Open
Mornings
Saturday
14 May
10am-12 noon
Lancing Prep at Hove
The Droveway, Hove
East Sussex BN3 6LU
01273 503452
hove@lancing.org.uk
Registered Charity No. 1076483
Lancing College
Preparatory Schools
www.lancingcollege.co.uk
Lancing Prep at Worthing
Broadwater Road, Worthing
West Sussex BN14 8HU
01903 201123
worthing@lancing.org.uk
Registered Charity No. 1155150
vivabrighton
Issue 38. Apr 2016
editorial
...................................................................................
The theme of this issue is ‘home’, and most of the exploration we do
in #38 goes on within four walls: the interior of the Pavilion; the living
rooms of interior designers; the mind of an architect, and so on.
We call in the services of a decluttering agent, and a door-to-door
personal trainer.
If you’re lucky enough to have a home in this city, you have every
right to indulge yourself in working out how to make it as pleasant
an environment as possible, and we hope this issue will give you some ideas on that score.
But don’t forget the homeless: statistics suggest that there are an average of 41 people sleeping
rough on Brighton’s streets every night. And also – and this is another big local issue of
our times – those who can’t afford to live in the city they were brought up in, or work in,
because house prices and rents here are so high.
In #38, we also pay a visit to the homeless refugees in Calais, most of whom have been forced
out of their faraway countries by the ravages of war, who are desperate to get into the UK.
This is one of the big international issues of our time, and it’s happening on our doorstep; as
one aid worker put it: ‘once you see it, you can’t unsee it.’
Plenty to chew on, then. Remember that ‘home’ is a human right: we hope you’re reading this
magazine in a place you feel at home in. Enjoy the issue…
The Team
.....................
EDITOR: Alex Leith alex@vivamagazines.com
DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steve@vivamagazines.com
ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivamagazines.com
PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Rebecca Cunningham rebecca@vivamagazines.com
ADVERTISING: Anya Zervudachi anya@vivamagazines.com, Nick Metcalf nickmetcalf@vivamagazines.com,
Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com
PUBLISHER: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com
CONTRIBUTORS: Alexandra Loske, Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Bethany Hobbs, Ben Bailey, Chloë King, Di Coke, Jay Collins,
Jim Stephenson, JJ Waller, Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer, Lizzie Enfield, Martin Skelton, Nione Meakin and Suzanne Harrington
Viva is based at Brighton Junction, 1A Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ
For advertising enquiries call 07596 337 828. Other enquiries call 01273 810 259
Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our content. We cannot be held responsible for any omissions, errors or alterations.
GREAT
VALUE
©2016 Gullane (Thomas) Limited.
©2016 HIT Entertainment Limited.
At Alfriston just off the A27 near Eastbourne Call 01323 874100 www.drusillas.co.uk
contents
...............................
Bits and bobs.
8-25. Millicent Fawcett’s ‘bold and
dangerous’ speech, our folk-artloving
cover designer, JJ Waller in
Millionaire’s Row, plus the latest
competition corner, toilet graffito and
Joe Decie strip.
38
Photography.
27-30. Rob Orchard set out to photograph
every pub in Brighton, to find
out if there are really 365 of them.
Columns.
33-37. John Helmer walks competitively;
Amy Holtz fishes intrepidly;
Lizzie Enfield ignores sell-by dates,
studiously.
57
My Brighton.
38-39. Local architect Nick Lomax,
on his favourite buildings in
Brighton. And the i360.
In town this month.
41-53. Organs, DJ sets, wartime
watercolours, tattoos, protest
songs, and a careful recreation of
an Abbey Road session.
Art and design.
55-63. Becky Blair’s post-diagnosis
paintings and Maddy Wilson’s
dynamic lampshades. Plus flowers,
art supplies and self-employment
tips for creative types.
....5 ....
contents (cont)
...............................
The way we work.
65-71. Adam Bronkhorst photographs
five of Brighton’s interior designers, and
gets a look at their own homes.
95
Food and drink.
72-79. Brilliant food at the unambiguously
named Very Italian Pizza, wine
tasting via the intentionally misspelled
Tabl, and a Vietnamese Big Bowl.
67
Home.
80-85. We visit the Calais
refugee camp, talk to an interior
designer and declutter both
house and head.
Health.
87-91. A dedicated Albion away
fan, a home-delivery personaltraining
session, and a ‘bloody’
Brompton.
Property.
93-95. The lowdown on the
housing market with Paul
Bonett, and an eco beach house
on Shoreham Beach.
79
Inside left.
98. Saturday Afternoon, 1953, at
the Goldstone Ground.
....6 ....
this month’s cover artist
..................................................
This month’s cover is a vibrant, multi-layered
pattern extravaganza, courtesy of illustrator
Camilla Perkins. Camilla uses a combination of
hand-drawn elements to create her bold patterns,
which are then digitally manipulated to form the
final images. She says, “I tend to use acetate that I
have painted on and then scratched through with
a knife, so it creates a hand-printed texture but
in less time.”
The dolls’ house idea gave her four rooms worth
of wallpaper, carpets, furniture and flooring to
play with, plus a starry night sky, a hilly backdrop
and a visiting leopard… we’ll come back to
him. Her patterns are inspired by “old pieces of
clothing that I find in antique shops, or visiting
fabric shops like The Cloth House in London,”
and she’s especially drawn to African, Indian and
Scandinavian folk art.
Camilla has been chosen as one of this year’s Pick
Me Up selects, hand-picked by a panel of industry
experts to have her work showcased at the graphic
arts festival which opens at Somerset House on
the 21st. “I’m really excited to be in Pick Me Up
....8 ....
camilla perkins
..........................................
this year,” she says. “It gave me the perfect
excuse to work on a project that I
had wanted to do for years! It’s a combination
of primarily fashion-based
prints and original paintings portraying
various African subcultures.” She chose
to focus on African prints because, she
says, “I love the bright colours and organic
shapes. They have an amazing
ability to tell a story and to both look
modern and ancient at the same time.”
If you have a scroll through some of
Camilla’s work (camillaperkins.com)
you’ll notice what a diverse range of
subjects she illustrates: animals, people,
food, portraits, scenery… “I like to include
a bit of everything!” she says. “I
really enjoy fashion editorial-style portraits
with lots of bright clothing and
pattern, but I find it hard to know when
to stop. I think I’m becoming more and
more ambitious with how much I can fit
in the space!”
Exotic animals pop up frequently, and
sometimes in places they shouldn’t be,
like outside our dolls’ house. “I always
include animals in my work,” she says.
“They’re just another excuse to add pattern
really. I think subconsciously it was
inspired by all of the stories I heard as a
child of wild cats living on the Downs.”
After Pick Me Up she has a few projects
in the pipeline – nothing she can talk
about yet – but she does have plans for
a new personal project, she says: “Think
Indian drag queens…”
Interview by Rebecca Cunningham
camillaperkins.com
....9 ....
Brighton & Hove High
junior School gDST
THE
GOOD
SCHOOLS
GUIDE
Reg charity no 306983
Open Day
Early Years & Junior School Open Day with
a Victorian themed art competition on display
Saturday 14 th May, 9:30am-12 noon
Radinden Manor Road, Hove BN3 6NH | rsvp 01273 280200
juniorenquiries@bhhs.gdst.net | www.bhhs.gdst.net
please see our website for competition details
its and bobs
...............................
spread the word
on the buses #12
millicent fawcett (Route 12 & 25)
We’ve had some exotic locations in this column
before, but this one will be hard to beat. Darren
Arthur took his February Viva with him on a recent
trip to Sri Lanka, and snapped it on an air
taxi seaplane flight from Colombo to Dalawalla,
near the South Coast. “The views were amazing,”
he said, which goes without saying. Then…
“there were four other people on the flight… and
two of them got engaged during take off!” Now
that’s what we call romantic. We love getting
your pictures of Viva on tour, so if you’re off anywhere,
don’t forget to pack the latest issue, and
send your snaps to photos@vivamagazines.com.
Illustration by jonydaga.weebly.com
On March 23, 1870,
the 22-year-old Millicent
Fawcett gave
a speech at Brighton
Town Hall. Its title
was ‘On the electoral
disabilities of
women’, and it attracted so much interest that there
were, reportedly, ‘hundreds of persons failing to
gain admission’.
Holding such a meeting was ‘regarded as a most
terribly bold and dangerous thing’ around that
time, her biographer Ray Strachey noted. ‘Women
hardly ever spoke in public’. Her husband was MP
for Brighton, and ‘several members of his Election
Committee were aghast at the proposal, and
thought I should injure his prospects of re-election,’
Millicent later wrote.
‘She was perfectly aware that some persons would
think it was a strange and somewhat irregular proceeding,’
her husband told the audience. But she
eventually decided it could ‘help the cause in which
she takes such a deep interest.’
So, after apologising for ‘my total want of experience
as a lecturer’, she set out the 13 arguments
used against women having the vote, and deconstructed
their logic at length, one by one, receiving
‘loud and continued applause’ at the end. She had
been on the podium once before, but this was ‘my
first speech of any length in support of Women’s
Suffrage,’ she later wrote.
Millicent went on to become one of the key figures
in that movement, leading the non-militant Suffragists
for many years. She lived long enough to see
women given equal voting rights, almost 60 years
after her first speech on the subject. She died in
1929. Steve Ramsey
....11....
its and bobs
...............................
jj waller’s brighton
“Millionaire’s Row is as close to a real life Stella Street as it gets,” writes JJ Waller,
who’s been down Hove way, and found that it’s not all a bed of roses in the back
garden of the rich and famous. More cans and cones, in fact. This playful shot
offers, he proffers, “a cheeky glimpse ‘behind the scenes’.”
....13....
its and bobs
...............................
di coke’s competition corner
This month our practical competition prize
is a lovely spring cleaning bundle from Bert’s
Homestore. To enter this month’s challenge,
show us a treasured item in your own home.
Share a photo along with a brief description
on Twitter, Instagram or the Viva Brighton
Facebook page using the #VivaBrightonComp
hashtag. Alternatively, email your entry to
competitions@vivamagazines.com before 30th
April 2016. The most charming or unusual item
will feature in the June issue and its owner will
win a bundle of cleaning equipment, including
a feather duster, cloths, brushes and a utensils
tin. Terms and conditions can be found at
vivabrighton.com/competitions.
Established in 2005, Bert’s has created a unique
retail experience combining all kinds of fabulous
things to kit out your home. Selling a vibrant and
inspired mix of cookware, home accessories, gifts
and retro toys, Bert’s are committed to sourcing
exciting products from both the UK and across
the globe. Visit Bert’s Homestore in Kensington
Gardens, Western Road and George Street - and
find them tweeting from @BertsHomestore.
competition winner
In the February issue we asked readers to share
their signature dish. Our winner Anna Birch shared
a photograph of her Southern Italian Spaghetti
Carbonara. “Cook pancetta, pine nuts and sultanas gently
in a good amount of olive oil. Cook and drain the spaghetti,
then put back into the saucepan. Add a beaten egg, then stir
to coat the spaghetti with the egg, which will cook with the
heat of the pan. Finally, stir through the pancetta, pine nuts
and sultanas. Being Italian I never weigh the ingredients, I
tend to just throw it all in!”
Anna wins dinner for two from Al Duomo, delivered
by Dinner2go.
Di Coke is very probably the UK’s foremost ‘comper’, having won over £250,000-worth of prizes. For winning
tips and creative competitions, check out her blog at superlucky.me and SuperLucky Secrets book.
....14....
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Brighton BN2 6DX
01273 624 488
nuffieldhealth.com/hospitals/brighton
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+ Health Checks + Physio + Gyms
Joe decie
...............................
....17....
匀 栀 愀 爀 攀 礀 漀 甀 爀 栀 漀 洀 攀 Ⰰ
䔀 一 刀 䤀 䌀 䠀 䄀 䰀 䤀 䘀 䔀 ⸀⸀⸀
⸀⸀⸀ 戀 攀 挀 漀 洀 攀 愀 匀 栀 愀 爀 攀 搀 䰀 椀 瘀 攀 猀 䌀 愀 爀 攀 爀
䐀 伀 夀 伀 唀 䠀 䄀 嘀 䔀 吀 䠀 䔀 匀 倀 䄀 䌀 䔀 䄀 一 䐀 吀 䠀 䔀
䌀 伀 䴀 䴀 䤀 吀 䴀 䔀 一 吀 吀 伀 匀 䠀 䄀 刀 䔀 夀 伀 唀 刀 䰀 䤀 䘀 䔀 圀 䤀 吀 䠀
䄀 一 䄀 䐀 唀 䰀 吀 圀 䠀 伀 一 䔀 䔀 䐀 匀 䔀 堀 吀 刀 䄀 匀 唀 倀 倀 伀 刀 吀 㼀
䤀 昀 礀 漀 甀 挀 愀 渀 猀 甀 瀀 瀀 漀 爀 琀 猀 漀 洀 攀 漀 渀 攀 琀 漀 洀 愀 欀 攀 挀 栀 漀 椀 挀 攀 猀 Ⰰ
氀 攀 愀 搀 愀 洀 攀 愀 渀 椀 渀 最 昀 甀 氀 氀 椀 昀 攀 愀 渀 搀 搀 攀 瘀 攀 氀 漀 瀀 琀 栀 攀 椀 爀
椀 渀 搀 攀 瀀 攀 渀 搀 攀 渀 挀 攀 Ⰰ 琀 栀 攀 渀 礀 漀 甀 挀 漀 甀 氀 搀 戀 攀 愀 匀 栀 愀 爀 攀 搀
䰀 椀 瘀 攀 猀 䌀 愀 爀 攀 爀 ⸀
夀 漀 甀 ᤠ 氀 氀 爀 攀 挀 攀 椀 瘀 攀 琀 爀 愀 椀 渀 椀 渀 最 Ⰰ 猀 甀 瀀 瀀 漀 爀 琀 愀 渀 搀 瀀 愀 礀 洀 攀 渀 琀
眀 栀 椀 挀 栀 眀 椀 氀 氀 挀 漀 瘀 攀 爀 礀 漀 甀 爀 攀 砀 瀀 攀 渀 猀 攀 猀 愀 渀 搀 瀀 爀 漀 瘀 椀 搀 攀
礀 漀 甀 眀 椀 琀 栀 愀 渀 椀 渀 挀 漀 洀 攀 ⸀
倀 䰀 䔀 䄀 匀 䔀 䌀 䄀 䰀 䰀 ⼀ 䔀 䴀 䄀 䤀 䰀 唀 匀 伀 刀 嘀 䤀 匀 䤀 吀 伀 唀 刀 圀 䔀 䈀 匀 䤀 吀 䔀 㨀
䌀 愀 氀 氀 㨀 ㈀ 㜀 アパート ㈀ 㤀 アパート
猀 栀 愀 爀 攀 搀 氀 椀 瘀 攀 猀 䀀 最 爀 愀 挀 攀 ⴀ 攀 礀 爀 攀 ⸀ 漀 爀 最
眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 最 爀 愀 挀 攀 ⴀ 攀 礀 爀 攀 ⸀ 漀 爀 最
its and bobs
...............................
Pub: the round georges
The demographic of Craven Vale,
the council estate on the hill rising
up to the Racecourse, is rather
different from that of neighbouring
Baker’s Bottom, the network
of Victorian and Edwardian streets
surrounding Brighton College.
I’m guessing that when Punch
Taverns took over the Sutherland
Arms, back in 2005, and decided to
rebrand the place as ‘The Round
Georges’, a wine bar, they were
aiming to attract more customers
from the latter area, where fourbedroom
houses go for north of
five hundred grand, and fewer from
the former. But that isn’t quite what
has happened.
I’ve just moved into a house next
door to the Georges: I’ve never
had a more local local. And it hasn’t
taken me long to realise that the
two managers of the pub (Katie and
Stuart, who’ve been there six years)
have done a pretty good job of making
it a place that appeals to both
sets of neighbours (the wine bar
incarnation was short lived).
They do a wide range of decent
food, but there’s no sense that this
is in any way interfering with the
proper business of the place, which
is drinking, and chatting. They
have a television which shows all
the big televised football and rugby
matches, and another, smaller one
in the more modern wing of the
pub. There’s live music at the week-
end, often of an offbeat nature: in February the Jam Tarts (all
70 of them) performed. Prices are decent, the beer is well kept.
The result? A proper boozer, serving a wide range of people.
