanned yet white,

long fingers stretch.

The songwriter looked down.

"Never can recall exactly

when this Onyx ring

came into our lives...

It changed everything"

Tea is ready, the fire is lit

and the whisky is 

just an hour away...

Stoach - To trample grass to mud (Sussex dialect).

Day in the life of a Poet (September 2020)

 Wild Poppies

-- In the lee of the 
Sussex Downs,
a field of wild poppies

explode in the heat

of another

Jevington morning.

a glimpse of

heaven, along 

the lane.

-- St Andrew's

door is open. 

The silence is

fractured.

--- The Sunflower 

Ceremony.

The faintest hint 

of Absolut ---

Some kisses 

mean so much 

more than others.

Day in the life of a Poet (August 2020)

Curzon 2

- The review said

it was a film

about why love fails.

-- I don’t think 
I’ve got the

time to spare. But

I like the actors.

--- And it is set in Seaford

so I would love the setting.

A long Sunday walk 

on the shingle.

-- with lots of silent pauses

and looking out to sea.

Very me

very you.

Lockdown - Day #10

Pull shut the glass door, head up the garden path, avoiding the rose bush thorns that twist out of number 12's greyish soil. Only one Strawberry left. Open/close the gate. Look back down the Bay Road towards Kings Caravan Park. Memories of the guy that the local kids called 'Honky Tonk' (after a Dick Emery character), gently flouncing his way to whatever job it was that he did in the nightclub.

Cross over Pevensey Bay Road and stroll past the four houses that originally earmarked the beginning of the track to Pevensey. As the Roman Catholic Church slides by one step at a time on my left. I look across the fields, beyond the orchard, up the hill to see if a bus is coming down from the Martello. I then double check to see whether the girl that lives/lived over the roundabout is in/out/running for a bus or striding over to see me. All and none of the above.

Not too far down Princes Road I pass Pete's house and the sound of a big amp being revved up to 11 greets the soundtrack of my past. The Admiral's Estate and the lure of the girls that haunt the phone box/bus stops and newsagents caress my lustful soul. The sound of Choppers and Raleigh's reverberate the length and breadth of Ramsey Way. Loose change rattles into the phone slot. The brick wall is occupied and our vantage point is secured...

It's going to be a nice day today.

Moments in Love #8

Oil paints flicked and smeared across the Sussex Downs. Poppies cascading from Jevington to Alfriston, an empty church, an open door... a promise

The Ashes again...

I love cricket, have done ever since I was introduced to the game by my Mum and Grandad in the early 1970's. That first explosion of awareness was stimulated by the fact that my county, Sussex, supplied the all-rounder Tony Greig (who went on to Captain and then ultimately leave (albeit with some justification) England) and equally importantly the opening bowler John Snow to the national team.

The thought of a local player playing against Australia for The Ashes was almost too much for me to contemplate. If J.A.Snow can do it, then surely so can I! No sooner had I gained a vague grasp of the game than I had also understood the importance of beating Australia. They hated us, for a myriad of not unreasonable reasons - our snobby club tie mentally, our pompous arrogance & the numerous perceived slights that built up over your the years. The Ashes has no real sporting comparison, it is; history, passion, bravery, David v Goliath, competition, sporting behaviour, unsporting behaviour, great wins, terrible defeats... and the list is as long as the narrative of this frustrating, mesmerising and wonderful game. 

This current series is no different. Australia's crushing win in the first test followed by the battle between Archer and Smith at Lords. Magical, compelling and harrowing all at once. Made all the more exciting by the sight of another Sussex man opening the bowling for England. The atmosphere at Lords was electric (very different to the World Cup Final) but electric nonetheless. A true sense of another page of cricket history being written...

Roll on Headingley, long live Test Match Cricket, Long live The Ashes

Eric Ravilious

Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942) was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver. He grew up in Sussex, and is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs. He served as a war artist, and died when the aircraft he was on was lost off Iceland.

Ravilious was born on 22 July 1903 in Churchfield Road, Acton, London. While he was still a small child the family moved to Eastbourne in Sussex, where his parents ran an antique shop.

