Viva Brighton Issue #76 June 2019

VIVA
B R I G H T O N
#76. JUNE 2019
EDITORIAL
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Viva Magazines is based at:
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I’ve never really been one for sport. There
was a brief moment when I was a reasonably
enthusiastic gymnast, and I was fairly useful
on a netball court at school, but that’s about
the extent of my sporting prowess. So, when
we decided on ‘sport’ for our June theme, I
knew I wasn’t going to be drawing on personal
experience.
Luckily the city is full of suitably sporty types,
brimming with enthusiasm and encouragement.
In these pages we meet a sea swimmer who’s
been in the Channel most days for 30 years
(except for Sundays, when he goes for a
bike ride); a runner who's found fitness and
friendship among the hundreds (of thousands)
of parkrun devotees; and the wheelchair dancers
performing in town this month. There’s a
Brighton University professor who’s bringing
some scientific rigour to the debate around the
integration of transgender athletes in elite sport;
a Sussex Uni Physics student who’s hoping to
become an astronaut, once she’s done defending
her world powerlifting record; and a worldfamous
ice hockey ace who made his name in
Brighton (naturally).
It’s enough to bring me out in a sweat just
thinking about it. Perhaps I’d be better cheering
them on from the side lines. Although – if the
Whitehawk Ultras and the ladies of Brighton
Races’ Ladies Day are anything to go by – I’ll be
needing to up my game there, too.
There’s definitely room for improvement. My
personal best (I like to think) is yet to come.

Rachael Stirling
Rory Keenan
PLENTY
By David Hare
In a post-war land of plenty Susan Traherne,
former secret agent, battles for her own body
and mind, as Britain loses its role in the world.
TICKETS FROM
£
10
7 – 29 June
cft.org.uk 01243 781312
#Plenty

VIVA
B R I G H T O N
THE TEAM
.....................
EDITOR: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com
SUB EDITOR: David Jarman
PRODUCTION EDITOR: Joe Fuller joe@vivamagazines.com
ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivamagazines.com
PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst mail@adambronkhorst.com
ADVERTISING: Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com,
Sarah Jane Lewis sarah-jane@vivamagazines.com
ADMINISTRATION & ACCOUNTS: Kelly Mechen kelly@vivamagazines.com
DISTRIBUTION: David Pardue distribution@vivamagazines.com
CONTRIBUTORS: Alex Hood, Alex Leith, Alexandra Loske,
Amy Holtz, Ben Bailey, Charlotte Gann, Chris Riddell,
Donough O’Malley, JJ Waller, Jacqui Bealing, Jay Collins, Joda,
Joe Decie, John Helmer, Lizzie Enfield, Mark Greco, Martin Skelton,
Michael Blencowe, Nione Meakin, Rose Dykins and Victoria Nangle.
PUBLISHER: Becky Ramsden becky@vivamagazines.com
Please recycle your Viva (or keep us forever).

Celebrate the serenity
and elegance of the
waterlilies on our lakes
© National Trust 2019 . Registered charity, No. 205846. © National Trust Images \Nina Elliot-Newman.
The Waterlily Festival
Sheffield Park and Garden
8 June - 14 July
Free Waterfall Walks
Lino Print or Photography Workshops
Waterlilies to take home from our plant sales area
Art installations
And more...
Sheffield Park, Uckfield, East Sussex, TN22 3QX
nationaltrust.org.uk/sheffieldpark

CONTENTS
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Lothar Götz. Composition for a Staircase. Pallant House Gallery, 2016.
Photo by By Andy Keate
Bits & Bobs.
12-29. Donough O’Malley and his
smashing cover design; ice hockey ace
Bobby Lee is on the buses; Alexandra
Loske has been buffing up the Brighton
Cup and Joe Decie shares the contents
of his trophy cabinet. Elsewhere, JJ
Waller is amongst the ladies at the
races, Alex Leith watches a monumental
match at the Monty, we share news
about Global Sharing Week and much
more besides.
My Brighton.
30-31. We meet Brighton Swimming
Club president Jasper Stevens after his
morning dip in the Channel.
Photography.
33-39. JJ Waller is embedded with the
Whitehawk Ultras.
59
61
Photo by JJ Waller
8 33
Columns.
41-45. John Helmer is a good sport,
Lizzie Enfield takes a lap of the Berlin
Wall, and Amy Holtz is on a winning
streak.
On this month.
47-57. Ben Bailey rounds up his pick
of the gigs; there’s Wheelchair Tango
and a Charleston-inspired Ceilidh in
store at Our City Dances, and a chance
to try circus skills, capoeira, handball
(and much more) at TAKEPART 2019.
Rachael Stirling takes the lead in David
Hare’s Plenty, at Chichester Festival
Theatre; Brighton Comedy Garden
at Preston Park puts the city back on
the comedy festival circuit, and Billy
Bragg is at the Black Deer Americana
and Country Music Festival. Plus Gill
Sims relives the realities of parenting at
Komedia, and The Zap takes a curtain
call at TOM.
....7 ....

FESTIVAL OF THE GARDEN
TALKS, TOURS & DEMOS FOR THE CURIOUS GARDENER
CURATED BY TOM STUART-SMITH
Speakers include:
Jinny Blom
Rachel de Thame
Caroline Lucas
Andy Sturgeon
Derry Watkins
Cleve West
Christopher Woodward
13 & 14 JULY
TICKETS £12/£10
CHARLESTON.ORG.UK 01323 815144
Image © Penelope Fewster

CONTENTS
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Art & design.
59-71. Lothar Götz is transforming the
Towner; Sir Peter Blake takes a Day
Trip to Farleys; Same Sky turns 30; Lois
O’Hara on her colourful courts, and just
some of what’s on, art wise, this month
73
The way we work.
73-77. Adam Bronkhorst gets in front of
an American Footballer (and four other
fastmoving folk).
Food.
79-83. Rose Dykins is schooled in the
art of eating artichokes at The Paradiso
Social; Brass Monkey share their recipe
for cardamom ice cream; we discover
The Flour Pot’s pear piccalilli in
Portland Road, and just a taster of this
month’s food news.
Features.
85-95. Amy Holtz sweats it out at
Brighton’s beach sauna; we get to grips
with Boulder Brighton and meet a
professor who is carrying out research
into the contentious issue of transgender
athletes in elite sport. Plus we find
out what keeps the masses coming back
Photo by Adam Bronkhorst
to parkrun and speak to Poppy Joshi –
Sussex Uni Physics student and world
powerlifting champion.
Wildlife.
97. Heavyweights of the insect world:
Michael Blencowe is in search of the
stag beetle.
Inside left.
98. SS Brighton, circa 1959.
91
63
....9 ....

