Viva Brighton Issue #66 August 2018

BITS AND BOOKS
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111 PLACES IN BRIGHTON AND LEWES
THAT YOU SHOULDN’T MISS
THE PERFECT STAYCATION GUIDE BY ALEXANDRA LOSKE
Regular readers of Viva Brighton
will know what a fine historian
of our city by the sea Alexandra
Loske is. Hers is ‘Curator’s City’
- the illustrated piece you’ll see
every month towards the front
of the magazine. When she’s not
moonlighting for Viva, Alexandra
lectures at the University of Sussex
(Art History), and is a curator
at the Royal Pavilion.
Which makes her the perfect
person to write a guidebook to
Brighton. But she doesn’t just show us round places
we might know well – The Basketmakers’ Arms,
Bardsley’s Fish & Chip emporium, the Friends’
Meeting House – she also takes us on trips to
Falmer, Shoreham, and Lewes.
The book is simply but elegantly conceived. A
short but comprehensive account of the particular
place you fancy checking out is given on the right
hand page (the recto, as Alexandra might say),
whilst on the left hand page (the verso) there’s a
handsome photograph to accompany the text with
handy information in a little panel such as address,
directions, opening times (if applicable) and an insider’s
tip. Her entries are arranged alphabetically,
with an introduction by herself, useful maps at the
back of the book, and a note on transport.
I turned to some places I’m familiar with, to
see what Alexandra says about them. Her entry
on the ‘Angel of Peace’ soon put me right. This
is the statue that stands on the seafront where
Brighton meets Hove. I thought it was erected
after the First World War, a commemoration of
the Angel of Mons, but no. It’s
actually a tribute to Edward
VII, put up two years after his
death, in 1912. Bertie, as he was
nicknamed, became renowned
‘for his diplomatic skills… and
was known as ‘the peacemaker’.’
Some also knew him as ‘Edward
the Caresser’, and I like to
think the amorous reputation
of Brighton is also somehow
symbolised by this statue. Peace
and love. At least, that’s how I’ll
think of her now, looking out to sea.
What about somewhere I’d only vaguely heard of?
There’s a fascinating couple of pages on the Unicorn
Bookshop mural in the North Laine. This
psychedelic piece commemorates the Unicorn
Bookshop, ‘run from 1965 to 1975 by the openly
gay American poet and occultist William Huxford
Butler’. Here is a focal point of the counter-culture,
complete with mandatory ‘bust’: Butler was
prosecuted for obscenity in 1968 for publishing a
pamphlet by JG Ballard, Why I Want To Do Something
To Ronald Reagan. This is a family publication,
so I’ll leave it to grown-ups’ imaginations quite
what that ‘something’ was.
I’m taking a staycation this summer. Thanks to
Alexandra’s book I’m not venturing much further
than my doorstep. With this elegant tome in hand
I have the best part of 111 places to go and see. I
thought I knew Brighton – thanks to this book I
look forward to getting to know it all over again.
John O’Donoghue
Emons, £12.99
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