He was educated at Eastbourne Grammar school (weren't we all?). In 1919 he won a scholarship to Eastbourne School of Art and in 1922 another to study at the Design School at the Royal College of Art. There he became close friends with Edward Bawden and, from 1924, studied under Paul Nash. Nash, an enthusiast for wood engraving, encouraged him in the technique, and was impressed enough by his work to propose him for membership of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1925, and helped him to get commissions.

In 1925 he received a travelling scholarship to Italy and visitied Florence, Siena, and the hill towns of Tuscany. Following this he began teaching part-time at the Eastbourne School of Art, and from 1930 taught (also part-time) at the Royal College of Art. In the same year he married Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood (1908-1951) also a noted artist and engraver. Between 1930 and 1932 the couple lived in Hammersmith, London, where there is a blue plaque on the wall of their house at the corner of Upper Mall and Weltje Road. In 1932 they moved to rural Essex where they initially lodged with Edward Bawden at Great Bardfield. In 1934 they purchased Bank House at Castle Hedingham, and a blue plaque now commemorates this. They had three children: John Ravilious; the photographer James Ravilious; and Anne Ullmann, editor of books on her parents and their work.

In 1928 Ravilious and Bawden painted a mural at Morley College in South London on which they worked for a whole year. Their work was described by J. M. Richards as "sharp in detail, clean in colour, with an odd humour in their marionette-like figures" and "a striking departure from the conventions of mural painting at that time". It was destroyed by bombing in 1941. In 1933 Ravilious and his wife painted murals at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Ravilious engraved more than four hundred illustrations and drew over forty lithographic designs for books and publications during his lifetime. His first commission, in 1926, was to illustrate a novel for Jonathan Cape. He went on to produce work both for large companies such as the Lanston Corporation and smaller, less commercial publishers, such as the Golden Cockerel Press (for whom he illustrated an edition of Twelfth Night), the Curwen Press and the Cresset Press.

His woodcut of two Victorian gentlemen playing cricket has appeared on the front cover of every edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack since 1938. Hiis style of wood-engraving was greatly influenced by that of Thomas Bewick. In the mid-1930s he took up lithography, making a print of Newhaven Harbour for the "Contemporary Lithographs" scheme, and a set of full-page lithographs for a book called High Street, with text by J. M. Richards. In 1936 Ravilious was invited by Wedgwood to make designs for ceramics. His work for them included a commemorative mug to mark the coronation of Edward VIII, the "Boat Race" bowl and the "Garden" series of plates, in which each size of plate showed a different plant. Production of Ravilious' designs continued into the 1950s, with the coronation mug design being posthumously reworked for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Apart from a brief experimentation with oils in 1930 – inspired by the works of Johan Zoffany – Ravilious painted almost entirely in watercolour.

He was especially inspired by the landscape of the South Downs around Beddingham. He frequently returned to Furlongs, the cottage of Peggy Angus. He considered that his time at Furlongs "...altered my whole outlook and way of painting, I think because the colour of the landscape was so lovely and the design so beautifully obvious ... that I simply had to abandon my tinted drawings". Some of his most famous works, such as Tea at Furlongs, were painted there.

Writer Geraldine Bedell: - "his painting was influenced by his design. His elegant watercolours, with their stipples, hatching and drastically simplified shapes, are instantly recognisable. And he maintained his artistic identity when he became a war artist. - His work is light of touch, elegant, and hugely pleasurable."

Ravilious was appointed an official war artist in 1940, with the rank of Honorary Captain in the Royal Marines. During that year he painted at the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham and Sheerness; sailed to Norway and the Arctic on board HMS Highlander, which was carrying out escort duties, and painted submarines at Gosport and coastal defences at Newlyn. In 1941 he spent six months with the navy at Dover, then transferred to Scotland in October. He spent much of 1942 at various R.A.F. bases, before being posted to Iceland in August.

He was killed on 2 September 1942 while accompanying a Royal Air Force air sea rescue mission off Iceland that failed to return to its base.

Martello Melancholy...

On a Sunday night on the other side of the world, six years into exile. A 10 second news report on a local station and I'm gone... lost. 