ADVERTORIAL
“From Crutches to Triathlon”
Thanks to studying at the College of Naturopathic Medicine
Angela MacRitchie, CNM Graduate in Naturopathic
Nutrition, Herbal Medicine, and Naturopathy
From the age of seven I loved doing ballet
and gymnastics and represented my county
in gymnastics. But at the age of nineteen my
knee swelled up to a huge size and no-one
was sure why. It was incredibly painful and
I could only walk with crutches. Over the
next twenty years I had six operations, from
investigating ‘foreign bodies’ to moving the
knee cap.
My knee was painful, often excruciatingly
so, and left me bed-ridden for whole days. I
was on heavy painkillers which became less
effective the longer I took them.
After the sixth operation, which did not
bring relief, the consultant said, ‘No
more operations, I’m referring you to the
Rheumatology Clinic’. The Rheumatologist
gave me hope for the first time in years. I
was prescribed a cocktail of powerful antiinflammatory
drugs which, for the first three
months, left me feeling very unwell. I was
persuaded to persist with them and after
the three months the change in my knee
was noticeable. The swelling went down
dramatically for the first time and soon
afterwards I was able to dispense with the
crutches. The drugs had worked and I was
able to walk further than I had done in years.
Two years after going on the anti-inflammatory
drugs, which I was told I was likely to have to
take for life, I went on holiday and realised I
had left them all at home by mistake. The fact
that neither my mobility nor my pain levels
changed without drugs during that short
period encouraged me to consider reducing
the medication and investigate other, natural
methods, which I began to do. The pain didn’t

ADVERTORIAL
was making to my lifestyle and diet, he was
unimpressed. I told him that I had challenged
myself to do a triathlon in two years’ time, to
which he replied, ‘No chance’.
But my body increasingly began to wake up
again and respond. Two years later, at the
age of 46 I successfully completed my first
triathlon.
I’m now 50. It’s been six years since I’ve taken
any medication. My knee is fine. I’m pain-free
and enjoy more mobility than since I was a
teenager. The only reason I haven’t done
more triathlons is because I’ve completed my
studies for three Diplomas at CNM: Nutrition,
Naturopathy and Herbal Medicine.
I learnt amazing facts at CNM which really
helped my health. It turned out my blood
had no Rheumatoid factor markers, so
Rheumatoid Arthritis was never the problem.
worsen, and I could still get about, so I didn’t
take any more drugs.
At my next check-up the Rheumatologist
explained why it was extremely unhelpful
to reduce the drugs so quickly and
to reduce them below a certain level.
I understood, and it’s definitely not
something I would ever advise anyone else
to do. No responsible practitioner would
do so, as stopping medication can have
dangerous repercussions. When I told the
Rheumatologist that I was detoxing, which
herbs I was taking and what other changes I
It was tough studying for three Diplomas
and working full time, but everyone at CNM
helped me. I now have three clinics offering
my clients complete wellbeing packages.
As a Naturopath I know the importance of
giving the body what it needs for healing and
returning to balance and inspiring people to
make positive
change in their
lives.
I don’t have
the words to
express how
much studying
at CNM has
changed my life.
CNM has a twenty-year track record in training
successful practitioners in natural therapies, in class
and online, with colleges across the UK and Ireland.
Visit naturopathy-uk.com or call 01342 410 505

THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTIST
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You’ve probably seen illustrator and
designer Donough O’Malley’s work
before: he created the red octopus of
Brighton Fringe’s 2018 brochure cover.
Having grown up in a “small, quiet, rural
place” in Ireland, Donough moved to the
UK to study an illustration foundational
degree in Bristol.
After graduating from University of
Brighton’s Narrative and Sequential
Design Masters course, Donough initially
focused on illustrating fiction, such as the
World of Norm series of children’s books.
He mainly works in editorial, advertising,
and branding commissions that now
include non-fiction books.
“Fiction is a little bit whimsical: you’ve
got a lot of space to create things but in
the non-fiction area you have to have
things factually right. One book I’ve
finished recently is a lift-the-flap book
on Chemistry: they need to know what a
chemical molecule looks like and I don’t
want to be screwing that up.”
Donough has also studied Graphic Design
in London, which has steered him to “a
simpler graphical style. Looking for that
simplicity in paring down what you need
to get a message across. Normally when I
start off with a brief it’s draw, draw, draw,
lots of drawing, if time allows for it. Once
I have an idea or an essence, I boil it down
into the simplest form that I possibly can
that gets the message across clearly, and
hopefully in a fun and humorous way”.
Once the flurry of drawing has subsided
and he has settled on a final idea,
Donough will “work it up larger, in pencil.
Then move things around: I like to have
things align and be connected in some
way, so there’s a form and a grid to it.
Once I’m happy with those drawings, I can
....12....

DONOUGH O’MALLEY
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add more detail. I scan it, then I draw out
all the elements again on my computer,
using vector tools. Each little shape will
be its own object so I can move them and
change the colour however I want.”
Although Donough takes inspiration from
a wide range of illustrators – including
Brighton-based artists Leon Edler, Leigh
Pearce and Ryan Gillet – he looks to
designers now, “for a sense of styles, shapes,
colours and patterns. Anything from the
mid-20th century, such as Dutch designer
Wim Crouwel. His work has graphic
patterns and geometric shapes. I see
something in the shapes and the colours
and think ‘maybe I can create a character or
scene from his work’.
“With the sport theme, I thought great, I
can have some fun here, I can do whatever
I want. After just spending Easter weekend
in Brighton (lots of beach walks with
the dog) I watched the volleyball players
down there. It struck me that there are
a lot of elements here, a lot of action
and dynamism so I thought, OK this
could work.” It certainly does! Let’s hope
that summer plays ball, so we can all try
emulating such dynamism on the beach
ourselves…
Joe Fuller
donoughomalley.com
pencilrobot.bigcartel.com
....13....