The pub was purpose built in 1878, to serve the newly laid out
Sutherland Road, and adjoining streets. Until the fifties, the
area north of the pub was an extensive system of allotments:
you can imagine the holders enjoying a well-deserved pint after
a hard morning with the spuds. Extensive internet research on
my part has found out little more than that in the 40s they used
to sell a decent arrowroot biscuit there. In the 80s and 90s the
Arms had a really bad reputation as being a ‘rough’ pub: it was
closed down for 18 months before its latest reincarnation, and
name change.
Is it good or bad to have such a great boozer next door? I guess
it’s all about moderation. The term ‘public house’ has never
rung more true: I reckon it’s going to start to feel like an extension
to the living room. Alex Leith, painting by Jay Collins
Painting by Jay Collins
....19....
its and bobs
...............................
Secrets of the pavilion:
All that glitters is not gold: Silvering in the Royal Pavilion
As we have seen in previous issues of Viva
Brighton, George IV embraced the use of new and
expensive pigments in the Royal Pavilion, creating
sumptuous and exotic colour schemes. He embellished
these with the lavish use of gold and silver
- not just in the form of tableware and precious
metal objects, but as a surface finish in general.
While gilding (the application of gold leaf to
surfaces) was relatively common, the use of silver
leaf applied to wall decorations such as printed
or stencilled wallpaper, cornices and mouldings
or as a wood finish is very rare in historic
interiors. The simple reason for this is that silver
tarnishes quickly and can’t easily be polished or
repaired. We see it in the Pavilion as a shimmering
background, often interpreted as mother-of
-pearl by contemporaries, of Robert Jones’ large
Chinoiserie paintings in the Banqueting Room, on
the many silvered bells hanging from the canopies
in the same room, and even on the large dragon
which appears to be holding the chandelier. Like
the bells, this dragon was carved from wood, then
silvered and eventually glazed with one or more
layers of translucent paint.
Silvered and glazed carved ornaments are also
present in the Music Room, designed by John
and Frederick Crace. The best impression of the
unusual effect of this use of silver can be seen in
the dragons and snakes on the west wall by the
windows, where a fire in the 1970s destroyed the
original carvings, and the ornamental figures had
to be re-created. We might have lost the original
creatures, but we have gained the vision of how
they would have shimmered shortly after the room
was finished in 1823.
Silver is also a major design element in the
1822/23 scheme for the Saloon, which is currently
being restored. Here, Robert Jones designed not
only a wallpaper stencilled with silver leaf but
he also part-silvered the cornices and mouldings,
often using silver and gold leaf on the same
ornamental feature. This remarkable combination
of gold and silver on wood or plaster, together
with the silvered wallpaper and part-silvered
furniture, would have made the room appear much
The silver background of one of Robert Jones’ paintings (above) and the dragon (below) in the Banqueting Room
© Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
....20....
its and bobs
...............................
Silvered wallpaper in the Saloon
© Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
brighter than previously thought. The original
silver wallpaper from 1822 tarnished rapidly, as
did a reproduction installed in the early twentieth
century. The picture above shows parts of original
wallpaper which survived behind the doorframe,
the equally blackened 20th-century replacement
and a sample of the proposed replacement in the
current restoration scheme.
There are a number of 18th-century examples of
silvered interiors in continental Europe, but they
are extremely rare in Britain. In no other British
interior from the early-19th-century was silver
used so lavishly on ornamental features and wall
decorations. There is only one building where
silver is used boldly and playfully on a similar
scale: the Chinese Drawing Room at Temple
Newsam in Leeds. The silver decorations there
are slightly later than those in the Royal Pavilion,
but there is a direct connection between these two
interiors, which might partly explain the similarities:
George IV, when Prince of Wales, gave
several rolls of Chinese wallpaper to Lady Irwin of
Temple Newsam in 1806. Years later the wallpaper
was used by Lady Irwin’s daughter, Lady Hertford,
with whom George had an affair. She began
redecorating the Chinese Drawing Room in 1822,
incorporating the Chinese wallpaper and later
using silver lavishly on the cornices and borders
of the wall panels. It is likely that Lady Hertford
was inspired by either the recent silvered decorations
at the Royal Pavilion (even if she had only
heard of them) or by earlier silvered elements in
the Circular Room of George’s London residence
Carlton House, where the walls were “entirely
covered with silver, on which are painted Etruscan
ornaments in relief, with vine-leaves, trellis work.”
Alexandra Loske, Art Historian and Curator, The
Royal Pavilion
Alexandra Loske will give a talk about silver at the
Music Room of the Royal Pavilion on 14 April 2016
at 12pm. Free with admission.
brightonmuseums.org.uk
Silvered bell with red glazing from the Banqueting Room
© Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
....21....
experience the extraordinary
at the Royal Pavilion
Become a member and help to conserve the Royal Pavilion, and also contribute
to our exhibitions and education programmes, bringing the very best of art and
culture to Brighton & Hove.
Membership from as little as £20 will give you:
• FREE entry to the Royal Pavilion & Museums
• Invitations to Private Views and a regular Newsletter
• Exclusive events programme
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• A FREE after hours tour of the Royal Pavilion!
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visit pavilionfoundation.org
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its and bobs
...............................
magazine of thE month: human being
‘Home’ is a state of mind rather
than a place, I think. I remember
an incident in Carlos Castenada’s
books in which the protagonist
is taught by Don Juan, the Yaqui
[Native American tribe] man of
knowledge. One evening, after
the ingestion of many substances
and crawling around the floor of
a small wooden shack, Don Juan
tells him he will find home in one
small space where he will feel at
ease. And he does.
We have lots of mags about houses and decoration
and they are all lovely. We’ve used them for
inspiration in our own house. But however nice the
spaces are that we create, they don’t guarantee the
feeling of ‘home’. This month, we started to stock a
magazine new to us. Human Being comes from the
States. We all liked it from the moment it arrived
and on the day I’m writing this review, people have
come into the shop, picked it up and said ‘Oh, this
feels good.’
Human Being feels like ‘home’.
It’s challenging but comfortable,
varied but coherent, and lovely
to hold. It’s also about the kind of
things that feel like home. Yes, it’s
about fashion, architecture, design,
shops and crafts like so many
other mags. But Human Being
delivers by being very… human.
As its editorial says ‘There is no
longer wisdom in isolationism.’
So the interviews with writers,
artists, illustrators and others
show the real person and not the pre-written press
release person; the shops and homes feel like places
we might actually like being in and the workplaces
feel like we might want to work there. They have
names like Commune and Neighbourhood.
It’s difficult to say exactly what home is and it’s difficult
to say why this beautifully produced magazine
is as good as it is. But everyone seems to like
it and feel at home with it. That will do, won’t it?
Martin Skelton, Magazine Brighton, Trafalgar Street
pechakucha night, may 25
We first got involved with PechaKucha in May last year, and Viva
members are still part of the team, led by the graphic artist Woody,
putting together the quarterly event. PechaKucha has been nomadic
under our tenure, holding nights at the Velo Café, the Yellowave
Clubhouse, Silo and the Nightingale Room at Grand Central. The
latter venue proved so perfect for the format – a range of speakers
using the 20x20 format (20 images, each automatically showing for just
20 seconds) – that we’re staying put there, at least for next edition. The
theme of that edition, on Wednesday May 25th, will be ‘Getting Around’; as we go
to press we haven’t got our final line-up, but in the mix is an architect, a drag artist and travel photographer.
In all there will be ten presenters. The last four shows have all been sell-outs, so if you’re interested book
now at pechakucha.org/cities/brighton.
....23....
Good luck
and thank you…
…to all our fabulous runners taking part in the
Brighton Marathon and BM10k, raising vital funds
and awareness for Chestnut Tree House,
the children’s hospice for East and
West Sussex.
Join Team Chestnut
If you already have your own place in the 2016 Brighton
Marathon or BM10k, it’s not too late to join our team!
As part of Team Chestnut you’ll receive:
• Running vest
• Fundraising pack
• Amazing support from our cheer teams
• Post-race reception
• Facebook support group
Get involved
There are lots of
other ways that you
can support Chestnut
Tree House. Why not
volunteer, fundraise, visit
our shops, donate, or play
our lottery?
Find out more today
01903 706355
events@chestnut-tree-house.org.uk
www.chestnut-tree-house.org.uk
Registered charity no 256789
its and bobs
...............................
charity box #1: chestnut tree house
Name: Chestnut Tree House children’s
hospice.
Age: 13!
What does the charity do? We
provide specialist care to children
with life-shortening conditions
and support for their families, both
at the hospice and families’ own
homes across Sussex.
Why was it opened? Originally
the Chestnut Tree Trust was set
up to support the local palliative-care network; the
Trust and St Barnabas hospice for adults worked
together to provide similar care for children as well.
What ages can come? Newborn up to 19 years.
What’s done to take pressure off the parents?
We provide a homely environment, where parents
can play with their children in the play area, or have
a rest, leaving the child in the care of a nurse.
What facilities are available? There’s a hydrotherapy
pool with a ceiling made using NASA
technology, meaning it won’t collect
condensation, so the room doesn’t become
damp and slippery. We also have
a multi-sensory room, music room
and beautiful gardens where children
and families can enjoy a break and
spend some precious time together.
How busy are you? Each year we
help 300+ families across Sussex.
How much does it cost to provide
the care you do? £3.5 million a year;
we don’t charge for our care and rely almost entirely
on fundraising, as less than 7% of our costs
are covered by government funding.
How can people get involved? By fundraising, donating,
taking part in one of our hospice events, visiting
our charity shops, taking on one of our challenges,
volunteering or playing our weekly lottery.
Thank you to everyone who is involved in helping
Chestnut Tree House in any way – your support really
does make a difference! Bethany Hobbs
charleston centenary competition
Charleston farmhouse by Vanessa Bell
2016 marks the centenary of Bloomsbury in Sussex, and you can win two
tickets to join the celebrations on the 20th of May at 12pm, with literary
luminaries such as Claire Tomalin, Carmen Callil, Christopher Hampton.
and Virginia Nicholson.
E-mail hello@vivamagazines.com or tweet #Charleston100 @VivaLewes by midday
on the 1st May. The winner will be drawn from a (suitably bohemian) hat. See our
website for T&Cs.
toilet graffito #15
Sing it, sista. There’s no doubt that some of the best bands are girl
bands (The Bangles, Wilson Phillips, Banarama, The Slits, and... er...
The Nolan Sisters) so this toilet truism goes out to all our home girls.
But where is it and, more importantly, who wrote it? We like to think it
was Beyonce. Last month’s answer: The Hope & Ruin
....25....
chrismas
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solicitors
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“Patient”
Beverley Ogden
Meet Our
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Marrianne Allen
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Charlotte Saunders
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Long established Local Solicitors with knowledge of Local Properties
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Buying, Selling, Remortgaging
Call us for a quote or to discuss your transaction to see how we can be of
assistance.
We can also advise you on making or reviewing your Will, Lasting Power of
Attorney or on Probate or Estate Administration matters
Chrismas Ogden Solicitors Limited, Howard Cottage, Broomans Lane, Lewes,
East Sussex, BN7 2LT.
Web www.chrismasogden.co.uk Telephone 01273 474159 Fax 01273 477 693
Email enquiries@chrismasogden.co.uk
Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm
photography
..........................................
Rob Orchard
Photographic pub crawler
The pub, our home away
from home. In 2011 one
man set out to investigate
the statistic that Brighton
has one pub for every day of
the year; what he discovered
through his photographs was
an ever-changing series of
establishments that embody
so much of what Brighton
is about. We spoke to Rob
Orchard…
What spurred you to
start your documentation?
When I first moved to
Brighton in the early nineties
someone told me that there
was a pub for every day of the
year, and ever since I wondered if it was true or
not. Fast forward to the start of 2011 and I bought
myself a second hand Olympus Trip on eBay. The
first thing you do when you buy a second-hand
camera is run a film through it to make sure it’s
working properly, so I needed something that
there were at least 24 of that were fairly accessible,
and that’s where the pubs came in.
Was there a lot of research involved, or was it a
case of going out on foot and discovering new
places? There was an awful lot of research - One
of the first things I found was that there wasn’t a
definitive list of pubs online. There were websites
which had a lot of omissions and not even Google
Maps was a reliable source, so I took a lot of the
overlapping information and made myself a big
spreadsheet where I could record not only the
name and address but also previous names and if
I’d taken a photo of the pub
already. It was very satisfying
to see it filling up, and to
make a plan for which pubs
I’d visit next. Then at the
weekends I’d head out on
my bike with my list and
my camera and try and see
if there were ones that I’d
missed. The biggest surprise
was how many I knew about
before I put the list together.
Maybe that’s not actually
something to boast about!
It’s amazing to see how
many of the pubs you shot
have already closed or
changed names. It seems
like you could almost start again in a couple
of years? I reckon there are at least 50 that have
changed since I finished the project in 2012, from
a fresh lick of paint all the way up to a complete
refurbishment and name change, so things are
definitely ripe for revisiting. Craft beer’s definitely
making its mark on Brighton now, and it’s good
that some will be saved thanks to being designated
as an Asset of Community Value. Brighton always
changes, that’s part of the reason I love it, so
maybe I’ll do a tenth-anniversary edition.
Finally, what’s your favourite home away from
home? Without hesitation, The Basketmakers
Arms. I’ve even got my own glass behind the bar.
Rob was speaking to Jim Stephenson of Miniclick.
Posters of all the pubs are available from Rob.
flickr.com/rob_orchard
miniclick.co.uk
....27....
photography
...............................
....28....
photography
...............................
....29....
photography
...............................
....30....
VALUATION DAY
Jewellery and Watches
Thursday 21 April
10.00am to 4.00pm
Bonhams jewellery specialist will be in the Brighton and Hove
offi ce to off er free and confi dential advice on items you may
be considering selling at auction.
APPOINTMENTS
AND ENQUIRIES
01273 220000
hove@bonhams.com
Bonhams
19 Palmeira Square
Hove BN32JN
bonhams.com/hove
For all your
Denture needs
www.thedentureclinicltd.co.uk
Please call for a
complimentary consultation
CLINICS AT:
Hove
TwentyOneDental
01273 202102
Brighton
MDS Dental Care
01273 553317
Preston Park
Emergency Repairs
01273 330808
Andrew J Evans CDT RCS (Eng) GDC No:146040 Graeme J Newton CDT RCS (Eng) GDC No:152939
TDC 128x94 Advert Viva Brighton AW.indd 1 22/01/2016 16:41
Quality Country Furniture
for your Home & Garden
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01273 814317
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The Old Forge, Lewes Road, Ringmer BN8 5NB
column
...........................................
John Helmer
Quantified
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
Kate looks me up and down. “Are you going
for a run?”
“No, I just think this track-pants-and-woollyhat
thing is a good look for me. I’m going to
start wearing it to meetings.”
Outside, the cars are rimmed with frost.
I stagger down the hill to the park and
complete a half-circuit before the screaming
pain in my lungs causes me to slow to a walk.
An eye-watering gust of icy dawn air has me
reaching for my handkerchief just as a mother
comes towards me with her pre-school infant.
“Mummy, why is that old man crying?” says
the child.
I walk back up the hill and boil myself an egg.
“How many steps?” says Kate.
I consult my wrist. “I’m going to
have to go for a walk later”.
I ran all the way round that bloody
park, and the Fitbit only gave me
three-thousand-nine-hundred
poxy steps. This will leave me
seriously short of the 10,000
recommended by the American
Heart Association as my daily
quota, a number Kate seems to
cruise past with revolting ease
every day.
Kate and I both have Fitbits
(other brands of torture device
are available), and of course they
now rule our lives – especially
as she is so competitive about the
whole thing. Just because she is a
florist and has a blue-collar job,
rather than having to sit at a desk all day and
bang out tosh like this.
Later, I am sat in my study banging out tosh
like this and contemplating with gloom a
comparison of our weekly Fitbit stats (all
badges and smileycons for her, patronising
encouragement for me) when the 12 year old
comes in. Regarding me with a look of doeeyed
adoration she wraps her arms around my
neck and sits on my knee.
“How much this time?”
“I need to get some flour to bake brownies,
and sweets for Lola’s birthday tomorrow...”
She names a sum every bit as eye-watering as
the gust that had me blubbing in the park.
“I will give you the money on one condition.”
At dinner that night, she tells the rest of the
family about the evil bargain I have offered,
and which she loudly rejected: “he tried
to bribe me to wear his Fitbit round the
shops so he could get more steps and beat
Mummy!”
“That’s disgusting, Dad! It’s like the way you
buy your followers on Twitter.”
“I don’t buy my followers on Twitter: I have
simply automated some of my processes
and pay a small monthly fee to license the
software that—”
“—Buys you followers.”
From the corner of my eye I notice Kate
checking her Fitbit. “What?” I say, a bit
tetchily.