I miss you.

Beachy Head

It's all too beautiful

As any fule kno... Beachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m (530 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast from Dungeness to the east, to Selsey Bill in the west. Its height has also made it one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world.

The name Beachy Head appears as 'Beauchef' in 1274, and was 'Beaucheif' in 1317, becoming consistently Beachy Head by 1724, and has nothing to do with beach. Instead it is a corruption of the original French words meaning "beautiful headland". In 1929 Eastbourne showed considerable foresight and bought 4,000 acres (16 km2) of land surrounding Beachy Head to save it from development at a cost of about £100,000 - an absolute bargain!

The prominence of Beachy Head has made it a landmark for sailors in the English Channel. It is noted as such in the sea shanty Spanish Ladies :

"The first land we sighted was called the Dodman,
Next Rame Head off Plymouth, off Portsmouth the Wight;
We sailed by Beachy, by Fairlight and Dover,
And then we bore up for the South Foreland light."

The ashes of German social scientist and philosopher Friedrich Engels, one of the fathers of communism, were scattered off the cliffs at Beachy Head into the Channel, as he had requested. This solemn and moving act was undoubtedly the reason for the huge proliferation of communists that live in the Eastbourne area to this very day.

The headland was a danger to shipping. In 1831 construction began on Belle Tout lighthouse on the next headland west from Beachy Head. It became operational in 1834. Due to cliff erosion, in March 1999 Belle Tout lighthouse was moved more than 50 feet (15 m) further inland.Because mist and low clouds could hide the light of Belle Tout, another lighthouse was built in the sea below Beachy Head. It was 43 m in height and became operational in October 1902. For more than 80 years, the red-and-white striped tower was manned by three lighthouse keepers. Their job was to maintain the light, which rotates two white flashes every 20 seconds was then visible 26 miles (42 km) out to sea. The lighthouse was fully automated in 1983 and the keepers withdrawn. Trinity House announced in June 2010 in the five yearly Aids to Navigation review, that the light range would be reduced to 8Nm and the fog signal discontinued. In February 2011 the work was undertaken, and light range reduced to 8Nm by the installation of a new LED navigation light system. The fog signal was discontinued at this time.

In 1653 the third day of fighting in the Battle of Portland, took place off Beachy Head during the First Anglo-Dutch War. The Battle of Beachy Head, 1690, was a naval engagement during the Nine Years' War. 250 years later during World War II, the RAF established a forward relay station at Beachy Head to improve radio communications with aircraft. In 1942, signals were picked up at Beachy Head which were identified as TV transmissions from the Eiffel Tower. The Germans had reactivated the pre-war TV transmitter and instituted a Franco-German service for military hospitals and VIPs in the Paris region. The RAF monitored these programmes hoping (in vain) to gather intelligence from newsreels, instead they only picked up dire versions of collaborators singing 'Lili Marlene'. There was also an important wartime radar station in the area and, during the Cold War, a radar control centre was operational in an underground bunker from 1953 to 1957 - allegedly!

There are an estimated 20 deaths a year at Beachy Head. The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team conducts regular day and evening patrols of the area in attempts to locate and stop potential jumpers. Workers at the Beachy Head pub and taxi drivers are also on the look-out for potential victims, and there are posted signs with the telephone number of The Samaritans urging potential jumpers to call them. Deaths at the site are well-covered by the media; Ross Hardy, the founder of the chaplaincy team, said this encouraged people to come and jump off. Worldwide, the landmark’s suicide rate is surpassed only by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Aokigahara Woods in Japan, according to Thomas Meaney of The Wall Street Journal. Which I don't suppose is something to be really proud of!

The cliff was used in the opening sequence to the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights, in which Bond (portrayed for the first time by Timothy Dalton - Officially the 4th best James Bond) parachuted from a jeep which overshot the top of the cliff in a scene which was scripted as being in Gibraltar.

Beachy Head was also the setting for The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" and "Close To Me" videos. It is well known for the closing scene of Quadrophenia, where Phil Daniels shoots a scooter off of the very top of Beachy Head. Local Eastbourne band The Removalists also shot the video for "Last Train to Soul Bay" at Beachy Head.