BITS AND BUSES
...............................
ON THE BUSES #50: BOBBY LEE ROUTE 1
Robert James Lee, known as Bobby Lee, was a huge name in
Brighton and a superstar in the world of ice hockey in the 50s. He
was born in 1911 in Montreal and grew up using the frozen lakes
and rivers to practise, skating as well as he could walk from a young
age. After breaking into the Canadian league in his early twenties,
Bobby was invited to England by the head coach of the Brighton
Tigers, who signed him in 1936. He was an incredibly talented
player, first breaking the record for scoring over two hundred goals,
and then going on to create the four hundred goal record, playing
well into his forties.
He married Billie, a local woman, in 1939, and, with the outbreak
of WW2, they moved to Canada where Bobby joined the air force.
Following the war, they returned to Brighton, raising their family
in Mile Oak. Bobby took on the triple role of player, coach and manager of the Brighton Tigers
and the team enjoyed great success. Thousands of supporters packed out Brighton Sports Stadium,
known locally as ‘SS Brighton’ every Thursday to watch them play (see pg 98). When the Brighton
Tigers played their last game in 1965, due to the council’s decision to demolish the stadium, Bobby
Lee was the last man on the ice. He died on New Year’s Eve in 1974, and is remembered as a true
gentleman of the sport. Alex Hood
Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)

TRIPS AND BOBS
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SPREAD THE WORD
Here’s Steve
Crump with
his copy of
Viva at the
Indus Hospital
in Karachi,
Pakistan.
Steve is the
founder and Chief Executive of Brighton-based
charity DeafKidz International, who work to
ensure the safeguarding and protection of deaf
children at risk of abuse and exploitation. As well
as Pakistan, Steve’s work takes him to South Africa,
Jamaica, Iraq and India. “All countries where
I leave my copies of Viva in guest houses, hotel
common rooms or NGO meeting places,” he
tells us. “It’s like carrying a little piece of Brighton
with you, wherever you
go and whatever you’re
doing! Love it.” [deafkidzinternational.org]
And here is Elly Babe, with
her copy of the April issue,
in Budapest. On a city
break to the Hungarian
capital, Elly and boyfriend
Alex stopped by Heroes Square, which serves
as a memorial for soldiers and historical figures,
hosts many political events and makes a popular
photo opp for tourists!
Keep taking us with you and keep spreading
the word. Send your photos and a few words
about you and your trip to
hello@vivamagazines.com
Space to
breathe
made at
Nymans
Within Nymans' yew sheltered Rose Garden, the subtle
perfume of roses punctuate the air, particularly on a
warm summer's day. Visit throughout June to see over
115 varieties in flower, with their scent carrying
throughout the garden.
These are the places that make us.
nationaltrust.org.uk/nymans
© National Trust 2019 . Registered charity, No. 205846. © National Trust Images \National Trust/Tom Whalley.

CURATOR’S CITY
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All images: Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove
After Charles Thomas Cracklow: View of the Pavilion and Steyne at Brighton. After 1806
GRATEFUL GEORGE’S HORSE BLING:
THE BRIGHTON CUP UP-CLOSE
It is well known that George IV was a connoisseur
of all things bling and beautiful. The Royal
Pavilion boasts one of the most spectacular and
valuable collections of silver-gilt in the country,
most of it displayed in and next to the Banqueting
Room. One piece, the ‘Brighton Cup’, has
a very special connection with George, and has
been moved to the Prints & Drawings Gallery
in Brighton Museum for the exhibition All the
King’s Horses, which explores George’s obsession
with all things equestrian. This is a rare opportunity
to see this magnificent object up-close, from
a different angle, newly cleaned, and without the
distraction of all the other exciting objects in the
Pavilion. It also gives us an opportunity to tell
its story.
Racing at Brighton began in 1783, the same year
George first visited Brighton, as a young prince
of 21. Although well known, the Brighton track
initially struggled to make money. A small group
of wealthy supporters including the Earl of Egremont
and the Duke of Richmond supported it
....16....

CURATOR’S CITY
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were won by George’s own horse Orville, a
famous racehorse which he had bought less
than a year earlier from Christopher Wilson.
George could hardly present the cup to
himself and was so grateful to Wilson that he
decided to give it to him instead, as a mark of
his pleasure at the success of Orville. He duly
inscribed it ‘The Gift of His Royal Highness
the Prince of Wales to Chris. Wilson’. The
cup remained in the Wilson family until 1952,
when it was acquired by the Royal Pavilion
with the help of the Art Fund. Even its original
After James Sayers: Prince of Wales. 1788
financially. The first grandstand, seen in a print
by Thomas Rowlandson, was built in 1788, and
it is likely that the races were one of the main
reasons George was attracted to the area.
The large vase-shaped lidded Brighton Cup is
made from solid silver covered with a thin layer
of gold (‘silver-gilt’). It was commissioned by
George (when Prince of Wales) in 1804 as a
trophy for the Brighton Races of 30 July 1805.
case survives, which was too large to include in
the exhibition.
There is another extraordinary object in
our collection that relates to the cup, and it
is currently displayed next to it: A letter to
Christopher Wilson at Newmarket, written by
George himself, at the Royal Pavilion on 28
October 1804, complete with the royal seal. In
it a grateful George thanks Wilson for selling
him Orville: ‘I can not help writing you a line,
to thank you for letting me
become the [purchaser] of
Orville. I assure You I am
most sensible of your kind
attention to me on this as
well as on all other [occasions?].’
He adds
John Emes/Rundell, Bridge & Rundell: The Brighton Cup. 1804
Fittingly, it is topped by the Prince of Wales’
‘that there
feathers, which we also see on the East front
is always [a]
of the Pavilion and in many other locations in
good cheer
the building. Made by John Emes for the Royal
at the Pavilion,
goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, the
& that there is
cup cost George more than £157. On one side
always a hearty
a plaque depicts a view of the Royal Pavilion in
welcome ready for
its early stage, a neo-classical building designed
you there or at Carl-
by Henry Holland; on the other the figure of
ton House’. Alexandra
Victory presents a laurel wreath to the winner
Loske, Art Historian and
of a classical horse race (with nude riders!).
Curator, The Royal
As luck would have it, the 1805 Brighton Races
Pavilion
....17....