“Fourteen thousand, four hundred and
eighteen.”
“Just fuck off.”
....33....
column
...........................................
Amy Holtz
The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan
On the road, in Minnesota,
in Casey’s General
Store, my father-in-law
(Brighton through and
through) puts a cup that
holds 32 ounces of hot
liquid below each of the
coffee dispensers for
about 30 seconds each.
“Look at this - toffee,
hazelnut, French vanilla.
Fantastic!” He dubs his
creation a ‘Mochachacha’,
to the bemusement of the lady at the till.
Up north, in the wilderness, at Walmart, my
partner visits the hunting section while my
father-in-law does a recce of every section like
it’s Disney World. I ask the salesperson where
the Twinkies are while gauging the magnitude
of my accent. Since getting off the plane, it’s
veering from Martin Freeman towards Frances
McDormand. I stack several boxes under my
arms - no one judges here.
In Aisle 13, my partner picks out a sturdy fishing
rod, in a whimsical red, and turns to choose
the line that will haul up the unlucky fish. He
lingers near the ones thick as rope.
“30lb line?” my dad says. It’s his diplomatic
voice but we’re all thinking the same thing. So I
just say it. “Whaddya think you’re gonna catch
in the lake - Moby Dick?” My father-in-law
joins us with some beef jerky, a box of Junior
Mints and a hat with an eagle on it.
Out on the boat, my partner hasn’t caught anything
larger than a mouthful. This doesn’t stop
him from crafting the next
headline in the Park Rapids
Enterprise: ‘Skilled angler
from Brighton, England,
snags huge, menacing monster
in Third Crow Wing
Lake.’ FIL offers whiskey, a
purchase he’s proud of, despite
its previous residence
in a suspect liquor store in
Akeley: bottom shelf. Ancient
Age bourbon comes in
a plastic bottle, wears a coat
of dust - a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My partner is tutting. If he doesn’t catch
anything, he’ll remind me that he’s missing
two, maybe three Albion games for this. When
he’s away from home, it’s this that hurts the
most. When Zamora returned to the fold, he
and his father shared man-hugs and sporadic
dewy-eyed reflections of past goals - touching
stuff. But he’s in my neck of the woods now; I
demonstrate this by pulling up my own huge,
menacing monster.
The sun is nearly down, and some nimrods have
parked their boat nearby, with a soundtrack of
hip-hop. My dad tuts. My partner tuts. My father-in-law
tuts. I pretend not to hear and sing
along under my breath; it’s a sunfish, not a lake
monster. He looks happy, unlike my partner,
and I have second thoughts about eating him.
“Better keep him,” my dad says, starting up the
motor. “Or we’ll go hungry.” He turns to the
wheel but I think I hear him muttering “30lb
line.”
....35....
column
.............................
Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
“Is that vintage?” my 16 year old asks, using the term
with which she refers to anything over a year old.
Shopkeepers in Brighton have made a fortune out
of her willingness to pay over the odds for anything
in retro packaging with a whiff of another era.
At home, it’s a different matter when it comes to a
jar of cinnamon I am about to use.
“The Sainsbury’s logo isn’t like that any more,”
daughter points at the lettering. She is right; the
supermarket has rebranded itself since I bought it.
“What is the sell-by date?” she eyes me suspiciously.
It is 1994, but I withhold this information. Sell-by
dates are a source of contention in our home.
I have reached an age when I can no longer read
them without glasses, so I don’t. She is at an age
when any slight aberration from the norm is deeply
humiliating and a mother who keeps food past
its sell-by date is a total outrage.
“They’re only guidelines,” I say. “If the food still
looks all right it doesn’t matter.”
I remind her that when my parents-freezer broke
in the great storm of ’87, we found (and ate) meat
that had been there since ’79. Nobody died.
“Sell-by dates were invented by supermarkets to
make you throw away good food and buy more.
Apparently they stockpile spices for years in Asia,
before they get anywhere near a Sainsbury’s jar.”
A friend who runs a restaurant told me this, so I
think there is probably some truth in it.
“I had a friend who was in India and, sick with
hepatitis and craving something western, bought a
bag of crisps from a kiosk – 20 years past their sell
by date. She was fine.”
“Gross!” Daughter is now opening the fridge.
“Everything in this house is old and mouldy.”
She takes the lid off a packet of soft cheese. There
is a tiny bit of mould on top. It could be worse:
one of our neighbors told her son to eat the “burnt
bits” of his porridge, without fussing, only later to
find they were mouse droppings.
“You can scrape that off,” I tell her. “Is it for your
packed lunch?”
“Yes, but I don’t eat mouldy food,” she says, moving
through the contents of the fridge. “Or fizzy
yoghurt.”
The young are always so principled when it comes
to food.
“And I need to take something for the homeless
assembly. It has to be tinned.”
“Tinned food lasts for ever,” my husband pipes up,
as daughter begins scouring the cupboards.
“Do you remember the tin in your aunt’s house
from 1955? It was the same age as me, but there
was nothing wrong with it.”
“Uggh,” daughter looks at us both and I’m not sure
if she’s referring to the food or her parents when
she says: “Everything in this house is so past its
sell-by date.”
....37....
Photo of Nick in his library at home, by Adam Bronkhorst
....38....
interview
..........................................
mybrighton: Nick Lomax
LCE director; involved in the design of the Jubilee Library
Are you local? I was born in British Home Stores
in Churchill Square. At least in the space where it
is now: my parents lived in Grenville Place in the
network of houses that were knocked down to build
the shopping complex. We were there until I was
five, then we moved to Hurstpierpoint.
Why and when did you come back? In 1986. It
was for practical reasons, as both sets of my children’s
grandparents lived in Sussex. And Brighton
is on the end of the train line, and I was commuting
to London at the time. That meant getting a seat on
the way up, and not running the chance of falling
asleep and missing the stop on the way back.
Do you think Brighton has changed much since
then? You know what, I don’t think it has. Not in
the way that serious cities with more ambition have,
like Liverpool, and Manchester, and Glasgow. We
lack ambition here.
When you say ‘we’… I don’t just mean the
Council. Many of the people here, too. People think
of Brighton as a pretty cool, trendy sort of place,
but a surprisingly large proportion of the population
are [small c] conservative. There are a lot of
nimbies. The whole of the UK is obsessed with old
buildings, actually. I don’t see why old and new can’t
sit together. They make that happen pretty much
everywhere else in Europe.
Which Brighton buildings do you admire? I like
the variety and contrasts... the traditional and the
trendy, the Lanes and North Laine, the cathedrallike
St Bartholomew’s and the village-like parish
church of St Nicholas. I like the scale of the architecture
in the Regency Squares, and the scale of the
engineering like the railway station, the viaduct and
the Madeira Drive arches.
Anything post-war? The Basil Spence buildings
in the University of Sussex; Brighton College additions
by Eric Parry, Allies & Morrison and Rem
Koolhaas.
What do you think of the i360? I was quite opposed
to it, mainly because I wasn’t sure of its business
plan. Now it’s been built, let’s hope it works…
let’s make it work.
When did you last swim in the sea? In Brighton?
About 50 years ago. For me the sea is about the
ever-changing light and colour; no two days does it
look the same. I love looking at it, but that doesn’t
mean I want to get into it. I keep fit by cycling
around on my Brompton. I don’t even need a lock
for it, because it folds up and goes wherever I go.
Can you recommend us a good restaurant? Le
Nantais does good traditional French food. I like
the Ginger Man, and Plateau. And Terre à Terre and
Food for Friends are brilliant vegetarian restaurants.
Are you a pub man? No, I’m not. But my daughter
has recently introduced me to the joys of gin, and
The Office in Sydney Street has a great selection.
What is the city lacking? A new art gallery, on top
of what we already have. We need a philanthropist
to leave us a collection and the money to build the
gallery. And a local council that would support it.
More generally, we need to improve the standard
of debate here. New ideas tend to get shot down
without being properly discussed.
Where would you live, if not Brighton? I can’t
think of anywhere else I’d like to live in the Englishspeaking
world. I admire cities like Barcelona and
Lisbon, but I wouldn’t like to live anywhere I didn’t
speak the language… and I’m not a linguist.
Interview by Alex Leith
....39....
local musicians
..........................................
Chris T-T
Protest singer, inter alia
Chris T-T is an indie rocker, a writer, radio DJ
and protest singer. He’s playing this month at the
99% Festival – a two-day mix of music and talks
organised by the People’s Assembly to tie in with
the national anti-austerity demo on April 16th. We
asked him about the overlap of politics and music.
Has your music moved away from indie rock
towards a more folky sound over time? Yeah to
an extent, though I still juggle the two. The Bear
album two years ago was pure alt-rock, with a deliberately
1990s sound, so I still adore that music.
But I probably most yearn to be accepted under
the ‘folk’ umbrella if only because that allows a
lifelong gigging career, which was what I always
wanted to do.
Tell us about the new album you’ve been
working on… It’s called 9 Green Songs and it’s
out 3rd June. It’s my 10th solo record and my
fourth album with Xtra Mile Recordings. It’s
kind of a bleak, sarcastic ecology record, although
it does veer into straightforward protest and I
think it’s my most radical collection of songs for
a long while. I walked into the studio with what I
thought were folk-protest songs – but they turned
out more varied, intense and alternative than I’d
planned. Alt-rock, punk-folk, spoken word and
piano ballads.
Do you think marches are still a useful way to
protest? I’ll be marching on the 16th – but I’m
growing ever more skeptical of the value of polite,
well-stewarded British protest marches. They feel
like a pressure valve. Social media activism often
feels the same, although online campaigns to do
a specific positive good (like Arts Emergency) are
fantastic. When it doesn’t physically hurt people,
I’m more impressed and moved by moments of
smart, transgressive direct action (and disheartened
by the lack of it right now).
Has ‘protest music’ made a resurgence in
recent years? Well, clearly, art is no longer the
delivery device for the counter-culture as it was
in the 20th century. Today, that counter-culture is
delivered entirely via web coding. But that’s got
nothing to do with actual protest music, which
in my opinion is in the middle of an incredible
renaissance and is everywhere, including at the top
of the charts.
You performed solo at the Theatre Royal’s
Green Party fundraiser last year – how was it
for you? That was a fun, chaotic night, I loved it
but more for the atmosphere. I love being with
comedians backstage – they’re the best to hang
out with for showbiz gossip and disgusting stories,
far better than musicians, who mainly talk about
guitar pedals and lawyers.
Are you an activist who makes music or a
musician who sometimes sings about politics?
Absolutely, without hesitation, a music maker who
sings about politics. Even when the material is
overtly ‘political’, my approach is too pessimistic
and self-questioning to be ideal for simple rabble
rousing. I’m not on-message – my heart isn’t on
my sleeve throughout a live gig – like, say, Grace
Petrie or Joe Solo or Thee Faction. I believe in art
too much, I think. Interview by Ben Bailey
Chris T-T is appearing alongside Fable, The Meow
Meows, Attila the Stockbroker, POG and others at
the 99% Festival, The Synergy Centre, Sat 16th &
Sun 17th.
....41....
local musicians
..........................................
Fear of Men
New album looming
Fear of Men’s 2014 debut
saw the Brighton indiepop
band break out of the
local scene and go on to
support the likes of The
Pains of Being Pure at
Heart around Europe and
the States. This month,
fresh from SXSW Festival,
they’re back on tour with
a new album on the horizon. We spoke to Jess
Weiss and Daniel Falvey ahead of their show at
the Prince Albert.
What sort of music do you make? Daniel: Some
people call us dream pop and that seems like as
good a description as any.
Has all this touring influenced the new material?
Daniel: When we were touring the last
album I was thinking that I wanted the songs to
hit harder live. I wanted to really feel the bass and
drums shake the stage so we focused on making
the individual sounds stronger and not hiding
things with layers.
Jess: Loom kept us on the road for about a year,
then we had a year of writing and recording so it
feels great to be playing shows again now.
The recording of your first album saw you
sleeping between jobs in an underground studio.
Was it different this time round? Jess: Yeah,
Loom was quite a stressful experience. Fall Forever
has had its own challenges, but it was recorded
at Brighton Electric in the first studio we’ve ever
been in with a window. It definitely had a different
feel to Loom, and wasn’t as claustrophobic.
Working with electronic instruments and laptops
meant we could work in a variety of places which
was quite freeing. We still
put in a lot of all nighters
though!
Why do bands often use
more electronic sounds
as they go on? Daniel: I
guess it’s because you get
curious about the different
textures and sounds that
electronic instruments can
give you. It’s a way of expanding your palette.
Jess: Guitars are relatively cheap. Pedals and
synths are harder to get hold of.
Do you mind being compared to bands like
Orange Juice or The Smiths? Daniel: The
Smiths are a band we hugely look up to, just in
terms of being a pop band that are interested in
using literary references, but we’ve never modelled
ourselves on any particular band or genre.
It seems like anxiety was a big theme on the
first record – has that changed? Jess: The
themes of the first record are continued on Fall
Forever, because that’s who I am as a person, but
there is also quite a strong thread of independence
running through the newer tracks.
Is the band still a DIY outfit? Jess: Absolutely.
We commissioned 3D artists with the specific idea
for the cover and Dan still does the design. Videos
are a close partnership with directors, or we make
them ourselves.
Are there any other plans in the pipeline? Daniel:
Lots more touring. Our album is released on
June 3rd and we’ll be releasing singles and videos
in the run up to it so we will be very busy!
Interview by Ben Bailey
Prince Albert, Sun 10th April, 7.30pm, £6
....42....
local musicians
..........................................
Ben Bailey rounds up the Brighton music scene
SAFE TO SWIM
Sat 2nd, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, 7pm, free
Did you ever see
Nirvana clowning
around on Top of
the Pops? As well as
being a brilliant two
fingers to phoney pop, it’s a reminder that grunge
was more fun than people remember, despite all
the drugs and depression. Brighton four-piece Safe
To Swim have released two singles so far, both of
which capture the combination of ennui and goofiness
that defined a lot of music back then. The band
have earned some national press and small festival
slots off the back of their catchy guitar-driven indie
rock, arguably on account of the influences. If there
was any doubt, the 90s associations are cemented
by the clips of Wayne’s World and Bill & Ted in the
band’s video to last year’s Forget Life. Repeat. It’s like
the slacker equivalent of Rickrolling.
SPECTRUM: RECORD STORE DAY
Sat 16th, Brighton Dome Studio, 12pm, £8
The clocks have just gone
forward, but you’d be
forgiven for thinking the
opposite when you see
the amount of vinyl being
carried home on Record
Store Day this month. As usual Resident Records
is the hub of activity, but the Dome are joining in
with a morning seminar and a full day of bands
including Tigercub (pictured), Gang, Della Lupa,
Yumi And The Weather, Calico and Normanton
Street. Attentive Viva readers will know all these
bands due to their appearance on these very pages
over the last year. It’s a perfect chance to hear a big
wedge of Brighton’s best new music all in one go.
BAD BAD WHISKEY
Sat 16th, Round Georges, 6pm, free
Mixing the stripped-back sound
of skiffle with the amped-up
noise of rock’n’roll, Bad Bad
Whiskey have been causing
spontaneous dancing in Brighton
pubs since 2009. Powered
by a rattle-snare drummer and a
string-slapping upright bassist,
the trio is led by Citizen Lane – a wax-haired hep
cat who’s been DJing around Kemptown for just
as long. Though there’s an element of tongue-incheek
tribute to the band’s blend of rockabilly and
blues, they also have plenty of genuine love – and a
sure talent – for the music. It’s knockabout, raucous
and impossible to sit still to.
ELLIE FORD
Fri 22nd, Bleach, 8pm, £7
Musicians occasionally have a
hard time avoiding the temptations
of self-indulgence
when they play something as
impressive as the harp – as if
the novelty of the instrument will compensate for
any amount of noodling. It’s safe to say Ellie Ford
doesn’t have this problem, perhaps because she’s
an equally accomplished guitarist and singer. This
gig is the launch of her debut album, The Other
Sun, the making of which saw her holed up in a
countryside studio near Bexhill for many months.
Having emerged blinking from the depths of a
painstaking but decidedly old-fashioned recording
process, she’s now taking the results on tour with
her band. The single from the album is a lush and
buoyant folk ballad with a unique arrangement. If
it translates well to the stage, this will be a treat.
....43....
AN ENEMY
OF THE PEOPLE
by
HENRIK IBSEN
in a version by
CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON
Hugh Bonneville returns to Chichester
in Ibsen’s thrilling play directed
by Howard Davies
£
TICKETS
FROM
22 APRIL - 21 MAY 01243 781312 cft.org.uk
music
....................................