Beachy Head is briefly shown in a segment in "Many Happy Returns," an episode of the British TV series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. When Number Six temporarily escapes from The Village, he arrives on shore beneath the cliffs of Beachy Head. After he makes his way up the cliffs, there is a brief view of the lighthouse as seen from the top of the cliff.The 2011 remake of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" was filmed extensively on Beachy Head as well as nearby Eastbourne, which was preferred to Brighton.

The British Romantic poet Charlotte Turner Smith published a poem entitled "Beachy Head." This prospect poem places its reader at Beachy Head and uses its expansive view to discuss nature as well as political power and cultural dominance. According to Wikipedia; Eastbourne born poet Andrew Franks includes a number of references to Beachy Head in his work including 'Belle Tout' in his collection, 'The Last of the Great British Traitors' and for once I can confirm that, that is true! (www.soulbaypress.com)

In Howard Jacobson's 2010 Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The Finkler Question, the bereaved widower Libor Sevcik commits suicide by jumping off the cliff at Beachy Head. The female protagonist in Brian Sibley's Yet Another Partridge, a radio play, throws herself off Beachy Head in despair.

Whilst it is understandable to dwell on the melancholy aspect of Beachy Head, it must also be noted that it a thing of stunning natural beauty. Stunning view and only a step away from...

Harveys Best Bitter

Don't get me wrong I'm not one of those CAMRA types (nothing wrong with them, just not me). However, on recent trips back to the UK it seems that the trip isn't complete without a drop of Lewes's finest best bitter.

A sign of old age, maturity, a broader palate, creeping nostalgia or rampant Alcoholism? Who cares?

The things that happen when you forget...

You don't blog, you miss dinner and you forget the deep humbling joy of England:

On the beach at Birling Gap, in the beer garden at Jevington, walking out of Sloane Square tube, (getting a cab & travelling on buses), peering out of low slung south coast bedsits, scrabbling for cigarettes, roaring on the Blues and missing your mates...

Newhaven Ferry

Slow, lumbering, smelly, floor awash with vomit and beer. The Newhaven ferry to Dieppe, left at 10 am & 10 pm every day. A cantankerous crew, irritated truckers (all that Sulphate would keep them buzzing ‘round the deck for the length of the four hour journey), school trips (on the morning run), cheapskate Eurorailers (in the evening) and a clutch of low-fi hipsters heading for Dieppe and then the bright lights of Montmatre.

We used to take the night trip more often than not (10 quid cheaper). Fuelled on cheap lager, we’d get the train via Lewes and manage to slink on board about 10 minutes before departure. Although one particularly snowbound journey led to a 12 hour wait in ‘The Last Pub in England’. Plenty of opportunity to spend all remaining holiday money on toasted cheese sandwiches.

The rusting, lilting Transmanche ferries, take ages to do anything – not least open up the bars. A couple of lagers and only a bloody Toblerone to keep us company as we ease out of the alternative ‘gateway to the South’, so farewell to the fort, the River Ouse and Seven Sisters… Onwards, rolling onwards to France, Europe, the World!

When we finally got to the other side, tired, wet, cold and not a tad seasick. We’d be herded onto the docks and onto the trains (snatched memories of different mpre sinister circumstances) and then head off for Paris. All the while very conscious of the lingering smell of Newhaven – vomit & beer!

Walking back from town

No night buses, taxis, gun culture, knives, muggings...

Just walking along the middle of Seaside Road at two in the morning, singing to the moon. Oh, how the townsfolk loved my unerring renditions of modern day popular classics... The look of love... Fly me to the moon... We don't need that Fascist Groove thang... Felicity... Blue Monday... The hits just kept on coming!