ADVERTORIAL
WHEN A WILL
ISN’T ENOUGH
Having a Will is certainly better
than not having one, but as
Camilla Bishop explains, less
isn’t always more.
Making a Will to pass your assets to your loved
ones is crucial – but have you got the right one?
You may need to consider more sophisticated
asset protection or tax planning to ensure that
your assets aren’t exposed unnecessarily to
tax, care costs, divorce settlements or even the
remarriage of your spouse or partner.
A nil rate band trust on first death – If you are
married or in a civil partnership, a nil rate band
trust can ring-fence £325,000 from the possible
bankruptcy, remarriage or care costs of your
surviving spouse or partner; it offers both asset
protection and potential inheritance tax savings,
and usually ends on second death.
Discretionary trust of residue – If any of
your family members are vulnerable or you’re
concerned about your children’s relationships, a
trust that provides your executors with discretion
as to how and when to distribute your estate
could be beneficial.
Life interest trust for your spouse or civil
partner – If you are part of a ‘blended’ family
and in a second relationship, you may wish to
ultimately pass your assets to your own children
on second death; a trust for your new spouse
or partner can provide the security they need,
whilst ensuring the underlying capital passes to
your children in a tax efficient manner.
Whether your estate is above the threshold
for inheritance tax or you are simply looking
to protect your assets, you should consider
including appropriate trusts in your Will to
achieve your aims. Given the changes in
legislation in recent years, you should certainly
be considering reviewing your Will.
Camilla Bishop is a partner at
DMH Stallard’s Brighton office.
You can contact her on
03333 231580.

JOE DECIE
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....19....

JJ WALLER
...............................
“Ladies Day at Brighton Racecourse is like a mini Ascot, with fabulous
hats and gowns,” writes JJ Waller. “But it is the large numbers from the
transgender community who go to enjoy the day that make it a uniquely
fabulous Brighton occasion. I love going.”
....21....

Join us at Polpo Brighton for 10% off
your meal and a complimentary bellini!
Offer runs until September 1st.
20 New Rd, Brighton BN1 1UF
www.polpo.co.uk | @polpo

BITS AND PUBS
...............................
PUB: THE MONTPELIER INN
“Yeah, sure, where do you
want to sit?”
The manager of the Montpelier
Inn, who I later learn is
called ‘Ash’, is moving chairs
and tables around for my wife
and I so we can have a good
place to eat and watch the
football – the second leg of the
Champions League semi-final
between Liverpool and Barcelona
– at the same time.
It’s not the sort of gracious
welcome I’d expected. The last
time I came here, a few years
back, I felt I had to be careful
not to accidentally bump into
anyone or look people directly
in the eye. Good news: The
Monty isn’t ‘rough’ any more.
That’s good news for sports
fans – the place is full of
screens so you can watch
the cricket or the football
from any of its nooks. And
good news, it turns out, for
anyone who likes Indian food.
Chicken biryani is on the
menu today, and it turns out to
be very decent.
There’s no hand-pump bitter,
so after spluttering through a
pint of lager I move onto the
Guinness: I don’t even need to
get up and go to the bar, as Ash
keeps an eye out for our glasses
emptying and brings a fresh
round when we need one.
The match turns out to be
one of the best I’ve ever seen,
with Liverpool overcoming
50/1 odds to win 4-0 on the
night, and 4-3 on aggregate.
Too bad the ‘Brighton Kop’
weren’t here, as they had been
the week before: The Monty
is on the roster of pubs visited
by Liverpool’s South Coast fan
club, all red shirts and You’ll
Never Walk Alone choruses.
Still, the atmosphere is electric.
The place goes mental
when Liverpool’s goals go in.
I have a chat with Ash after
the game. He’s bought us a
complimentary round, without
knowing the ulterior, journalistic,
motive for our visit. He
tells us The Monty – which
has been trading under the
same name since 1854 – used
to inhabit only half the current
site; the Western half of the
elegant bay-windowed building
used to be a bakery, and
if you go to the toilets you can
see the old oven, which he has
lit up behind a glass panel.
It’s that sort of attention to
detail that shows that the place
is run with the sort of care that
counts. With the cricket World
Cup coming up this summer,
I’m sure to be back.
Alex Leith
7-8 Montpelier Place, Hove
Illustration by Jay Collins
....23....

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

BITS AND BOBS
...............................
CHARITY BOX #38: THE STARR TRUST
Nicole Carman,
spokeswoman for
The Starr Trust,
talks to Viva about
how the trust is
helping young
people in the city to
get started in arts,
education and sport.
The Starr Trust
is now in its tenth
Photo by Graham Franks
year; can you tell us a little about how it began?
The charity was founded by our CEO Rob
Starr in memory of his dad, Ed, and was originally
called The Edward Starr Trust. Rob wanted to
help young people achieve their ambitions – as he
felt his dad had always supported him and his sister
Tracy to achieve theirs – by giving out grants
to help them on their way. Rob was once an actor,
and his wife Sharon is a singer, so initially the
trust offered grants to young people from low
income families who wanted help to progress in
the arts. Since then we’ve expanded to offer grants
for sport and education as well.
How does the application process work? We
advise people to go to our website, where there’s
an application form on the homepage. The grants
are for children aged between 10 and 18 and
range from £100 up to £5,000. There are a few
criteria: applicants usually need to be from a low
income family, and there has to be something
specific they want to do, or something they need.
Recent examples include a racing wheelchair
that we bought for a young man with cerebral
palsy; he’s since gone on to compete in and win
various competitions, and now hopes to enter
the Paralympics. Another was a girl who was very
anxious and was being
badly bullied at
school. She got into
rowing and then
kayaking and asked
for help in buying
her own kayak.
She’s since joined
TeamGB and won a
gold medal. We have
a funding team of
trustees who go through all the applications and
then have to make the difficult decision of where
to allocate the money, which is distributed in two
rounds. The next is around October time.
How is the trust funded? Most of our income
comes from fundraising events we run; donations
from generous individuals; and, predominantly,
from businesses in Brighton and Hove that
donate prizes for our events, bid on prizes at these
events, fundraise for us and support us financially.
Many of the businesses also offer mentoring to
the young people we work with.
How many people do you estimate that you’ve
helped over the past decade? We reckon it’s at
least 4,000. In recent years we’ve offered grants
that run over three or four years, so although
we’re helping fewer applicants – we work with
about 15 to 20 people a year now – we know our
support is making a lasting impact. We stay in
touch with all the young people we help and they
come to the celebration night we hold once a
year. It’s amazing to see them all mixing with the
businesses who have helped them get closer to
their dreams.
Interview by Nione Meakin
starrtrust.com
....25....