The Secret Life of Organs
James McVinnie, sonic explorer
Organists are often jokingly referred to as
megalomaniacs, because they’re in charge of
this huge volume of sound. It’s a very solitary
instrument, in a positive sense. You have ultimate
control and... it’s huge fun. It’s the sheer scale, the
sense of variety and delicacy and power at your
fingertips.
It’s pretty hard, as instruments go. It’s probably
the hardest instrument, just because you’ve
got to coordinate your feet. People often say ‘how
do pianists learn to play with both hands?’ You
know, with the organ you’re playing at least a
quarter, if not more, of the music with your feet
as well, so you have to have total independence of
limbs, basically.
When I worked at Westminster Abbey, my colleagues
and I had to practice the organ at night,
because it’s open for tourists during the day... so
you kind of learn to have slightly nocturnal practicing
habits. And you get to be in these amazing
spaces after hours, which is quite thrilling as well.
The organ was the most advanced piece of
machinery before the industrial revolution,
along with the clock. When the Victorians came
along, and also the equivalent engineers in Europe,
they extended and enlarged the instrument
so that they’d be able to play music that would
rival the symphony orchestra.
The piano and violin were domestic instruments
in the 19th century, hugely popular,
basically every house would have a piano. The
organ, traditionally, would be confined to church,
and then, in the 19th century, big civic places like
town halls. Those organs were designed to bring
orchestral music to the masses as well. But people
don’t have organs at home really, unless they have
lots of money and space. So yeah, there is a huge
wealth of great music for the organ, but just proportionally
for the instrument, there’s less of it.
In the last ten years, or last five years really, I’ve
noticed that there’s been a huge upsurge in interest
in the organ by composers from a classical
music background who are not necessarily from
the church music world, and also people like Tom
Jenkinson, who’s better known as Squarepusher,
who’s very much not from the classical music tradition.
Tom is someone with a huge cult following
in electronic music, but he happens to have
had a lifelong love of the organ as an instrument,
and has always wanted to write organ music, so
this is a kind of consummation of that.
I think people associate the organ with
predominantly church services and hymns
and, you know, music which maybe isn’t terribly
inspiring, and perhaps goes hand in hand with being
played badly by someone who doesn’t really
know what they’re doing… [but] it’s an amazing
instrument, with huge resources and huge scope
for exploring sonic possibilities, and it’s interesting
that it’s captured the imagination of so many
people from non-classical music fields.
As told to Steve Ramsey
The Secret Life of Organs features James McVinnie
playing music by Philip Glass and Tom Jenkinson,
and a set by Australian improvisers The Necks. Fri
8th April, Sussex University Meeting House, 7.30pm
Photo © Magnús Andersen
....45....
National Theatre of Scotland /
Live Theatre
Our Ladies of
Perpetual Succour
Tue 17 – Sat 21 May
Catholic schoolgirls go wild as the choir
trip to Edinburgh goes badly wrong in this
blisteringly funny musical play
Blast Theory & Hydrocracker
Operation Black Antler
Sat 7 - Sat 28 May
Assuming the role of an undercover offi cer at
a protest meeting, you are given power and
control. How will you use it?
Spymonkey & Tim Crouch
The Complete Deaths
Wed 11 – Sun 15 May
Spymonkey perform all 75 deaths in the
works of Shakespeare – sometimes messily,
sometimes movingly, always hysterically
Work Write Live
Develop your creative-writing skills at our
award-winning workshops
Coming Soon:
Short Story in a Day - 23rd June
10 week Introductory course - Starting
3rd October
10 week Intermediate/Advanced
Course - Starting 5th October
Work Write Live Brighton
@WorkWriteLive
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/businessand-community/work-write-live
brightonfestival.org
brightonfestival
brightfest #BF2016
tattoo convention
....................................
The Point of No Return
An inky adventure in Borneo
“It wasn’t the heat,” says Tom, on the difficulties
of filming in the Borneo jungle. “It was the
humidity, which was around 95%. The air was so
moist, sweat had nowhere to go. You turned into
a soggy sponge.”
Brighton-based filmmaker Tom J Kelly was with
tattooist Fade FX, filming the documentary Borneo
Tattoo - The Point of No Return, about the
hand-tap tattooing techniques practiced by the
Iban tribe, and the terrible effects that deforestation
is reaping on the Sarawak area of the island
where they live.
“The Malaysian government are very strict about
people filming anything about deforestation, so
I had to use a small camera that would pass as a
tourist one, and travel as light as possible,” says
Tom. “At one point my radio mic overheated and
stopped working. I put it in front of the fan for
four hours: luckily that did the trick.”
Another problem was the budget. “We had
£3,650, thanks to Skin Deep sponsoring us, and
a kick-starter campaign. But this didn’t even
stretch to paying for accommodation. And the
natives were very savvy about asking for money
to do interviews. A lot of tattoo tourists go out
there because some of the Iban tattooists have
become celebrities in that world. So they know
the value of their time.”
Tom and Fade spent some time in the Sarawak
capital, Kuching, then a week in an Iban tribal
village. One of Tom’s jobs was sorting the truth
from myth. “The tattooists have got used to
telling a souped-up story for the tourists. I had
to say ‘guys, it’s time for the true version. This is
your chance to tell your real story.’”
A big part of that story, which made up “about
25% of the footage” was the devastating effect
that government-endorsed deforestation is having
on the area. “The river running through the
village used to be clear; now it is brown. Fish
have become scarce.”
The tattoos are hand-tapped using two sticks
with nails on the end, and Fade, who fronts the
documentary, learnt this technique years ago in
the same place we are visiting. “It looks like it’s
going to be very painful,” says Tom, “but apparently
it is less so than a machine, as there is less
trauma to the skin.”
The tattoos, it turns out, were a very integral
part of Iban culture before the area was colonised
by Christian missionaries in the 50s. “The
oldest generation had them, but their children
didn’t. The next generation on was starting to
get interested in them again.
“The marks all have different significance; a
certain mark on the hand, for example, means
you have taken another man’s head. Another
mark shows you have travelled to another village.
Generally speaking, the more tattoos you have,
the richer and higher class you are.”
Alex Leith
The premiere of The Point of No Return will start
off the Brighton Tattoo Convention, Brighton
Centre, April 30th. kellyimages.co.uk
....47....
music
....................................
Norman Jay
“My strength is my knowledge”
Norman Jay MBE was born
in 1958, in Notting Hill,
then a “run-down slum”, to
Nigerian immigrant parents.
The now-swanky district
of London still plays a big
part in the DJ’s life: his
Good Times Sound System
attracts an estimated 15,000
revellers each day of the
Notting Hill Carnival.
As well it might: Norman
is one of the most influential and well-respected
DJs of our time, who has been described as the
‘guardian of the sound system’ as well as the
‘father of House’. And soon he’s coming to Hove.
“Brighton’s always been good to me,” he says,
down the phone, from his Acton home. “All that
culture: the Mods, the Rude boys… I played
there at the height of the rare-groove scene [a Jay
coinage] in 87-88; I’ve played funky acid jazz; I’ve
played neo-disco. The people there are very cool,
very open to new sounds, always have been.”
This time he’s playing at the Funk the Format
Festival, in Hove Park, on May 29th, before
headliners Soul II Soul hit the stage. FtF is the
adult-version follow-up to Funk the Family (now
in its second edition, in the same space on the
28th), brainchild of local music journalist and DJ
Lucy ‘Elle J’ Small.
Norman’s father was a great lover of bluebeat, ska
and calypso from the Caribbean, and Motown,
Stax and jazz from the States. Brought up on this
eclectic mix of black music, having been a “massive
enthusiast” of the mid-70s underground club
scene in London and the Home Counties, the
young man learnt his trade
playing at the Notting Hill
Carnival, as “no radio station
would hire a black DJ back
in those days, it was proper
apartheid”. He “learnt to
play every type of music,
for everyone: jazz, funk,
disco, early electro, hip-hop,
house, rave, drum & bass, I
played it all, because I loved
it all. The Good Times
Sound System plays music without prejudice.”
In the mid-eighties he started playing “in old Victorian
houses, which soon became too small for
the purpose, so I started playing in warehouses:
soon there were regular massive illegal warehouse
parties going on. This was the precursor to the
rave era, and the acid house explosion.” He was
one of the first DJs on Kiss FM, and became a
shareholder in the company, before leaving it
after Thatcher’s deregulation of the IBA.
As you can imagine, Norman - awarded the
MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Year Honours list,
and extremely proud of it - has a massive vinyl
collection, but he no longer plays records at his
gigs. “It’s all digital now,” he says, “on MP3, and
memory sticks”. Not that he’s come prepared
with a play-list of any kind. “I’ve never needed
one. I’ve been an instinctual DJ for 40 years,
and it hasn’t failed me yet. I’ve learnt to play the
crowd, to defer to what they want, because it’s
them who pay my wages. I play what I know, and
my strength is my knowledge.”
Alex Leith
Funk the Format, Hove Park, May 29th
....48....
Faerie Festival
20th - 22nd May 2016
THE SESSIONS
Wed 6 Apr
UB40
Tue 3 May
YES
Sat 7 May
ADAM ANT
Sat 28 May
Pleasant Rise Farm, Alfriston, East Sussex
Tickets & Info: 07845 438340 or visit
www.magicalfestivals.co.uk
box office 0844 847 1515 *
www.brightoncentre.co.uk
*calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge
music
....................................
Abbey Road Sessions
The Beatles’ career... in two hours
STIG Edgren is the executive producer of The
Sessions, a new stadium show that faithfully recreates
The Beatles’ famous Abbey Road recordings right
down to the between-take banter.
The Sessions is my baby. I grew up with The
Beatles and the idea of it goes back almost 50 years.
I’d seen just about every Beatles show out there
and they’re all the same. I say that with respect –
they’ve been around for a long time and audiences
enjoy them. But I wanted to put a different spin on
it. I wondered what would it be like if the audience
was a fly-on-the-wall at a Beatles recording session
We capture the band’s whole career from
beginning to end with a suite - not a medley -
of songs to represent each album. Representing
their career in just over two hours is gut-wrenching.
I have sleepless nights when I have to cut songs.
Recording The Beatles [by Kevin Ryan and
Brian Kehew] is a 400-page catalogue of each
Beatles song and how they were set up for
recording. We referred to it a lot so we could set
up the studio exactly as it would have been for the
albums and make sure we were using the authentic
instruments and equipment.
We’re not making up a single word of what goes
on. The banter is taken right off the outtakes of
actual recordings. It’s Paul saying, ‘No, don’t play it
that fast’ or George Harrison saying, ‘What should
I do for Something? Should I say, ‘something in the
way…pomegranate?’’
Tomorrow Never Knows, from Revolver, is so
hard to recreate, especially when you have to
do it live every night. There’s all that background
sound and backwards tapes. But we tried it out last
week and it was really close.
Geoff Emerick was the band’s engineer for
many years and worked on albums including Sgt
Pepper and Revolver. When I asked him if he’d
like to be part of the show I thought he’d say no for
sure. But he loved the idea.
Geoff has provided so much insight. He’ll tell
the singers, ‘No your pitch isn’t right there’ or, ‘The
piano’s good but that solo needs work.’ He’s the guy
we all listen to because, hey, he was there.
We have 45 performers in total including two
for each Beatle. In many of The Beatles’ middle
and later years they double-tracked recordings and
used an orchestra and whatnot so it’s a way of recreating
that. When you hear this mix live in an arena
it’s a wow. You can feel the power of the Beatles’
music as if it’s being played live.
We had auditions in Liverpool, London, New
York and LA for the best Beatles performers
out there. What I discovered was that the guys
who naturally sounded most like them were all
from Liverpool.
George was the hardest to cast. One of our
Georges was the original George Harrison in the
Beatlemania Broadway show right back in the 1970s.
We found our Liverpudlian George busking on the
street when we were on our way to the official auditions.
He isn’t a professional musician but his sound
was just incredible.
This is the hardest music show I’ve ever
produced. Even touring with the Pope doesn’t
compare. I’ll work on a Papal visit for a year. I’ve
been working on The Sessions for six.
Which Beatle would I be? George Martin. The
fifth Beatle. That’s definitely my role. Nione Meakin
The Sessions; A live re-staging of The Beatles at
Abbey Road Studios, Brighton Centre, April 6th
....51....
Gigs In Brighton...
sunset sons
Monday 4th April
Concorde 2
Patent PenDing
Monday 4th April
The Haunt
tHe coral
Tuesday 5th April
Concorde 2
Black Peaks
Saturday 9th April
The Haunt
Black Mountain
Saturday 9th April
Concorde 2
DaMien JuraDo
Tuesday 12th April
Brighton Dome Studio
Dan oWen
Friday 15th April
The Green Door Store
tHe Bluetones
Friday 15th April
Concorde 2
lake street Dive
Monday 25th April
Komedia
Hiatus kaiyote
Thursday 28th April
The Old Market
Mark lanegan
Saturday 30th April
St George’s Church
We are scientists
Thursday 5th May
Concorde 2
artHur Beatrice
Tuesday 24th May
Bleach
Fort HoPe
Tuesday 24th May
Patterns
vintage trouBle
Thursday 30th June
Concorde 2
LoutPromotions.co.uk
tattoo convention
....................................
Greased Lightning
They may be hydromatic… but what have they got to do with tattoos?
For as long as cars have
been manufactured en
masse, certain owners have
been finding ways of modifying
them to be faster and
better than the standard
models coming off the
production line. But it
wasn’t until the 1930s that
a real scene of customisation
began to emerge,
in California. The dry
lake beds became a place for young car owners to
meet, form clubs and race, and participants began
modifying their cars to make them lighter and
more powerful. They fitted larger tyres on the rear
wheels, which altered the gear ratio, giving them
a higher top speed, and smaller tyres at the front,
which reduced the wind resistance - this gave
them the ‘raked’ look that is still synonymous with
hot-rod style. These weren’t hobby cars, they were
the cars people drove to work, so some of the modifications
only took place once they had arrived at
the lakes: headlights came out, windscreens came
off, any unnecessary weight was removed.
The scene came to a temporary halt with the start
of World War II and official dry lakes races ended,
but by the mid-40s racers were coming back from
the war with new ideas and new skills. They knew
how to build parts, how superchargers worked, and
many had new experience in aerodynamics. One of
the most iconic post-war innovations was the Belly
Tank Racer. A belly tank – sometimes called a drop
tank – was strapped to the body of a military plane
to carry surplus fuel, so by design it’s incredibly
aerodynamic, making it the perfect shape for the
body of a racing car. In 1949 Bill Burke and Don
Francisco’s Belly Tank
won the title ‘World’s
Fastest Hot Rod’ with a
speed of over 150mph.
As dry lake racing became
increasingly popular
again, the industry for
after-market parts grew,
laying the ground for
customizers to create
something unique. The
rift grew between hot
rods, which aimed for speed, and classic Kustoms,
which celebrated style. Early customizers removed
the badges and stripped away excess chrome,
headlights were ‘frenched’ or inverted, so that they
domed inwards, and standard parts were replaced
with higher-end fittings, so that the original
model was almost unrecognisable. These were the
foundation of the Kustom car scene which is still
popular today.
“Kustoms became popular over here from the
1950s when the American Hot Rod magazines
came to the UK,” explains Miles Sherlock. Miles is
the owner of JackHammer, a parts shop supplying
specialist parts for these type of cars, who will be
running The Lead Room, a Kustom car show at
this year’s Brighton Tattoo Convention. That does
beg the question: what do cars have to do with
tattoos? “There are a lot of 50s themes in contemporary
tattoo culture, but there’s much more
to it than that. It’s more the spirit of the thing.
Customizers build a car which reflects their own
personality and drive it around for everybody else
to see, much like a tattoo.” Rebecca Cunningham
Brighton Tattoo Convention, Brighton Centre, 30th
April – 1st May brightontattoo.com
....53....
Discounts for visitors arriving on foot, by bike or via public transport.
Find out how to visit and download free walking and cycling maps.
CHARLESTON.ORG.UK/VISIT
Supported by
Funeral Director of the Year 2014
01273 621444
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art
.....................................
Focus on…Wolf Mountain, by Becky Blair
Acrylic on canvas, 90x90cms, £3,500
Why ‘Wolf Mountain’? Can you see a wolf’s
face in there? With its teeth rising? The image
of the wolf represents the disease I’ve been suffering
from, lupus. The disease will be with me
for ever, but the medicine I’m taking means I
am able to work again. I had to stop painting for
nearly a year… this exhibition [enter – The Wolf]
is the fruit of my work since I started again.
Is your work vastly different from how it was
before you were ill? I’m sure people will recognise
my mark, but yes, my work is very different.