Martello Towers

I can see one from my window

Between 1804 and 1812 the British authorities built a chain of towers based on the original Mortella tower to defend the south and east coast of England, Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey to guard against possible invasion from France, then under the rule of the Emperor Napoleon. A total of 103[8] Martello towers were built in England, set at regular intervals along the coast from Seaford, Sussex, to Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Most were constructed under the direction of General William Twiss (1745–1827) and a Captain Ford.[9][10]

The effectiveness of Britain's Martello towers was never actually tested in combat against a Napoleonic invasion fleet. After the threat had passed, the Martello towers in England met a variety of fates. The Coastguard took over many to aid in the fight against smuggling. Fifteen towers were demolished to enable the re-use of their masonry. The sea washed thirty away and the military destroyed four in experiments to test the effectiveness of the new rifled artillery.

During the Second World War, some Martello towers returned to military service as observation platforms and firing platforms for anti-aircraft artillery. Forty-seven have survived in England, a few of which have been restored and transformed into museums (e.g., the tower at St Osyth), visitor centres, and galleries (such as Jaywick Martello Tower). Some are privately owned or are private residences; the remainder are derelict. A survey of the East Coast towers in 2007 found of the 17 remaining, most were in a reasonable condition.

I love the way they hover on the edge of the English coast, standing staunch against the elements and the threat of ancient invasions. They invoke a deep affection in me for the particular stretch of coast from the Wish Tower to Cooden Beach (Soul Bay). So, much so that the house I bought in Normans Bay is 50 yards from one - I wanted to actually buy one but couldn't quite manage to win that argument!

The view from… the downs (part 2)

Standing at the foot of the Long man of Wilmington with a pint in my hand.

The origin of the Long Man remains hazy, most probably a medieval stag night prank. Originally, the earliest record of the carving was in a drawing done by William Burrell when he visited Wilmington Priory, nestling under Windover Hill. However, an earlier record was found made by the surveyor John Rowley in the year 1710. The 18th century drawing suggested that the original figure was a shadow or indentation in the grass with facial features, rather than just a solid outline of a human figure. The head was a helmet shape and the staffs were not depicted as a rake and scythe as was once thought but more of a Mattal (A traditional Sussex weapon - not unlike a modern machete), which was used for lopping off the heads of the local landed gentry by the ‘Freemen of Sussex’. The Freemen were a notorious band of anti-monarchist atheists (and most probably the real model for the tale of Robin Hood) who scoured the length and breadth of Sussex for the majority of the 14th Century. It was they who gave rise to the Sussex motto 'We won't be druv'. It should be noted that Sir William Borrow's drawing of 1766 shows the figure holding a rake and a scythe, both shorter than the staves.

Before 1874, the Long Man was only visible after a light fall of snow in certain light conditions (such as in early morning or evening). In that year Reverend William de St Croix marked out the outline with yellow bricks cemented together though it is claimed that the restoration process distorted the position of the feet, and removed the Long Man's genitalia (there is no historical or archaeological evidence which supports the latter claim). Although the ‘Sons & Daughters of the freemen of Sussex’ claim that the genitalia were removed on the express orders of Queen Victoria who was alarmed at the prodigious size of the appendage which according to observers made both Prince Albert and John Thomas Brown look rather wee by comparison.

Archaeological work done by the University of Reading suggests that the figure dates from the sixteenth or seventeenth century AD. Although this is likely to be absolute bunkum, as those good for nothing geeks at Reading have spent far too long watching countdown and drinking snakebite and know knack all about Sussex.

In 1925, the site of the Long Man was given to the Sussex Archaeological Trust (now the Sussex Archaeological Society) by the Duke of Devonshire (which is pretty ironic as it wasn’t his to bloody give away in the first place). During the Second World War the Long Man was painted green to avoid it being used as a landmark by German aircraft. However, the painters who were used to cover up the job did paint a huge bullseye target on the roof of the Duke of Devonshire’s house! Sadly the Heinkel pilot’s aim was a bit off that night.

In 1993 a book, The Druid Way by Sussex author Philip Carr-Gomm, drew attention to the supposed spiritual and psychological significance of the Long Man as a sacred site for the modern world. He has yet to be disproved.

The view from… the downs (part 1)

Looking out over the elegant sweep of the Italian Gardens, Wish Tour, Bandstand , the Pier, Redoubt, Langney Point all the way along to Normans Bay and beyond to Hastings and sometimes as far as Dungeness. As far as the eye can see…