THE PATCH
Breweries
and venues:
THE PATCH
Burning Sky &
Collective Art
THE BLACK HORSE
Gun Brewery
FRIDAY
28TH
A weekend of events
including a town wide
tap takeover by some
amazing independent
breweries...
Find out more at
SUNDAY
JUNE
30TH
MEET THE
BREWERS
HOME
BREWING
COMPETITIONS
BREWER’S ARMS
Thornbridge
GARDENER’S ARMS
Sarah Hughes
ELEPHANT & CASTLE
Buxton &
Great Oakley
THE ROYAL OAK
Crafty Brewing
from Surrey Hills
Untitled-2 1 14/05/2019 16:05
Award-winning independent
3 screen cinema
Next to Lewes station
Pinwell Road, Lewes BN7 2JS
01273 525354
lewesdepot.org

BITS AND BOGS
...............................
MAGAZINE OF THE MONTH: RUGBY
At first glance, independent
magazines seem to be
a perfect fit for creatives,
coffee-shop laptop ponderers,
solo travellers, beardy types,
and generally left-field kinds
of people. And so, in the early
days, they were.
But, like all things, the model
morphed and changed a little.
The themes started to broaden
out, more conventional
subjects were approached
from more obscure (and interesting) angles and,
all of a sudden the availability of different magazines
grew and the audience ranged from young
to old and back again.
Some things remained similar. Magazines and
sport meant surfing, windsurfing, skateboarding
and pretty much anything where ‘Dude’ was
in the conversation somewhere. But now, even
that has changed; there are some really good
independent magazines about soccer, American
football, tennis and, yes, even golf.
But… rugby? I mean. Come on. That’s never
going to work as an independent
magazine is it? Actually, yes it is
and yes it does, even though we
were amongst the sceptics when
it first came into the shop.
We’ve just received Issue 6
of Rugby magazine. It’s really,
really good on many levels. For
a start, it treats women’s rugby
and men’s rugby pretty equally.
Check out two great articles
in this issue. It looks at rugby
across the world but, in true
indie spirit, differently. Check the article on the
professional Rugby Union club that is gaining a
foothold in New Orleans. It looks at the underside
of rugby and not just the glamour. Check
those articles on Mat Tait and Henry Slade. The
writing is good and the photography outstanding.
It’s great to look at.
If you are a rugby fan, sports fan or magazine
fan, check it out. There’s a good chance you’ll
love it. Rugby and independent magazines? Who
would have thought it?
Martin Skelton, Magazine Brighton
TOILET GRAFFITO #53
Our toilet graffiti correspondent spotted this bathroom
blackboard on a trip over the Downs.
Sporty or not, this is one race that we’re all in together.
It’s more fun if you remember that it’s less about the
winning and more about the taking part.
But where is it?
Last month’s answer: The Great Eastern
....27....

BITS AND BIKES
...............................
NAKED BIKE RIDE X EXTINCTION REBELLION
It’s that time of the year again, only this year the
Brighton Naked Bike Ride is teaming up with
Extinction Rebellion in their shared mission to
alert the world to the worsening climate crisis.
“We’re not just campaigning about the extinction
of global animal and plant species,” says Alice
Doyle from Extinction Rebellion Brighton, “but
about the potential extinction of human beings
due to man-made pollution and climate change…
We’re joining this ride, and supporting the event,
as a powerful symbol of both our vulnerability to
pollution and our power to change it.”
Around 1000 riders are expected to join the
pedal-powered ‘protestival’, all riding under the
banner ‘We Are Nature!’
“World Naked Bike Ride demonstrates that less
can be more”, explains ride organiser Duncan
Blinkhorn. “Less consumption, less pollution, less
clothes even! With just bikes and body power, we
are campaigning
for better
road safety, a
more stable
climate, cleaner
air and...
more fun!”
Join them as they ride through the streets on
Sunday the 9th of June. Participation is free and
you’re invited to be “as bare as you dare”. Assemble
in Preston Park from 11am for bike and body
decorating, before the ride sets off at 1.30pm.
If you’d rather cheer from the side lines, the ride
will travel along the seafront via the Palace Pier,
back down Western Road, through the Lanes,
North Laine and Kemp Town, before finishing at
Black Rock naturist beach.
Visit worldnakedbikeride.org/brighton for more
information
Photo © Chloe Solomons 2018
OPEN
7 DAYS
A WEEK
Brighton’s Finest
Rehearsal Rooms!
AIR CONDITIONED
FULL PA & BACKLINE INCLUDED
FREE ON-SITE PARKING
SHOP & REPAIRS
From just £12/hour
01273 911382
info@oooshtours.co.uk

BITS AND BOBS
...............................
THE SHARING ECONOMY
Valuation Day
Jewellery
17 June 2019, 10am to 2pm
VENUE
Pyecombe Golf Club
Clayton Hill
Pyecombe
West Sussex
BN45 7FF
APPOINTMENTS
AND ENQUIRIES
01483 504030
guildford@bonhams.com
bonhams.com/guildford
A MAGNIFICENT
DIAMOND RING
Sold for £1,868,750
Prices shown include buyer’s premium.
Details can be found at bonhams.com
June 16th-22nd sees the
fifth Global Sharing Week
– an annual celebration
of the Sharing Economy,
which reaches 100 million
people worldwide. We
spoke to Brighton-based
Benita Matofska, who set it up.
What is the sharing economy? A system to
live by, where we care for people and planet, and
share available resources in any way we can. That
includes tangible things – goods, homes, food – and
also intangibles: skills, time, knowledge.
How did you get involved? After sharing a platform
with Desmond Tutu at the One Young World
Congress, I wanted to do something to tackle
poverty and climate change. I saw a shortage of
sharing – so, I set up The People Who Share.
What do you do? We run Global Sharing Week
and help unleash everyone’s sharing potential.
On June 17th, we are launching Generation Share
– a beautifully photographed book of inspiring
stories about change makers, from the woman
transforming the lives of slum girls in India, to the
UK entrepreneur who has started a food sharing
revolution. Generation Share is a collaboration
with local photographer Sophie Sheinwald and is
made of waste materials; proceeds go to educate
slum-based girls in India and to plant trees, and it
is available to order from Policy Press.
How can we find out more? Come to The
Big Share – an event on Hove Lawns on the
22nd of June. It’s free, but ticketed so sign up at
Eventbrite. There’ll be a clothes swap, pop-up
picnic, kindness mob, a sharing hub so you can
find out about local sharing initiatives and more.
thepeoplewhoshare.com
globalsharingweek.org
#GenerationShare

INTERVIEW
..........................................
Photo by Adam Bronkhorst, adambronkhorst.com
....30....