Before, I consciously put no emotion into the
work – I painted scenes of people, or flowers, or
trees – now it is much more… contemplative. I
have discovered the confidence to be brave.
How so? Before I made paintings which sold
well. Now I’m willing to try things that are not
necessarily going to be so financially successful.
It was difficult, after twenty years of developing a
singular style, to change direction. I’m glad that I
didn’t just carry on where I left off.
What sort of things are you expressing in this
body of work? Since being chronically ill I’ve
developed a deeper sense of my own insignificance,
but also an understanding that we are allconsumingly
self-centred. Those two positions
are poles apart, but I can see, on the other side of
being poorly, that they are both relevant.
How do you know when a painting is finished?
I used to find that really difficult, but now
I go away from my paintings for a couple of days
and when I come back to them I know if they’re
finished or not. And I’ve realised that sometimes
an unfinished quality to the painting is a good
thing. I used to tend to spell things out too much.
Do you work in silence? No, I share the studio
and there is non-stop chatter. If not I listen to
Radio 4. It’s important for the thinking part of
your brain to be occupied, so the other part can
just get on with things.
Which painting would you hang onto your
desert island palm tree? A party scene, by Peter
Doig. Interview by Alex Leith
Enter - The Wolf, Gallery 40, 12th-23rd April
....55....
Handmade
Leather
Accessories
& Workshops
We create beautiful
mens and ladies
Bags, Belts, Wallets
and More.
Bespoke Laptop Bags &
Rucksacks, Commissions
welcome. Available
By Appointment.
We also teach basic
leather skills in our
charming workshop
See website for details.
Workhaus, Unit 4,
18a Arthur Street,
Hove, BN3 5FD
07988 164 640
@WolframLohr
wolframlohr.com
talking shop
.....................................
Cass Art
A big draw for artists
Who have your main customers been so far?
The bulk of our customers have been art students
and professional artists, who used to have
to go up to London to buy their materials. We’ve
had fewer amateur artists so far, but we’re hoping
that will grow over time. One of the things
which makes Cass Art unique is that everybody
who works in one of our shops is an artist, and we
all have different specialist areas; in this shop we
have a portrait artist who specialises in oil paints
and a textile designer who knows all about our
fabric products.
Which area do you specialise in? I do (very amateur)
watercolour. During the last year or so I’ve
been getting back into it. I did A-Level Art and
worked in architecture for several years. I live in
Lancing so I can go onto the Downs really easily
and sit and paint, or I’ll take photographs and go
back home to paint in the warm lounge.
Have you had a chance to try out any new
products since you opened? One of the newest
products we’ve ordered in are these watercolour
brushes, which are great. They can give off
broad strokes and thin strokes, and they have a
little reservoir of water, so the harder you squeeze,
the more water comes out. Some of them come
with the colour already in them, so when they run
out you can buy more paints and refill them with
whatever colours you like.
How is Cass settling into Brighton? Pretty well,
we’re sponsoring the central trail of Artists’ Open
Houses next month, and we’re hoping to partner
with Hove Plinth and Snowdogs by the Sea. In
the coming weeks we’re going to start holding
artists’ coffee mornings, where we’ll invite local
artists to come and talk about their work, like an
open forum. Different things work for different
people, so the idea is to give professional artists
the chance to speak and ask each other questions.
What do you do to cater for the large student
community in Brighton? We have two new student
ambassadors assigned to this store – and a
total of 48 across the country – who give us feedback
on what’s going on in the universities and
what types of products students are looking for.
And being an art student can be really expensive,
so we have a price guarantee which means that if
you can find our products cheaper anywhere else,
including online (apart from on eBay or Amazon)
then we promise to match them.
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Stuart Bassett
21 Market Street, Brighton, cassart.co.uk
....57....
literature
......................................
Gem Barton
Creative advice
Gem Barton is author of Don’t Get a Job, Make
a Job, an appealingly-titled new book for students
and graduates. As a course leader at the
University of Brighton, Gem helps to manage
undergraduates’ anxieties on a regular basis, and
her own undulating path into work has provided
much to draw upon. In Gem’s words, “I’ve designed
t-shirts and been ripped off; I’ve written
for magazines and been ripped off… I just really,
honestly, want to make a difference.”
Part of the problem graduates face, Gem says, is
they expect to find employment in their precise
area of study. In Gem’s case, she mistakenly
thought gaining two degrees in Architecture
would lead to a career in that industry.
“I think universities are more considerate of
options now,” she says, “but not enough.” Instead
of focusing on how ‘employable’ our graduates
are, we should be thinking about how skills can
be put to use in a multitude of different ways. “I
don’t think we should be producing oven-ready
people for other people to cook,” says Gem.
It’s ironic that art schools, famously attractive to
outsiders, should churn out so many graduates
who are, as Gem sees it, inhibited by the need to
conform. The best way to mitigate the instinct to
run with the crowd is “an innate self-belief,” she
says, “but who has that at 21?
“I think it’s one of those things that we can try
to change from the inside - our personal level
of self worth - but there’s a much bigger shift
needed in society... There’s a kind of industrial
....58....
literature
......................................
preying upon the young, which can be great if
you’re that person who has got hunger and confidence,
but not everyone has.”
After her first degree, Gem took a joyless job just
because she was offered it. “I don’t want other
people to feel they need to do those things,” she
says. Also difficult was entering work during the
recession, which forced her to ‘go with the flow’.
Gem felt this was against everything she had been
taught, but “after a while, it kind of worked.” It’s
important to remember, says Gem, that “success
and happiness is something that you determine, and
quite an open thing. It’s not about getting a wellpaid
job; it’s about doing something you want to do.”
Don’t Get a Job, Make a Job is full of case studies
exploring how people from a variety of creative
industries made their dream job. “It’s not a how-to
guide,” says Gem, “because everyone will do it
differently, but there’s plenty of inspiration…
people who have got that extra bit of happiness
career-wise.”
I ask Gem whether she has a number one tip.
“Have belief that anything’s possible,” she says,
“because as soon as you restrict those possibilities
for yourself or anyone else, it becomes so
limiting… And don’t let anyone take the piss. All
graduates leave university with skills which I in
my mid-thirties and others in their forties and
fifties don’t have… You might need ‘employers’,
but they need you too.” Interview by Chloë King
gembarton.com
....59....
THE FLOWER SCHO O L
B R I G H T O N
Day & Evening Workshops
Wedding Floristry
Bespoke Floristry Parties
Contact Vicki on
01273 563363 / 07867 544218
www.theflowerschoolbrighton.co.uk
info@theflowerschoolbrighton.co.uk
ighton maker
.....................................
Inky Shades
Screenprinted lampshades
Why did you start making lampshades? My
three loves are lighting, drawing and characters,
so my lampshades are really about putting those
things together. I studied Fine Art and Performance
at Central Saint Martins and alongside
that, I always worked in venues. One of those
was the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London,
which is almost 200 years old and has the most
incredible lighting. Lampshades kind of became
my own mini sets.
Where do you come up with the illustrations?
I like to sit somewhere outdoors and
draw people, or I’ll go to a venue and draw there.
Sometimes I’ll draw from a film, but it’s really
important that the film is moving; I don’t want
to do still life because it’s not representative of
real life.
How do you print your illustrations onto textiles?
I learned screen printing at Inkspot Press
– it’s a very physical practice, so as well as drawing
movement, I had to move a lot to transfer
my illustrations onto fabric. I really enjoyed it,
but when I left I thought, I haven’t got a screen
press – how can I do this at home? Then I realised
that you can create a screen using a dark
space, like a garage, and use sunlight to dry the
screen. Essentially, you’re using a photosensitive
emulsion and burning away the image you want
to print. Once the image is dry, you need to rub
it away – which I did using a hose outside.
Do you screen print all of your fabrics? Now
I only use screen printing for bespoke shades,
where people have asked me to. It’s a difficult
way of printing fabrics because if you need a
big piece of fabric, you have to have a very big
screen. I’m looking at using digital printing because
it’s far more practical and it’s a lovely way
of getting very beautiful colours which are much
closer to the original colours I’ve used.
How do you turn your fabric into a lampshade?
I select an element of the fabric that I
think works well - perhaps a particular section
of colour, texture or narrative. The fabric has
to be beautifully ironed, otherwise it won’t go
together perfectly and it won’t catch the light
in the right way. I learnt how to make a traditional
shade with a wire frame, which was much
more complex and time-consuming. What really
interests me is creating the fabrics out of my
drawings and bringing them to life using light,
so I prefer the immediacy of creating a modern
cylindrical shade. I just love to draw, and it’s a
pleasure and an honour when people appreciate
my work.
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Maddy Wilson
@inkyshades inkyshades.com
....61....
The Authentic Indian Fire Bowl/ Barbecue
Designed In England
Handmade in India
www.kadai.com Tel: 01694 771800
圀 攀 愀 爀 攀 瀀 氀 攀 愀 猀 攀 搀 琀 漀 愀 渀 渀 漀 甀 渀 挀 攀 琀 栀 愀 琀 倀 愀 爀 欀 攀 爀 䈀 愀 琀 栀 爀 漀 漀 洀 猀 ☀ 䬀 椀 琀 挀 栀 攀 渀 猀 愀 爀 攀
昀 椀 渀 愀 氀 椀 猀 琀 猀 椀 渀 琀 栀 攀 䬀 椀 琀 挀 栀 攀 渀 䐀 攀 猀 椀 最 渀 攀 爀 伀 昀 吀 栀 攀 夀 攀 愀 爀 䄀 眀 愀 爀 搀 猀 ⸀ 吀 栀 椀 猀 瀀 爀 攀 猀 琀 椀 最 椀 漀 甀 猀
瀀 爀 椀 稀 攀 爀 攀 昀 氀 攀 挀 琀 猀 琀 栀 攀 漀 甀 琀 猀 琀 愀 渀 搀 椀 渀 最 眀 漀 爀 欀 倀 愀 爀 欀 攀 爀 ᤠ 猀 栀 愀 瘀 攀 愀 挀 栀 椀 攀 瘀 攀 搀 猀 椀 渀 挀 攀
漀 瀀 攀 渀 椀 渀 最 漀 甀 爀 匀 攀 瘀 攀 渀 䐀 椀 愀 氀 猀 猀 栀 漀 眀 爀 漀 漀 洀 樀 甀 猀 琀 琀 眀 漀 礀 攀 愀 爀 猀 愀 最 漀 ⸀
圀 栀 礀 渀 漀 琀 倀 漀 瀀 椀 渀 愀 渀 搀 猀 攀 攀 琀 栀 攀 搀 攀 猀 椀 最 渀 椀 洀 瀀 愀 挀 琀 眀 攀
挀 愀 渀 愀 挀 栀 椀 攀 瘀 攀 眀 椀 琀 栀 椀 渀 礀 漀 甀 爀 戀 甀 搀 最 攀 琀 㼀
㘀 㐀 ⴀ 㜀 䐀 夀 䬀 䔀 刀 伀 䄀 䐀 Ⰰ 䈀 刀 䤀 䜀 䠀 吀 伀 一 䈀 一 アパート 䨀 䐀
吀 䔀 䰀 ⸀ ㈀ 㜀 アパート 㠀 㜀 㔀 㠀 㜀 ⼀ ㈀ 㜀 アパート アパート㈀ 㤀 㠀 ㈀ 㤀
䤀 一 䘀 伀 䀀 倀 䄀 刀 䬀 䔀 刀 䈀 䄀 吀 䠀 刀 伀 伀 䴀 匀 ⸀ 䌀 伀 ⸀ 唀 䬀
圀 圀 圀 ⸀ 倀 䄀 刀 䬀 䔀 刀 䈀 䄀 吀 䠀 刀 伀 伀 䴀 匀 ⸀ 䌀 伀 ⸀ 唀 䬀
my space
...........................................
Viva Verde
‘Richardson Village’ florist
Why flowers? Flowers and design are both
things that I love. Our natural style here is very
relaxed, country and wild - usually I prefer to let
the flowers work themselves into an arrangement
- but I love having the chance to make a stunning
modern arrangement too. I am always trying to
find something a bit different; a new variety of
rose, an unusual succulent, and pots and gifts too.
How have you found the location, being a bit
off the beaten track? It’s a nice little community
here - some people call it ‘Richardson Village’.
Viva Verde has been part of the community for
ten years and most of the shops here have the
same ethos as us; you can buy locally-baked bread
made by artisan bakeries, locally-caught fish, and
organic fruit and veg.
Do you sell local flowers? We stock British
flowers as often as we can, dependent on the seasons.
At the moment we’ve got daffodils, anemones
and - my favourite - ranunculus, with more
to come as the weather warms up. Most of our
foliage comes from a local man called John, who’s
83 and still works as a tree surgeon. Alongside
the flowers, we have locally-grown plants, soya
candles made in Steyning, garden statues from
Windsor and some gift cards made by local artists.
I love visiting trade fairs in Europe too, looking
out for the latest trends in design which are
sympathetic to the feel of our shop.
Where do the rest of the flowers come from?
Lots of them come from Holland, where they
have the most amazing greenhouses, which are
controlled by computers. So they can decide, in
this greenhouse I need to grow 10,000 roses by
the 29th of May, and the computer works out
how much light to let in, how much water, and so
on. It’s very complex.
How long does it take for the flowers to get
from the greenhouse to the shop? It depends
on where you buy them. We get ours from a
Dutch supplier, they are cut on the Monday,
he buys them from the market on the Tuesday
and they are delivered and ready to sell on the
Wednesday.
How can you keep cut flowers looking fresh
for longer? You have to care for your flowers:
make sure your vase is clean and washed out with
hot water and soap before you put the flowers in,
the water should be shallow to keep the bacteria
level low, and you should wash the vase, change
the water and cut the stems every couple of days.
We’d expect anything we sell to last at least five
to ten days, but if you look after them well, they
can last even longer.
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Lynnette Cash
4 Richardson Road, viva-verde.com
....63....
We make curtains and blinds. We supply and fit carpet, stair runners and flooring
AND we have the largest selection of fabric and wallpaper in Brighton and Hove!
23 New Road
Brighton
BN1 1UF
01273 605574
sales@mistersmith.co.uk
www.mistersmith.co.uk
Croft Road
Crowborough
TN6 1DR
01892 664152
info@mistersmith.co.uk
the way we work
This month, Adam Bronkhorst got to have a snoop around the homes
of five local interior designers, including a couple you might have
seen on the television recently... We asked each of them:
What’s your favourite colour?
adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401 333
Sarah Mitchenall, Black Parrots Studio, blackparrotsstudio.com
“Black - the mother of all colours - it holds all colours within, it’s stylish, sexy and dramatic.”
the way we work
Katherine Richards, Katherine Richards Design, katherinerichardsdesign.co.uk
“The colour I’m most drawn to is the colour of bluebells.”
the way we work
Oliver Heath, Heath Design Ltd, oliverheath.com
“I subscribe to a theory called ecological valance; universally we respond well to colours
we’ve had positive experiences of, like those we see in nature.”
the way we work
Annette Pisani, Pisani Designs, pisanidesigns.com
“My favourite colour would be cerulean.”
吀 爀 愀 渀 猀 昀 漀 爀 洀 礀 漀 甀 爀 栀 漀 洀 攀 眀 椀 琀 栀 漀 甀 爀 昀 椀 渀 攀 猀 琀 焀 甀 愀 氀 椀 琀 礀
匀 㨀 䌀 刀 䄀 䘀 吀 洀 愀 搀 攀 ⴀ 琀 漀 ⴀ 洀 攀 愀 猀 甀 爀 攀 椀 渀 琀 攀 爀 椀 漀 爀 猀 栀 甀 琀 琀 攀 爀 猀 ⸀
琀 ⸀ ㈀ 㜀 アパート アパート アパート 㠀 㐀 ㈀
攀 ⸀ 挀 漀 渀 琀 愀 挀 琀 䀀 戀 攀 氀 氀 愀 瘀 椀 猀 琀 愀 猀 栀 甀 琀 琀 攀 爀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
眀 ⸀ 眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 戀 攀 氀 氀 愀 瘀 椀 猀 琀 愀 猀 栀 甀 琀 琀 攀 爀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
Loft conversion,
extension, basement
or a complete house
remodel? Specialising in
transforming old properties
into warm, light filled,
spacious contemporary
homes, we’re happy to
chat through your project
with you.
Sue direct: 07815913058
www.scd-design.com
scd.
architecture interiors project management
residential
the way we work
Paul Nicholson, Chalk Architecture, chalkarchitecture.com
“Persimmon, a burnt rusty orange.”
drink
...........................................
The Philosopher’s Brew
Beer tasting at Bison
Glancing around the crowd at a recent ‘Meet the
Brewer’ evening at Bison Beer, I’m reminded that
beer isn’t just for beards. I meet a young Californian
woman (in Bison-yellow stiletto shoes) who
has plans to open her own brewery. She’s here to
imbibe the wisdom of Evin O’Riordain. He’s the
founder and revered master brewer at The Kernel
in Bermondsey (and erstwhile Philosophy academic
and Neal’s Yard cheese seller).
Evin is in an intransigent mood, steadfastly refusing
to be drawn on his favourite beer, brewer or
hop and disinclined to describe how his beers taste.
He’d prefer that we use our own taste buds, so we
sip our way through four beers from The Kernel,
with each beer accompanied by a delicious (and
cheese-themed) morsel from 64 Degrees. Seared
cauliflower with whipped cheese sauce; celeriac
with sumac and
salt-dried egg
yolk; wafers of
crisp rye bread with ricotta; and spiced ginger
cake with mascarpone. The beers are delicious and
distinct. The table beer is eminently drinkable (and
fortunately only 3.1% abv), the amber is almost
caramel in flavour and colour. The saison is pale
and sour, and the porter dark and complicated, like
expensive chocolate. Evin provides a philosophical
commentary.
You’ll have no doubt heard the plans for The Bison
Arms, and these evenings are just a taste of what’s
to come. With beers this interesting, and food to
match, there’s much to look forward to. LL
The next Meet the Brewer evening is with Crate on
28th April (£15). bisonbeer.co.uk
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....72....
Food & Drink directory
advertorial
Black Radish
If you’re looking for
something a ‘little bit
different’ and have
a passion for quality
food, visit Black Radish.
Organic fruit and
vegetables, handmade ice cream, fresh bakery
bread, it’s an artisan ‘food boutique’ with a
small but creative café serving dishes with an
emphasis on flavour. If you love food, you’ll
love Black Radish.
Terre à Terre
‘Big and Bravas, Brekkie in
a Bun, Sweet and Savoury,
Run Rarebit Run, Arepas,
Patatas a Scrunch and a Munch, Grapple our
Granola it’s time for Brunch!’
Terre à Terre is now open for ‘BrunchyLunchy’
daily from 10am–1pm, where diners can pick
from a selection of hearty brunch dishes from
‘Brunchy Rosti’ to ‘Big Muffin Butty Buns’ or
enjoy tea or coffee with a sweet side like Pastel
de Nata. Dishes start at £6.
149 Portland Road, 01273 723392, blackradish-organic.com 71 East Street, Brighton, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk
Edendum
Edendum is a new
concept comprising
an Italian restaurant,
café and food shop. With its top-quality food
Edendum aims to offer a different Italian eating
experience, made of the authentic flavours
and culture of the owners’ homeland. Our
menu will give you a chance to discover some
traditional, but less known Italian recipes.
The Edendum Loyalty Card is now available
in store! Italian & genuine: better eat better.
69 East Street, Brighton, 01273 733800, edendum.co.uk
Market
Situated in the heart of
Brunswick village, Market,
now open nearly six
months, serves modern tapas, innovative small
plates (great for sharing), freshly landed fish
and a great choice of steaks and burgers. At
weekends you can also pop in for brunch and/or
Sunday lunch. Sit at the kitchen bar overlooking
the chefs, take a table or book their fabulous
private dining room and be cooked for by your
own private chef! Open all day every day.
42 Western Rd, Hove, 01273 823707, market-restaurantbar.co.uk
The Better Half
To advertise
here call Anya
on 07596337828
The Better Half pub has
put the heart and soul back
into one of the oldest public
houses in the city, just off
Hove seafront. There’s a
superb wine and spirits list and some great ales
and ciders on offer, as well as a hearty and wholesome
menu to enjoy, making the best of local
ingredients. The Better Half is relaxed, friendly
and easy-going, making all feel welcome and
comfortable when you visit.
1 Hove Place, Hove, 01273 737869, thebetterhalfpub.co.uk
food
...........................................
The Big Bowl
Vietnamese fast pho
It might as well be monsoon season on Preston
Street as we sit in the window of The Big Bowl
eating big steaming bowls of hot and fragrant
Vietnamese pho. Outside, the Friday night diners
and bedraggled hen parties splash though the
downpour.
The small but perfectly formed restaurant is
bright, clean and green inside - much like the
summer rolls we order to start. Expertly rolled rice
paper stuffed with noodles, avocado, crisp lettuce
and coriander, sweetened by a chilli dipping sauce
(£3.95) and perfect for sunnier days. More fitting
for the weather are the earthy shiitake and tofu
crispy fried spring rolls, served with peanut sauce
(£4.25) and hot enough to steam up the window.
The dishes come fast and fresh from the familyrun
kitchen and the veggie pho (£6.95) soon follows.
A deep and flavoursome bowl of crystal clear
broth with rice noodles, vegetables, soya dumplings,
spring onions and coriander. Do-it-yourself
fresh mint and chilli on the side to tweak the
flavour. The noodles in the combo bun vermicelli
(£7.45) are buried beneath slivers of char-grilled
lemon-grass chicken, BBQ honey pork and beef
with salad, fresh herbs and sweet, hot and savoury
vinaigrette to pour over.
It’s the perfect place to grab a quick, healthy bite
but, since there’s no sign of a break in the clouds,
we wrap our hands around glasses of coffee sweetened
with evaporated milk and watch the wet hens
scatter in the rain. Lizzie Lower
54 Preston St, 01273 206422
WIN VIP TICKETS TO
FOODIES FESTIVAL BRIGHTON
Foodies Festival is back on
Hove Lawns 30th April – 2nd
May and we have three pairs
of VIP tickets to giveaway!
Get inspiration for summer
recipes from Michelin star
chef Matt Gillan and top local
chefs in the Chefs Theatre
and learn about champagne
and gin with a tasting class
in the Drinks Theatre
before feasting on the
Street Food Avenue.
Learn how to bake
with burlesque baker
Charlotte White and pick up
everything you need to pimp
out your larder in the Artisan
Producers Market.
There’s live music and
Chill-Eating competitions
and a giant Pimm’s Teapot
serving cocktails! A recipe for a
great day out with friends this
summer.
To enter email enter@
foodiesfestival.com
with your name and postal
address. Competition closes
20th April 2016.
....74....
food review
...........................................
Very Italian Pizza
Un ristorante molto italiano
Call me a snob, but
I wasn’t expecting
much from a place
with the name ‘Very
Italian Pizza’. I’d
never heard of it
until Bee, our latest
intern, mentioned
it in an editorial
meeting. “It’s very
genuine,” she said.
“All the Italians in Brighton go there… they grow
all their own food, on a farm in Naples… the pizzas
are amazing.”
And so I walk in the door, one Thursday lunchtime
in the first half of March, looking forward to
a nice pizza, but just a tad cynical. I’m met with
a visual feast: Sophia Loren smiling from a wall,
garlic cloves and dried peppers hanging from the
ceiling, a wall full of unfamiliar-familiar Italian
goods on sale on the shelf, blackboards announcing
today’s specials. Meanwhile Pino Daniele
sings his high-pitched pop through the speakers,
and that great smell of pizza cooking in a woodfired
oven pervades the air.
Pauline, my dining companion, is sitting waiting,
looking extremely happy. “It’s like being in Italy,”
she says, as if I haven’t already spelt that out.
She’s ordered a bowl of plump green olives, and
judging from the fact that there are more still untouched
in the bowl than there are stones in the
saucer in front of her, she hasn’t been there long.
It is just like being in Italy, though, which is
further exemplified by the fact that about half the
clientele are speaking the language around us.
I order some bresaola carpaccio to start, and have
a look at the pizza menu. Rule of thumb when
you’re reviewing
a pizzeria? Try the
margherita, or the
one which bears the
restaurant’s name.
The ‘VIP’ is the most
expensive on the
menu, at £12.50, but
once I see it, the other
37 choices haven’t a
chance: ‘mozzarella,
black truffle cream, porcini wild mushrooms and
sausage’. Pauline decides on a ‘quattro stagioni’.
I get chatting to one of the waiters. VIP have
been trading in Brighton for two years now;
the family who’ve started it up come from five
generations of food producers/vendors in Naples.
They do have their own farm, from which they
source most of their meat and dairy produce.
“Most Italian people who live in Brighton come
here at least once a week,” he exaggerates.
The bresaola, sprinkled with Parmesan and drizzled
in lemon juice, is a delight. My pizza (and I’m
a harsh critic when it comes to pizza) is nothing
short of sensational, with its puffy sourdough
base, its battle for taste-dominance between the
truffle and the porcini, and its hefty, tasty lumps
of sausage meat. I reluctantly agree to swap a
quarter of it for one of Pauline’s stagioni.
“They have swordfish on the specials board,” she
says, as we sip our macchiati, wondering how
they make espressi taste so good [enough Italian
plurals, sub-ed]. We’re far too full, obviously, but
there will be plenty of next times, however wary I
am of their name, which I’ll have to explain away
when I’m raving about the place. Alex Leith
19 Old Steine, Brighton
....75....
Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk
....76....
ecipe
..........................................
Seafood paella
Melissa Melly opened her Spanish catering company, Vamos
Paella, after being inspired by the flavours and ingredients she
discovered while living in Murcia several years ago
One of the ingredients you’ll need later on is a
rich tomato sauce called sofrito, which you can
buy readymade in Spain but it’s harder to get
hold of here. I make my own by mixing some
olive oil, finely chopped red onion and tinned
tomatoes in a saucepan with some chopped
garlic and a little bit of salt and sugar. Cook for
about 40 minutes and then blitz in a blender.
To begin making your paella, first you’ll need
to heat some olive oil in a paella pan and flashfry
your squid, which you’ve prepared and cut
into triangles. Fry it until it’s got some colour
and season with a bit of salt, then remove it
from the pan.
Next add the tiger prawns. It’s important to use
head-on, shell-on prawns, because all of the flavour
is in the heads. I usually pull the heads off,
remove the antennae and put them back into
the pan with the rest of the prawns. Cook until
they get some colour and over a high heat, because
you don’t want to over cook them. Once
they’ve browned slightly, remove them.
Add a bit more olive oil to the pan, followed
by a red pepper and a green pepper, cut into
triangles. Again keep them on a high heat and
fry for maybe five minutes.
To the fried peppers, add chopped garlic, ñoras,
smoked Spanish paprika (pimenton dulce) and
saffron. Ñoras are Spanish bell peppers which
have been dried, and I usually buy these and
the other Spanish ingredients, like my pimenton
dulce, from Brindisa at Borough Market.
The saffron I tend to toast first and then grind
it. Fry all of these together for two minutes.
Add two or three ladles of sofrito to the paella
pan and then pour in the rice. I use Calasparra
rice, which you’ll see in white linen bags in the
shop, but you can use any good paella rice. As
a general rule, you’ll need about 100g per person.
Once you’ve coated the rice in the sofrito,
you can switch the heat off and leave.
About half an hour before you want to eat,
switch the heat back on and add the fish stock.
You can make your own stock, but there are so
many other flavours going on in the dish that
you can just use a bought stock, and it’s very
hard to tell the difference. Adjust the volume
based on the amount of rice you’re cooking.
At the same time add the mussels, and when
the stock comes to the boil, taste for seasoning
and cook for 17 minutes. This is a very precise
timing – when you can smell the burnt bit
forming at the bottom, that’s when you know
they’re done. About half way through, add the
cooked squid and prawns. Once the 17 minutes
is up, turn off the heat and cover the pan with
foil for five to ten minutes, to allow the rice to
absorb the rest of the stock. Then it’s ready to
serve!
As told to Rebecca Cunningham
Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk
Ingredients and equipment can be found at Fish!
next to Hove Lagoon. Vamos Paella specialise in
cooking tapas and paellas for weddings, parties
and corporate events all over the South East,
visit vamospaella.co.uk
....77....
DRUNK
...........................................
Pop-up wine tasting
Great ‘tabl’ service
“We don’t use spittoons in our tastings, they’re not
French, so you’re going to have to push yourselves”
says Eddy, my sommelier for the afternoon. We are
at the Garden House, a charming little cabin in a
back garden near The Level, complete with exposed
beams and a log burner for the colder days. The
theme for the afternoon is ‘A Little Trip Round
Bordeaux Vineyards’. Our hosts, Eddy and Radka,
met when they both worked at Drake’s, and set up
the wine and food-tasting afternoons a few months
ago, using the pop-up booking platform Tabl. We’re
a mixed group, with a variety of wine aficionados,
foodies, hoteliers and me.
Eddy was born in Champagne and practically
weaned on the stuff, but he knows his wines from
Bordeaux inside out, and we try a good few, with a
commentary about each wine’s history and origin.
He manages to keep the group’s attention all afternoon,
even when we’re a few glasses down, when
polite smiles are replaced with raucous laughter and
slightly off-tangent anecdote swapping.
Each wine is beautifully paired by a (generouslysized)
capane from Radka including smoked salmon
with beetroot, duck paté with figs and pickled pear
and blue cheese - it’s all gorgeous.
Afterwards, there’s a quiz, of which I am one of the
two winners (the wine aficionado next to me didn’t
cover his answers), and we both get presented with
one of the beautiful bottles of wine, which I share
with the rest of the group. I leave well lubricated,
full and relaxed, feeling for all the world like I’ve
taken a mini-break to Bordeaux. Antonia Phillips
....78....
food
..............................................
Edible Updates
Neapolitan sourdough
pizza places
are, it seems,
like no. 25 buses.
First we got VIP,
then along came
Fatto a Mano, and
now we’ve got…
Franco Manca.
FM started in
Brixton Market
in 2008, with the
philosophy of
making pizzas from slow-risen (20 hours) sourdough,
made from a starter culture dating back to
1730, nicked, legend has it, by one of the owners’
mates from a bakery in Ischia. The punters loved
it: at last count there were 19 branches in London.
The first one outside The Smoke is opening
soon on Church Street, in the space Surf and Ski
has been in since time immemorial.
There’s plenty more to relate, if you’ll excuse
the breathless tone: try out Yardy Street Food in
the Marwood back garden, on Fridays (12-3pm),
curated by Jake, from Plateau... Don Olé at the
bottom of Trafalgar Street are worth walking
a mile to, for one of their tortilla bocadillos…
Curry Leaf Café has now got a kiosk at Brighton
Station… Look out for ‘cult café’ Milk and Cookies,
selling, um, milk and cookies… Boho Gelato
are about to open a second city-centre gelateria,
as well as their Pool Valley base, while Sprinkles
Gelato is going strong in West Street… Oh, and
don’t forget to book your tickets for the Foodies
Festival, from April 30th-May 2nd, with a host of
chefs and cooks (including 2015 Bake-off queen
Nadiya Hussain) and tasty stalls, local live music
and interesting beverages galore. That’s it, for
now. Buon appetito! Alex Leith
....79....
interior design
...........................................
....80....
interior design
...........................................
Mister Smith
A tale of two cities
How long has Mister
Smith been in business?
The company was
started over 50 years ago,
by my husband Ben’s father
and his grandfather,
and we took it over in
December 2014. Ben’s
been in the business for
about 18 years. He does
all of the measuring and
quotes for clients, whereas
I manage the marketing,
website and smaller
interior design jobs.
Which elements of the
interior do you provide?
Our Brighton shop
sells carpets and runners,
fabrics and wallpapers.
We can advise on where
to go for accessories, but
there are so many shops doing lighting and cushions
– that side of the market has become really competitive.
We only work on residential projects; if a
customer is wanting a bit of help with decorating
their home and they’ve come to a point where they
don’t really know what to do with it, we’ll go on a
home visit and pull together a bit of a colour scheme
for them. I can give them as much or as little help
as they need, but we encourage them to get involved
in the design process – it’s more fulfilling that way.
Do you ever get time to work on your own home?
For many years our friends would come round to
our house and look a bit disappointed or say, ‘oh, we
thought you were both interior designers?’ We went
from living in a one-bedroom flat to a five-bedroom
house where everything needed doing, so we spent
the first few years doing the structural work and
have only recently started doing up a few rooms. I’ve
painted the front room in
a beautiful charcoal blue
which is very calming, and
gone for a classic Cole &
Son wallpaper in the bedroom.
I’m bombarded by
colour and pattern every
day, so when I get home I
want everything simple.
Do you and Ben have
similar taste? He’s got
quite modern taste, he
likes Philippe Starck and
design pieces that make
a statement - we have a
large gold AK-47 lamp in
the front room which does
scare people a little. I’m
more classic; I like softer,
plainer prints and textures.