INTERVIEW
..........................................
MYbrighton: Jasper Stevens
Chairman of Brighton Swimming Club
Are you local? Yes, I’ve lived here all my
life. I live in Southwick but come into
Brighton every day to swim by the Palace
Pier. I’m the current Chairman of Brighton
Swimming Club, which is rather more
than our arch on the beach. We’ve got
sections for sea swimming, competitive
swimming, synchronised swimming, water
polo, a growing youth section (we’re one
of the largest youth clubs in the city) and
swim masters for older people wanting to
keep fit. We’ve got around 500 members
and we’re the oldest swimming club in the
country, founded in 1860.
When did you start swimming in the
sea? Whilst I was still at the Shiverers
Swimming Club in my twenties, we decided
to do the Pier to Pier swimming race. To
my great surprise, I won it. The next year
I won it too, so I thought ‘there might be
something in this’. Later, I joined Brighton
SC and I was interested to meet the old
boys who swam year-round. The sea always
felt so cold to me, but they took it in their
stride. I had a bet with one of my water
polo team to see who could stay in the
sea the latest in the year. That was over
30 years ago. I swim every day, except for
Sundays when I go cycling.
What are the benefits of sea swimming?
It works on a number of different levels.
In summer, I’ll do a mile swim, so that
keeps me fit. When it’s colder, I don’t stay
in the water too long, but I get a distinct
buzz from doing it. Two mornings a week
I’ll go straight on to the gym and, instead
of feeling ‘here we go again’, it kick starts
you for a workout and makes you feel a bit
superior. It’s also a wonderful way to warm
yourself up.
How has the beach changed over the 30
years? The biggest change I’ve noticed is
the huge numbers of foreign students who
suddenly congregate on the beach and then,
disappear just as quickly. And there’s tons
more litter and plastic. People just leave it
behind and don’t think twice about it. It’s
awful.
What do you like most about living here?
It’s got a lot of get up and go about it. One
thing that’s going the right way is restricting
the number of cars and parking spaces.
When you’re trapped between the South
Downs and the sea, there is only so much
space for cars, and the city has got a very
good bus service. I organise the Pier to Pier
race, which brings people from all over the
South East, and I always recommend that
they park out of town and get the bus in.
What would you like to change about
the place? Deciding to build things takes
forever. Take the Sea Lanes pool, which
has finally got the go ahead. As a city, we’re
under-resourced for swimming pools – we
should have far more than we do at the
moment.
When did you last swim in the sea?
About 15 minutes ago.
Interview by Lizzie Lower
brightonsc.co.uk
....31....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
JJ Waller
Fan photographer
How did you get involved
with Whitehawk FC? In 2014
I was asked to photograph their
first season in the Conference
South, the highest level
they’d ever played at. I soon
became a fan, and I’ve been
going ever since. While I care
passionately about the results,
I’m still there to take pictures,
and unlike most other football
photographers, I’m more
interested in the fans than the
action. Other teams’ fans, too.
Now I go to most of the away games, as well.
So it’s got you about the place? Because
of the nature of Whitehawk’s fixture
list, I’m beginning to know Essex and
Kent much more. Seaside resorts are my
favourite, like Margate, Canvey, Folkestone
and Brightlingsea. After years of street
photography in Brighton, I love looking at
somewhere I’ve never been before, through
fresh eyes. Somewhere where everything I see
and everyone I meet is completely new.
Tell us about the ‘Whitehawk Ultras’. They
are the fans who congregate in a certain part
of the ground, singing their large repertoire
of songs for the entire 90 minutes. The name
‘Ultras’ is ironic, as it was what they called
themselves when there were only ten or twelve
of them, ten years ago, and it usually refers to
the fan groups of big continental clubs. Now
there are between 100-300 of them.
What makes them different from other
fans? They’re not entirely different. Most
fan groups are passionate, and generate great
excitement, and love winning, and hate losing.
But it’s the manner in which they do this.
They create a remarkably
tolerant and fun ambience
you wouldn’t expect in a
football ground. There is a
lot of laughter and not much
swearing on the terraces. The
Ultras are far from ‘identikit’:
they wave rainbow flags and
sing ‘no’ to homophobia,
racism and sexism. The
chants are very creative.
What do you use to shoot
with? Nowadays I just use
a 50mm lens in virtually all
my work, which means I have to get in very
close to get a good shot. In a way it’s like being
embedded: people know me so well, they don’t
notice me. This creates opportunities to make
less clichéd images. And remember: they’re not
looking at me, which is in my favour. They’re
looking at the football.
Where is all this leading? I don’t really
know where it’s all going. It’s an ongoing body
of work not restricted by any preconceived
parameters: it’s just really enjoyable to do. I
would like, eventually, to produce a book that
has international appeal, as the pictures tell
a universal story of the emotions of being a
football fan.
How do you feel about Whitehawk’s
recent relegation? As a fan, of course, I’m
disappointed. But I don’t think it will dampen
the enthusiasm of the Ultras at all. And it’ll
give me a whole new set of towns to visit…
we even get an international fixture, playing
against Guernsey!
Interview by Alex Leith
JJ Waller’s Brighton Pride is published in June.
jjwaller.com
....33....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
....34....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
Photos by JJ Waller
....35....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
....36....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
Photos by JJ Waller
....37....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
....38....

PHOTOGRAPHY
....................................
Photos by JJ Waller
....39....