Which trends are especially
‘Brighton’? The
Brighton market tends to go for fabrics and wallpapers
that you can see a lot of design work has gone
into, where you can see it’s a genuine art piece. We
have another shop in Crowborough, and the nice
thing about having the two shops is that in Brighton
you get beautifully proportioned, tall town houses
which can take bold colours and seasidey looks,
whereas in Crowborough it’s big countryside homes
with traditional fabrics and classic wallpapers.
Which do you prefer? I love beach themes when
it’s summer - all pale linens and geometric shapes -
but in winter I love richer colours and the texture of
velvet. I try to steer people towards timeless designs,
keeping the larger pieces simple and neutral. That
way you can update your look each year with a new
statement wallpaper, a light or a cushion.
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Saskia Smith
mistersmith.co.uk
....81....
䄀 䈀 䤀 刀
愀 爀 挀 栀 椀 琀 攀 挀 琀 猀
琀 㨀 ㈀ 㜀 アパート 㜀 ㈀ 㐀 アパート 㠀 㐀
攀 㨀 猀 琀 甀 搀 椀 漀 䀀 愀 戀 椀 爀 愀 爀 挀 栀 椀 琀 攀 挀 琀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
眀 㨀 眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 愀 戀 椀 爀 愀 爀 挀 栀 椀 琀 攀 挀 琀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
昀 戀 㨀 䄀 䈀 䤀 刀 愀 爀 挀 栀 椀 琀 攀 挀 琀 猀
琀 眀 㨀 䀀 愀 戀 椀 爀 愀 爀 挀 栀 椀 琀 攀 挀 琀 猀
䄀 眀 愀 爀 搀 眀 椀 渀 渀 椀 渀 最 愀 爀 挀 栀 椀 琀 攀 挀 琀 猀 昀 漀 爀 琀 栀 攀 渀 攀 眀 瘀 椀 猀 椀 琀 漀 爀 猀 挀 攀 渀 琀 爀 攀 愀 渀 搀 最 愀 氀 氀 攀 爀 椀 攀 猀 愀 琀 琀 栀 攀 圀 攀 愀 氀 搀 愀 渀 搀
䐀 漀 眀 渀 氀 愀 渀 搀 伀 瀀 攀 渀 䄀 椀 爀 䴀 甀 猀 攀 甀 洀 愀 渀 搀 琀 栀 攀 渀 攀 眀 嘀 漀 氀 欀 ᤠ 猀 刀 愀 椀 氀 眀 愀 礀 猀 琀 愀 琀 椀 漀 渀 愀 渀 搀 瘀 椀 猀 椀 琀 漀 爀 猀 挀 攀 渀 琀 爀 攀
猀 攀 氀 昀 戀 甀 椀 氀 搀 ⴀ 爀 攀 昀 甀 爀 戀 椀 猀 栀 洀 攀 渀 琀 ⴀ 栀 攀 爀 椀 琀 愀 最 攀 ☀ 氀 椀 猀 琀 攀 搀 戀 甀 椀 氀 搀 椀 渀 最 猀 ⴀ 挀 漀 洀 洀 甀 渀 椀 琀 礀
we try...
...........................................
Decluttering
Learning to let go
Photo of Rachel Papworth by Lizzie Lower
Last month in the office
we had a conversation
about ramekins. One of
the team had never heard
of them, but I have: I own
at least six. I haven’t laid
eyes on them for a couple
of years but I know they
are there. Somewhere
amongst the 50-odd other
bowls in my kitchen. I
think it’s safe to say I have
a bowl issue.
Bowls are far from being
the only item I own too
many of, so I enlist the help of Rachel Papworth.
Rachel is a professional organiser and
decluttering coach who’s built her business -
Green & Tidy - around the thing she loves to
do the most.
I’ve watched the video on her YouTube channel
so I know what to expect when she arrives
at my house, but the masterclass she gives me
in organising just one kitchen cupboard feels
life changing. She tells me her ten rules, which,
she says must be followed with some rigour. I
won’t list all ten here (they’re available online)
but they involve getting everything out of the
space you’re going to address and sorting every
item into one of seven categories, taking the
necessary actions accordingly. It’s a constant
stream of small decisions which - like anything
you practise - get easier and easier. “It’s brilliant
practice for the rest of your life” Rachel tells
me. “People who master it often quickly graduate
on to making big life changes as they get
better at making decisions”.
With a background in psychology, she sees clutter
as a symptom; “external clutter is always a
manifestation of internal clutter so dealing with
our physical stuff can
help us to address the
psychological stuff”
and her empathic approach
is pragmatic
not preachy. She
keeps me on task and
offers pearls of wisdom.
Do you know,
for example, how
to stop your tin foil
from becoming unruly?
Or which charity
shops accept electrical
items? Or who
accepts foreign coinage for charity? I do now.
The best bit about having Rachel there is her
infectious enthusiasm for the task. She actually
seems to enjoy sorting through a bowl of loose
change, safety pins, beads and other shrapnel.
The real key is creating an organising habit,
to prevent the piles of doom accumulating in
the first place, and Rachel runs online courses
and a decluttering club to encourage just this.
“There usually comes a tipping point” she says,
“where letting go of stuff moves from feeling
scary and impossible to being enjoyable… it
helps us to feel in control. When other things
feel out of control, it’s a great moment to tackle
a hell drawer.”
It’s a surprisingly cathartic process, addictive
even, and once Rachel leaves I dive into another
cupboard and then a kitchen drawer. It’s going
to take a while to address the flotsam and jetsam
of my life but I’m inching towards that tipping
point. One bowl at a time.
Lizzie Lower
Ten-week programme £100, face-to-face sessions
from £50/hour. For a free online masterclass
visit mygreenandtidylife.co.uk
....83....
calais crisis
......................................
Cal-aid
How to help the refugees
I spent Mother’s Day at the
refugee camp in Calais – my
children, who are 12 and 15,
didn’t protest my absence.
They’d seen the photos
from previous trips. “Just
go,” they said. I left them in
our warm cosy home with
a fridge full of food, hot
water on tap, a bedroom
each, sofas and laptops and
cushions and heating. All
the normal stuff of home.
Each visit to the refugee camp and the warehouse
that supports it can leave you feeling
very odd - coursing with simultaneous feelings
of elation and despair. Elation at the ingenuity,
dedication and resourcefulness of everybody
there, the visible love, the co-operation, the
eternal sunshine of the human spirit in even the
darkest places; and despair that such a place exists
at all, in our rich continent. A continent that
prides itself on human rights.
Despair that children younger than my own are
in the camp alone, unaccompanied, cared for
by a volunteer called Liz Clegg, who protects
them as best she can because no government
will. Despair that there are people living under
paper-thin canvas in bitter cold (it snowed that
weekend), who are always hungry (despite the
approximately 2,000 hot meals served every day
by the Calais Kitchens, cooked by volunteers
from the food donated by you - there is never
enough).
And huge despair at the latest decision by the
Calais local authority to backtrack on an earlier
decision to allow people to
stay on this unpopulated
ex-rubbish tip for as long as
they needed. Nobody wants
to be in the Jungle, but for
thousands fleeing home
towns that had become
lethally hellish, it’s home
for now.
Except since early March, it
isn’t. The 1,200 basic shelters
made by a team of 200
builders and carpenters over
the winter months are now being systematically
destroyed by men in hi-viz jackets from the
Calais prefecture, whose destruction is guarded
by the CRS - the French riot police - as families
and individuals are forced out, with nowhere
to go. Many are simply setting up freezing cold
camp nearby, in scrubland, with no water, no
sanitation, nothing.
As a journalist, I feel utter despair at how the
mainstream media has been reporting - or not
reporting - all of this. Apart from perhaps the
Guardian, every other major news source -
including the supposedly impartial BBC and the
Independent - has been either wilfully erroneous,
economical with the truth, or in the case of the
right-wing press, simply making things up.
So how can there possibly be any feelings of elation?
When you are offered gracious hospitality
by a refugee who has nothing; when someone
destitute cracks a joke, in the midst of their grimness.
And back home, how our innate humanity
can be sparked to light in times of crisis.
Here are some examples. A fundraiser at the
....84....
calais crisis
......................................
Photos by Suzanne Harrington
Synergy Centre on West Street, organised
by a British-Iranian volunteer Leila Zadeh,
(whose mother is currently volunteering on
the Greek islands, welcoming new arrivals and
offering translation skills) which - with the
help of Irish-Iranian comic Patrick Monahan
- raised £5,366. The Hummingbird Charity,
fronted by the inexhaustible aid worker Elaine
Ortiz, sending monthly aid and supplies –
everything from bicycles and socks to doctors
and medicines. There is a Hummingbird Safe
Space in the middle of the Calais camp. Long
may it last.
From the Greek Girl’s Supper Club (which
happens monthly at the Pelham Arms in
Lewes, with all proceeds from its lovely
dinners going directly to refugee charities,
to the School Bus Project run by volunteers
trying to bring some educational normality to
the kids of the Calais camp) to Samara’s Aid
Appeal (run out of an Ovingdean home by a
woman who could no longer stand by and do
nothing - and whose project has sent dozens
of ambulances, care packages and medics to
the most damaged areas of Syria) there is the
elation of hope.
Brighton 2 Calais do regular runs bringing
desperately needed stuff to the French camp,
as do Brighton & Hove Calais Crisis Crew.
For displaced and destitute people who have
somehow made it to the UK, new arrivals
can be supported by hands on hospitality via
Spare Room. Another local fundraising group
is Brighton Migrant Solidarity.
But what if you’re really busy? What if you’d
like to help, but can’t give your time? Easy.
Go on Calaid-ipedia, have a look at which
group you’d like to support - food, clothes,
camping equipment, medicine, firewood (yes,
firewood, a camp essential) - and work from
there. Or, even more simply, photocopy a list
of stuff most needed by the men, women and
children in the Jungle - it’s all online - and
post it though your neighbours’ doors. That’s
what we did last time, and ended up with
several bursting carloads, thanks to the kindness
of our neighbours. Nothing is too little.
Everything helps. Suzanne Harrington
....85....
health
...........................................
Living-room fitness
Home is where the cardio is
In the Globo-gym chains in
Brighton and elsewhere, over
the past decade, there’s been a
misapprehension that Zoolander
was an aspirational documentary.
Young men, often of tangerine
hue, work their biceps,
chests, abs and nothing else,
whilst pouting at themselves in
the floor-to-ceiling-mirrors.
Elsie Harris’s personal training
clients wouldn’t know about
any of this. She comes to their
homes, runs classes at church
halls, or they come to her living
room. “It’s big, it has a laminate
floor, I roll up the rug and
chuck it over the back of the
sofa, and I bring out whatever
we’re going to use: kettlebells,
free weights, yoga mat, medicine balls.”
Having done a degree in Fashion at Brighton
University, she immediately set about getting her
PT qualifications. “I’d started doing weight training
when I was 20, 21 and loved it, and by halfway
through my first year I realized that my passion
for fitness and nutrition was greater than my passion
for fashion. God, I always swore I’d never use
that expression!”
What should have been a year or so with her head
down, learning the trade at a central Brighton
gym, turned into five years, at which point she was
hell-bent on going her own way.
“When I was working at the gym I was ridiculed
for being a feminist, ridiculed for being nice to
homeless people, for caring for animals and for
the environment and for buying my clothes from
charity shops.”
In tandem with going freelance, she began volunteering
as a Peer Group Facilitator at Brighton
Women’s Centre, and did a
counselling skills course; her
business card now says ‘Physiological,
Nutritional and Emotional
support’.
“The work I’ve done at the
Women’s Centre has made me a
better personal trainer, because
I’m now a better listener, more
understanding, more approachable.
It inspires me massively,
the people I meet there.”
When the weather’s decent,
she cycles to and from clients’
houses, which precludes transporting
heavy equipment.
“I’ve developed a way of thinking
to utilize what people have
in their homes, rather than
carrying a load of dumbbells
around. One lady, who’s 60, had a stroke a few
years ago; she uses a zimmer frame, and I basically
train her on her sofa. I have a wooden board that
I hold, and I then ‘become’ the leg press that she
pushes against. It gives her some strength, mobility
and a greater sense of wellbeing. With another
client, we use a footstool belonging to her kids to
increase or decrease resistance during exercises.”
Progress in gyms is often defined simply by
clothes sizes dropped, or weight lost, with purposefully
pasty ‘Before’ pics and professionally lit
‘After’ ones.
“Aesthetics is one facet of what it’s about, but the
increased strength and confidence are more important,
more significant than just weight loss. I
love when someone goes from saying ‘Oh god, I
hate exercise! I could never go to a gym!’ at the
start, to greeting me at the door with ‘Can we do
boxing today?!’” Andy Darling
Elsie Harris, 07752 946273
....87....
䈀 爀 愀 渀 搀 渀 攀 眀 洀 漀 搀 攀 爀 渀 猀 栀 漀 眀 爀 漀 漀 洀 Ⰰ 瀀 爀 漀 瘀 椀 搀 椀 渀 最 挀 礀 挀 氀 攀 猀
猀 愀 氀 攀 猀 Ⰰ 愀 挀 挀 攀 猀 猀 漀 爀 椀 攀 猀 Ⰰ 爀 攀 瀀 愀 椀 爀 猀 愀 渀 搀 戀 椀 欀 攀 ǻ 琀 琀 椀 渀 最
䈀 爀 愀 渀 搀 猀 椀 渀 挀 氀 甀 搀 攀 搀 愀 爀 攀 吀 爀 攀 欀 Ⰰ 䈀 爀 漀 洀 瀀 琀 漀 渀 Ⰰ 伀 爀 愀 渀 最 攀 Ⰰ
䤀 渀 琀 攀 渀 猀 攀 Ⰰ 䌀 漀 琀 椀 挀 Ⰰ 伀 爀 戀 攀 愀 愀 渀 搀 匀 甀 爀 氀 礀
圀 䔀 䌀 䄀 吀 䔀 刀 䘀 伀 刀 刀 伀 䄀 䐀 Ⰰ 䴀 伀 唀 一 吀 䄀 䤀 一 Ⰰ 䌀 伀 䴀 䴀 唀 吀 䤀 一 䜀 䄀 一 䐀
䌀 䠀 䤀 䰀 䐀 刀 䔀 一 ᤠ 匀 䈀 䤀 䬀 䔀 匀
儀 唀 伀 吀 䔀 ᠠ 嘀 䤀 嘀 䄀 䈀 刀 䤀 䜀 䠀 吀 伀 一 ᤠ 䘀 伀 刀 㔀 ─ 䐀 䤀 匀 䌀 伀 唀 一 吀
伀 一 䄀 䌀 䌀 䔀 匀 匀 伀 刀 䤀 䔀 匀 䄀 一 䐀 ─ 伀 䘀 䘀 䈀 䤀 䬀 䔀 匀
圀 䔀 䄀 刀 䔀 䈀 刀 䤀 䜀 䠀 吀 伀 一 匀 䈀 刀 伀 䴀 倀 吀 伀 一 䄀 䌀 䌀 刀 䔀 䐀 䤀 吀 䔀 䐀
圀 伀 刀 䬀 匀 䠀 伀 倀
圀 䤀 吀 䠀 伀 嘀 䔀 刀 ㈀ 夀 䔀 䄀 刀 匀 䔀 堀 倀 䔀 刀 䤀 䔀 一 䌀 䔀 伀 䘀 匀 䔀 䰀 䰀 䤀 一 䜀 䄀 一 䐀 刀 䔀 倀 䄀 䤀 刀 䤀 一 䜀
䈀 刀 伀 䴀 倀 吀 伀 一 匀 圀 䔀 䌀 䄀 一 伀 䘀 䘀 䔀 刀 吀 䠀 䔀 䈀 䔀 匀 吀 䄀 䐀 嘀 䤀 䌀 䔀 䘀 伀 刀 夀 伀 唀 刀 䈀 䤀 䬀 䔀
䘀 椀 渀 搀 甀 猀 漀 渀 氀 椀 渀 攀 昀 漀 爀 猀 漀 洀 攀
最 爀 攀 愀 琀 漀 昀 昀 攀 爀 猀 㨀
甀 欀 昀 爀 攀 攀 搀 漀 洀 戀 椀 欀 攀 猀
昀 爀 攀 攀 搀 漀 洀 戀 椀 欀 攀 猀 唀 䬀
眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 昀 爀 攀 攀 搀 漀 洀 戀 椀 欀 攀 猀 ⸀ 挀 漀 ⸀ 甀 欀
㈀ 㜀 アパート 㘀 㠀 㘀 㤀 㠀
㐀 㘀 ⴀ 㐀 㜀 䜀 攀 漀 爀 最 攀 匀 琀 爀 攀 攀 琀 Ⰰ
䈀 爀 椀 最 栀 琀 漀 渀 Ⰰ 䈀 一 ㈀ 刀 䨀
football
...........................................