Thinkers
Challengers
Innovators
Leaders
DISCOVER THE SUSSEX MBA
FIND OUT MORE
www.sussexmba.com

COLUMN
...........................................
John Helmer
Shoot
“Will you be nude?” says Finn.
It’s the question everybody asks when you tell
them you’re going to be in a calendar. (Along
with, “WTF?”, and “why you?”)
I tell Finn, the airline steward who is one of
the friends I am having lunch with, that it’s a
work thing; that I’ll be in the (hopefully far)
background of a group shot, and that I will in
fact be clothed, having ticked the box to decline
taking part in any kit-off action. The theme
is movie posters, and I am helping to portray
Mamma Mia 2.
“So which one are you going to be?”
“Pierce Brosnan,” I say, explaining that when I
was in the line-up on Never Mind the Buzzcocks,
one of the people they had selected to look
slightly like me was a professional Pierce
Brosnan looky-likey.
“Miranda Hart says that everybody has a good
looky-likey and a bad looky-likey,” chips in
Finn’s friend Tom.
Finn looks at me and screws up his eyes so that
they go out of focus. “I’d believe Pierce Brosnan
could be your good looky-likey,” he says kindly.
“Who’s your bad looky-likey?” asks Tom.
“That would be Michael Gove,” I say ruefully.
I’ve no idea why a 30-mile bike ride followed by
a long boozy lunch with Tom, Finn et al seemed
like appropriate preparation for a Monday
morning photoshoot. But the result is that I turn
up the next day at the swanky London hotel
where it’s being held in fairly urgent need of
make-up.
“Maximum slap please,” I ask as they seat me in
the hotel’s salon; “I’m going for over-the-hill
smoothie: I need to get tangoed”.
“Foundation, bronzer,” orders a smiling woman
with a clipboard, then, turning to me: “do you
know who you are?”
“Pierce Brosnan?”
“No. We’ve already got a Pierce. You’re him.”
She points to a picture of the Mamma Mia
poster on her clipboard.
“But that guy’s a lot younger than me.”
“You should be flattered.”
“And he’s got different-coloured hair. And a
beard.”
“It’s for charity.”
The charity is Dreamflight, who provide
holidays for kids with a serious illness or
disability. Later, in the hotel’s basement
nightclub, where the shoot is taking place, I
meet its head, a very nice woman who looks
a bit like Prue Leith only with more sensible
glasses. I tell her about my conversation with
Finn and she tells me that
she used to be cabin crew
with the same airline.
“He wouldn’t know me
though, I retired 15
years ago.”
“You must have retired
very young,” I smile, deep
in my role of over-the-hill
smoothie.
On the way out I bump
into my friend Carl, who
is getting ready for the
Calendar Girls poster shot.
“Will you be nude?” I ask.
He nods nervously.
The main thing about
charity is that you have to be
a very good sport.
Illustration by Chris Riddell
....41....

COLUMN
.........................
Lizzie Enfield
Notes from North Village
I grew up labelled unsporty, due for the most
part to the prevalence of ball sports and my
total lack of hand eye coordination. I was so un
hand eye coordinated that I used to call it eye
hand coordination, provoking further taunts
from school mates already having a field day
over my inability to catch, or hit, or kick, or do
anything else that people do with balls.
“It’s not eye hand, it’s hand eye,” they would say
gleefully, as if my mistake was tantamount to a
mysterious condition.
This provoked further speculation about
whether I said ‘chips and fish’ or ‘pepper and
salt,’ or the one that everybody loved best ‘fork
and knife.’ Try saying that in a Belfast accent in
a school playground where swearing got you a
detention and you’ll see why.
So I was never sporty, but I was pretty active:
cycling around the village where I lived,
walking in the countryside and swimming in
anything I could swim in.
In later life that became tantamount to ‘sporty’
and coupled with a spirit of adventure and a
writer’s tag, it led to travel writing.
I’m writing this column from a hotel in
Potsdam. Not the one Churchill stayed in when
he attended the eponymous conference, but a
nice one on the shores of the lakes, 40km from
the centre of Berlin from where I have just
cycled.
This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall and, where once it
surrounded the entire West of the city, the wall
itself has – apart from a few sections on the
tourist trail – been pulverised and used for road
resurfacing.
Its route is now a 160km cycle path, which takes
you through the centre of the once divided city
and right around its western periphery.
Forests overlooked by watchtowers are now
peaceful spots for joggers and dog walkers, and
patrol roads through open countryside are now
car-free bike routes.
It’s a brilliant way of seeing Berlin, which is
green and spacious, criss-crossed with rivers
and canals and surrounded by lakes. I’ve been
a couple of times by train to the city centre but
cycling through the outskirts has changed my
perception. Not just of the place as a whole, but
of names familiar only through history lessons.
Spandau turns out to be a spacious suburb
surrounded by parkland, with interesting canalside
housing developments – not just a prison
and a ballet! Wannsee, where the Nazis planned
the final solution, is a pretty town on the shores
of a vast lake. And Potsdam is another elegant
lakeside town with its own Brandenburg Gate,
Russian settlement and Dutch quarter.
It took three days to cycle the 160km Berlin
Wall Trail, a journey that made me appreciate
the sheer scale of the border construction and
how many communities were cut off from one
another.
And… how sporty it turns out I am.
Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)
....43....

"Never doubt that a
small group of
thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the
world; indeed, it's the
only thing that ever has."
Margaret Mead
Own it:
www.lewesfc.com/owners

COLUMN
...........................
Amy Holtz
The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan
One of the funniest things to
me is a person who says, “Me?
I’m just not that competitive...”
Because we’re all products
of competition, despite some
fighting their hard-wiring at
every turn – especially when
they really, really want to
win. For example, I witnessed
a challenge between British
people over the last can of diet
G&T in the fridge at M&S,
which went something like:
Person A: “You have it...”
Person B: “No, you. I insist!”
Person A: “I’ll just take this Piña Colada here
instead. Honestly, it’s fine.”
Person B: “Oh Piña Colada, lovely. I’ll take one
of those too.”
Insert me in the scenario, however, and this
would have happened:
Person A: “You have it...”
Amy: “Ok.” *grabs can, dances to till*
Which doesn’t prove that British people aren’t
competitive. They just don’t want to seem like
they are. It’s a pretty hard instinct to turn off
though, always trying to prove we’re not just
animals. So, really, it’s nice I’ve come to terms
with my true nature. Because us Holtzes are
notorious.
Take Christmas, the epicentre of familial
warfare; at Holtz HQ the whole day is built
around competition. My dad buys lottery tickets
and pits us against each other with the worst
kind of pub quiz (alcohol-less) to win them.
Then we spend an hour scratching them off and
crowing about each dollar we’ve won. And then,
inevitably, board games.
We used to spend hours
over Blokus, Guitar Hero,
Bananagrams, Smash Up; my
partner and I fought so much
over Scrabble that someone
gave us the official dictionary
(and then backed away, quickly).
Spoons was dangerous: there
were multiple hand-biting
incidents that year. Not that
I’m averse to biting, it’s just
not my MO. But this year’s
battleground was 7 Wonders, just the kind of
mercenary, merciless world-conquering game
my family enjoys. I made the rookie error of
winning on my first try (yes, I’m bragging, we’re
also all show-offs), which means no one will rest
until I play again. But I don’t want to play again,
because I don’t want to lose. I hem and haw,
pretend to nap, lock myself in the bathroom.
Finally, I throw the only thing that’ll stop the
taunting and posturing – another challenge.
“Let’s go outside – and play volleyball!”
It takes but a few moments to get people out
into the freezing air, slapping their hands
together and jumping. My brother and I
quibble over imaginary lines so much my dad
finally gets a rake from the garage to put on
the ground – which is about as effective at
regulation as placing a toothpick on the floor of
the Colosseum. There’s lots of shouting and at
one point, someone storms off. Then reappears,
eating a cinnamon roll, turbocharged.
Finally my dad says, “Let’s play 7 Wonders!”
and everyone runs inside. I grab my ball and do
my lucky winner’s dance through the door. Not
sure why I doubted myself; I’m sensing another
victory in my near future.
....45....