The road to Wigan Athletic
Albion away? Piers Benjamin will be there
The first away match I went to
was in 1992, an FA Cup Second
Round replay against Woking
FC. We won 2-1, and John
Crumplin scored with his arse. I
was hooked.
Pretty soon every game was an
away game. After the Goldstone
was knocked down the Albion
were banished to Gillingham,
and after Bellotti [former director
David] had gone I went to every
game. It was only the stupid,
the sad and the lonely in those
games. That group is still the
core of the group I go to away
games with. I go to every away game.
Things have changed a lot since the mid-90s.
Cities have got a lot nicer. Even Rotherham has
got a couple of places in the good pub guide. Going
to Blackburn is still a horrible day out, mind.
It’s a bad situation when the best pub in a town is a
Wetherspoons.
However far we’re travelling we make sure we
get there by 11am, even if this means getting
the 5.50am out of Hove. You’ve got to make a day
of it. We don’t do much sightseeing, though we
usually go through the town centre. It’s all about
the pubs, really.
We don’t wear colours. Not because there’s
anything to worry about. It’s just the habit, really.
Goes back to the Gillingham days when the pubs
around Victoria Station wouldn’t let you in wearing
colours.
There was a bit of a flare up of the old-style
violence around the turn of the millennium, but
there’s no trouble any more,
unless people are really after it.
Football at this level has become
a middle-class game. Even going
to Cardiff is OK.
There’s a better crowd atmosphere
going to away games,
though it’s not what it was.
There’s a contingent who try to
act like European Ultras, and a
lot of the songs they try to sing
are too complicated for the bulk
of the fans to pick up. Spontaneous
reaction songs are much
more effective.
How much have I spent on
going away? I wouldn’t like to think. You do get
expert at getting the cheapest tickets, but it does
add up. What’s £30 for the ticket plus £25 for
the train plus £50-70 spending money times 18
matches? Over two grand, I guess. And then there’s
the England matches. Still, you’ve got to spend
your money on something. Other people spend a
fortune in garden centres.
If Albion got into Europe I’d definitely go to all
the games. Might help me tick a few new countries
off if we drew teams in Armenia or Kazakhstan.
The furthest I’ve been with the Albion is for
friendlies in Galway and Aberdeen. In all I’ve been
to over 130 different stadiums.
Last season when the final whistle went at
Middlesbrough we all breathed a collective sigh of
relief. This season’s success has been an unexpected
surprise: as we’re still in with a shout at the
business end of the season I’m expecting a lot of
company in the away end. As told to Alex Leith
....89....
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䘀 甀 氀 氀 礀 爀 攀 最 椀 猀 琀 攀 爀 攀 搀 䌀 漀 洀 瀀 氀 攀 洀 攀 渀 琀 愀 爀 礀 吀 栀 攀 爀 愀 瀀 椀 猀 琀 猀 甀 猀 椀 渀 最
瘀 愀 氀 椀 搀 愀 琀 攀 搀 琀 攀 挀 栀 渀 椀 焀 甀 攀 猀 昀 漀 爀 㨀 猀 琀 爀 攀 猀 猀 Ⰰ 愀 渀 砀 椀 攀 琀 礀 Ⰰ 瀀 栀 漀 戀 椀 愀 猀 Ⰰ 椀 渀 猀 漀 洀 渀 椀 愀 Ⰰ
眀 攀 椀 最 栀 琀 氀 漀 猀 猀 愀 渀 搀 愀 眀 栀 漀 氀 攀 爀 愀 渀 最 攀 漀 昀 氀 椀 昀 攀 挀 栀 愀 氀 氀 攀 渀 最 攀 猀 ⸀
刀 攀 最 甀 氀 愀 爀 最 爀 漀 甀 瀀 眀 漀 爀 欀 猀 栀 漀 瀀 猀 愀 氀 猀 漀 愀 瘀 愀 椀 氀 愀 戀 氀 攀 ⸀
䘀 刀 䔀 䔀 䤀 一 䤀 吀 䤀 䄀 䰀 䔀 堀 倀 䰀 伀 刀 䄀 吀 伀 刀 夀 匀 䔀 匀 匀 䤀 伀 一 伀 䘀 䘀 䔀 刀 䔀 䐀
䘀 漀 爀 洀 漀 爀 攀 椀 渀 昀 漀 爀 洀 愀 琀 椀 漀 渀 漀 爀 琀 漀 洀 愀 欀 攀 愀 渀 愀 瀀 瀀 漀 椀 渀 琀 洀 攀 渀 琀
挀 愀 氀 氀 㜀 㤀 㠀 㠀 アパート アパートアパート 㜀 漀 爀 瘀 椀 猀 椀 琀 眀 眀 眀 ⸀ 猀 愀 渀 愀 眀 攀 氀 氀 戀 攀 椀 渀 最 ⸀ 挀 漀 洀
cycling
...........................................
The Brompton diaries
An unfolding story
“Bloody Brompton!” I’ve spent the day with the
folding bike I’m trying out, and I’m just about
sick of it. It folds neatly into a portable if-fairlyheavy
unit, but I’ve had one of those days flitting
between Kemptown and London Road and Hove
and Lewes, and it’s nearly midnight, and I’m tired,
and I’m on the train back to Brighton and I can’t
remember the order in which it unfolds, and lots
of people are looking at me.
I’ve got the bike for a week though – courtesy of
Freedom Bikes – and something happens on day
two which makes me feel warmer towards the
machine. I meet a friend for a drink in the William
IV pub, and the drink turns into two, and then
three, and then four, and by the end I realise that I
really don’t want to cycle home, and then it comes
to me that – hey! – I can just put the bike in a taxi
and get taken home, so that’s what I do.
Over the week, I get to realise that riding a
Brompton around town is quite fun. It’s a zippy
little thing, and you can turn sharply and weave
in and out of traffic and slip between cars and the
kerb easily, and it’s got six-speed gears which –
while they’re a bit clunky – do work, enabling you
to go up hills with no trouble and get a bit of heft
behind you if you’re going down them. It’s funny
being so close to the ground, but you get used
to it. And it’s damn easy to jump on and off. And
people look at you, because let’s face it, you really
do notice a Brompton.
It’s clear to me from the start that this is a fling
rather than a marriage, because my day is too
bitty to do all that folding and unfolding – you’re
meant to be able to do it in nine seconds but it
tends to take me at least 30 – but I can see why
the Brompton would be Mr Right for people
with a slightly different lifestyle. Commuters, for
example, who wouldn’t otherwise be able to take a
bike on the peak-hour train (Southern are sticklers
on this even on non-busy lines). People who live in
extremely small flats, or have boats in the Marina,
or caravaners who want to take a bike on holiday.
If I could afford it, in fact, I’d buy a Brompton just
for the occasions that it would come in useful.
On my last Brompton day I cycle from Brighton
into Lewes. There’s a headwind, and I manage to
get into the slipstream of this guy on a racer in
tights and clip-on shoes, and I can tell he’s aware
of me, and he can’t shake me though he tries a few
times, and after the Coldean junction traffic lights
I realise I’ve got the legs on him and I overtake
him on the hill, and lose him and I can hear him
think… “Bloody Brompton.”
Alex Leith
....91....
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property
...........................................
Safe as houses?
Estate agent Paul Bonett on the Brighton property market
If I had to sum up the state
of the Brighton property
market in one word, it would
be ‘complicated’.
Everything changed around
15 years ago, when the
government started promoting
Buy-to-Let mortgages. People
started buying property as a
pension plan, which offered
a better return than savings
because of low interest rates.
As a result, the number of
properties on the market at
any one time has shrunk by
as much as 50%, especially
property historically in ‘First Time Buyer’
territory. Fewer properties being available has
pushed prices up, pricing out that typical firsttime
buyer.
Some are now going further afield; buying in
Peacehaven, Newhaven, Shoreham and Worthing,
where prices, in turn, are increasing.
A lot of buyers are coming down from London,
one of the few places where housing is more
expensive than Brighton, either having sold their
home in the capital, or rented it out (though
there is still no shortage of local buyers).
Brighton’s housing stock is limited: because
of the Downs and the sea there isn’t much opportunity
for ‘new build’. A flurry of international
investors are buying batches of what new build
flats do appear around the city. I’m not sure this
is really helping our local Brighton community.
Another current challenge (probably because
of anxiety about world events in China and Syria)
is that people are interested in moving, but
they are reluctant to put their
homes on the market, further
increasing the shortage of
available stock, so pushing up
prices even higher.
Even so, many are still making
offers on property. But
owners aren’t really interested
in offers unless the chains are
complete the other end. So,
for the Brighton market to
have legs, people who want to
move need to take the plunge
and get on the market.
The uncertainty about
the UK being in or out of
Europe isn’t helping either. I think it’d be
madness to leave, but if we did, a lot of housing
stock may well come back onto the market. A lot
of renters at the moment are European students
and workers and there would be far fewer of
them around, so I suspect a good proportion of
Buy-To-Let investors may want to sell up.
The rental market in Brighton is equally
complicated. Prices are out of kilter with local
affordability so a lot of people who work in
Brighton – including key workers – can’t afford
to live here because rents are so high. This is not
good for the wider local economy because those
renting locally don’t have much money left over
to spend on other things.
Nevertheless Brighton is always dynamic:
there’s a fantastic variety of property styles, and
an enthusiasm from people to live here. Brighton
is often seen as a bit of a bubble: whatever is going
on in the UK economy, people find Brighton
& Hove irresistible. As told to Alex Leith
....93....
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info@360-home.co.uk
Call: 01273 358901
icks and Mortar
...........................................
Shoreham self-build
‘It almost seems to grow up out of the beach’
This striking building, with its ‘glass box’
upstairs living space and cosy, sheltered lower
level, is home to civil servant Catherine and
pilot Adas Nicholson. The house, situated on
Shoreham Beach, was built on the site of the
bungalow they had been living in for five years
previously. After 18 months of discussion and
drawing up ideas with local architect Giles Ings
of ABIR Architects, they began the year-long
project of building their dream home.
“It’s very important to build something that’s
right for the area it’s in,” says Giles. “What
frustrates me is when large-scale housing
developers put up these buildings and call them
‘products’, and they look the same wherever
they’re built.” The lower level of the house is
clad in cages – which had to be specially-made
using stainless steel to stand up to the salty sea
air – filled with pebbles. The team spent a long
time searching for locally-dredged pebbles
which would look just like the ones in Shoreham,
so that when you look at the house from
the shore, the building almost seems to grow up
out of the beach.
Behind the pebbles is an innovative blockwork
system introduced by builder Tim, who lives
just across the road and has worked on several
houses along this stretch. It uses hollow blocks
made out of crushed wood pallets, which are
built up to form a wall, before being filled with
insulation and concrete. The combination
serves to keep the lower level of the house at a
constant temperature very effectively, but the
bigger design challenge was the south-facing
first-floor living space.
“We spent a lot of time on the thermal calculations,”
explains Giles, “working out how to
stop the upstairs room from getting too hot
during the summer.” One part of the solution
was a solar coating on the large window panes,
which stops too much heat from coming in. But
there’s an even more complex system at work,
hidden within the ceilings. The whole house is
fitted with a heat-recovery system, which draws
in hot stale air through ceiling vents, extracts the
heat and uses it to warm up the fresh air coming
into the property. The house also uses an airsource
heat pump, which is basically a fridge in
reverse; using low-grade heat from the air from
outdoors and transferring it for use through the
underfloor heating and hot water systems.
Although Catherine and Adas don’t consider
their project to be quite finished – there’s still
an ensuite to fit and some finishing touches to
complete – it’s safe to say the project has been
a success. “It’s a big investment and you really
want it to work out. When you’re building
your own home it’s very difficult to make any
compromises, but this is the house that we want
to live in forever.” Rebecca Cunningham
....95....
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3D printer at Barclays Eagle Lab
brighton in business
.............................................................................................
There’s something of a housing crisis in the city
with a lack of affordable homes and, according to
housing charity Shelter, rents 46% higher than
the national average (ouch). And there are, of
course, a great many people in the city who find
themselves without a home at all. Karl Williams,
owner of Brighton-based building company 360
Home, has decided to put something back into
the community by working with the Brighton
Housing Trust’s First Base on their First Impressions
programme. This is a project funded by The
Big Lottery that supports people who are ‘street
homeless’ and experiencing barriers in accessing
work and training. 360 Home provide one-to-one
support for participants looking to return to the
building trade. [bht.org.uk] [360-home.co.uk]
If you don’t own a business but you do have a
spare room, you can help too. Barnardo’s are
looking for individuals and families who can
offer practical and emotional support for young
people who are homeless or leaving care. Hosts
receive round-the-clock assistance, a dedicated
key worker, comprehensive training and a weekly
allowance. Call Barnardo’s Supported Lodgings
team to find out more. [01273 412010]
In this uncertain climate, people who were contemplating
moving might be inclined to stay put
and spruce up their existing home. Local designer,
Khan Stevens, of Parker Bathrooms & Kitchens
in Seven Dials, has been nominated as a finalist
in the Kitchen Designer of the Year (2016
Kbbreview Retail & Design Awards). Parker pride
themselves on creating design impact within any
budget and the judges were suitably impressed.
See his design at parkerbathrooms.co.uk.
Brighton is home to a great many entrepreneurs
and there are a couple of recent additions to the
local landscape to help grow some more. We’ll be
talking to Hattie Love over the coming months; a
young woman building her own business with the
support of Entrepreneurial Spark. That’s a ‘business
accelerator’ offering mentoring and more for
start-ups and they’re on the lookout for their next
intake. Visit entepreneurialspark.com to sign up.
If you’ve already got a great idea but you just need
the space and equipment to make it happen, check
out the Barclays Eagle Lab at Preston Circus.
The third in the UK, they offer space to create
and innovate, with equipment (laser cutters, 3D
printers, scanners), space (office, gallery, workshop,
meeting) and all sorts of know-how to hire on
flexible terms. Available to individuals, schools,
community groups and businesses; book in and
make something amazing. [brightoneaglelabs@
barclays.com]
Finally, they say that moving home is one of the
most stressful things you can do, so we suggest you
take a leaf out of Martlets book. The charity shop,
whose proceeds fund their hospices in and around
the city, moved their vintage shop on Church
Street a whole two doors up – from one side of
Dockerills to the other. Surely that just involves
sashaying up the street in a headscarf with a few
things in an elegant valise. Now that’s how to do it.
....97....
inside left: brighton at home, 1953
..............................................................................................
This oil painting of Brighton & Hove Albion’s Goldstone Ground, entitled Saturday Afternoon, 1953, is
by Fred Yates, and it won second prize in the painting category of the Football Association’s ‘Football
and the Fine Arts’ competition, held in 1953, which subsequently toured the country. That was no mean
feat, as the winner was Lowry’s Going to the Match, which fetched a price of £2 million at auction in 1999.
The competition, in association with the newly founded Arts Council (under John Meynard Keynes), was
given a great deal of publicity at the time, and there were a total of 1710 entries from the public.
Yates, himself from Manchester, was often likened to Lowry, which he shrugged off with good grace, suggesting
he was a ‘happy Lowry’. He took up painting after serving in WW2, and spent much of the 50s
teaching art in Brighton. This is a stylised version of the Goldstone Ground, taken from the viewpoint of
Goldstone Lane, behind the ‘Chicken Run’ (East Terrace). The West Stand, sponsored by Co-operative,
also appears in the James Gray collection; Gray called it ‘miserable’ and revealed it was nicknamed ‘The
Rabbit Hutch’ by the fans.
The painting has some lovely touches and is worth close scrutiny. Check out the folding chairs in the
foreground, the hot dog stand adjacent to the Rabbit Hutch, and the splendid Goldstone House in the
top right of the picture. There are a couple of anomalies: Yates has turned the ground round, for the sake
of composition (it should be the East stand in front of Goldstone House). And count the players and
you’ll see that the Albion only have ten on the pitch. Perhaps one has been sent off or – this being long
before substitutes were allowed – injured?
The Goldstone Ground was, of course, scandalously demolished in 1997, and the Albion lost their
spiritual home, banished to Gillingham and Withdean until the Amex was completed in 2011. The image
is part of the Brighton and Hove Museum collection, and we use it courtesy of the Estate of Fred Yates.
Yates continued painting until his death, aged 85, in 2008.
....98....
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