PRESTON PARK · BRIGHTON
BRIGHTON-PRIDE.ORG
SATURDAY 3RD AUGUST 2019
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DIVA GIRL’S WORLD · QUEERTOWN STAGE · BAME STAGE WITH THE COCOA BUTTER CLUB
FUN FAIR · STREET FOOD VILLAGE · COMMUNITY VILLAGE · FAMILY TENT & MUCH MORE
JESSIE J · GRACE JONES
SUNDAY 4TH AUGUST 2019
1.30PM - 9.30PM
RAK SU · NINA NESBITT · HOUSE GOSPEL CHOIR
GRACE CARTER CMYK ·: 0/100/0/0 GUILTY PLEASURES
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MUSIC
..........................
Ben Bailey rounds up the local music scene
FAYE HOUSTON
Fri 7th, Rose Hill, 7.30pm, £6
Brighton band Resonators have been making joyous
dub and reggae for about ten years, although
they don’t seem to play so much these days. One
of the group’s joint lead singers, Faye Houston,
has now started up a sideline with bandmate
Mike Shirley. Faye’s uniquely deep and soulful
voice has made her a popular choice as a guest
vocalist for numerous local acts, but it’s good to
see her striking out with material of her own.
This gig is a launch party for her debut solo EP,
and she’ll be performing stripped-back versions
of her tunes, alongside Mike’s intricate and bluesy
guitar. The Rose Hill is the perfect venue to
catch this sort of intimate show.
FRANK & BEANS
Fri 14th, Hope & Ruin, 7pm, £5
It’s always a good
sign when you
listen to a duo for
the first time and
imagine you’re
hearing a full
band. Frank &
Beans comprises two friends from Northern Ireland
who have somehow wound up in Brighton
playing artful, groove-based ‘thunder punk’ on
drums and guitar. Frontman Milo Dunn-Clarke
sings with the aloof style of Jonathan Richman
or the guy from Parquet Courts, though vocals
don’t really play a big part here. Instead the
emphasis is on the driving guitar lines and the
tight, irregular rhythms. Promoters Fresh Lenins
often have a hook to their line-ups and this
gig features two duos and two solo acts, with
Ghosts of Men, Grand Guru and Young Francis
fleshing out the bill.
GRASSHOPPER
Wed 26th, Prince Albert, 8pm, £4
Although frontman
Javi Fedrick only
turned 20 a few
months ago, his band
already has an impressive
bio of notable
shows. They supported Brix & the Extricated last
year, they’ve toured with Fujiya & Miyagi and
opened for the Charlatans at Worthing Pavilion.
Their 2018 EP was produced by David M
Allen (The Cure/The Sisters of Mercy), so it’s
no surprise that grasshopper’s take on post punk
has gothic overtones, with Javi’s baritone vocals
playing a commanding role in the unfolding
drama of the band’s urgent and atmospheric
music. Comparisons to Interpol can’t be avoided,
especially as the New York trio are playing at the
Brighton Dome the same night.
DAMO SUZUKI WITH
THE ACADEMY OF SUN
Thu 27th, Hope & Ruin, 7.30pm, £12
Since 1983 Damo Suzuki has been on a permanent
world tour, playing countless shows around
the globe with backing bands made up of local
musicians. The three years he spent as the vocalist
of krautrock pioneers Can in the early 70s has
ensured there is no shortage of bands willing to
take part in this bizarre ongoing series of improvised
concerts. On previous visits to Brighton,
Damo has performed with AK/DK, the Willkommen
Collective and Zofff. This time round he’s
playing with The Academy of Sun, an avant-pop
outfit led by composer and artist Nick Hudson.
The support bands are worth catching too. Both
Big Slammu and Soft Walls probably spent a few
formative years in thrall to the man from Can.
....47....

LA TRAVIATA
New Sussex Opera Chorus presents
Verdi’s favourite opera
Fully staged · live · sung in English
professional soloists & orchestra
www.NewSussexOpera.org
All Saints Centre
LEWES
Saturday June 1 7pm
Sunday June 16 5pm
Birley Centre
EASTBOURNE
Sunday June 2 4pm
Chequer Mead
EAST GRINSTEAD
Saturday June 8 7pm
S George’s Kemp Town
BRIGHTON
Saturday June 15 7pm
19 —23 June 2019 — Preston Park
sean lock alan davies sara pascoe
adam hills henning wehn tim key
tom allen nina conti nish kumar
rachel parris ed byrne david o’doherty
desiree burch phil wang rose matafeo lolly adefope
john robins suzi ruffell ed gamble rosie jones
stephen k amos ivo graham zoe lyons
andrew maxwell rhys james kiri pritchard-mclean
brightoncomedygarden.co.uk
BRCG_2019_Ad_128mmx94mm_1.1.indd 1 15/05/2019 13:23

DANCE
.............................
Our City Dances
Pop up performances
One element of the ongoing Circus Street
redevelopment is creation of The Dance Space,
a community venue that will be South East
Dance’s new home once it launches next year.
In the meantime, we can all enjoy the second
iteration of Our City Dances, an annual free
festival designed to ‘whet the city’s appetite’
for the kind of work one can expect from The
Dance Space.
Brighton-based dancer and choreographer
Anna Alvarez is involved in two shows in
the two-day festival. Wheelchair Tango, an
Argentinian tango duet – featuring music from
Hofesh Shechter Company composer Sabio
Janiak – came about after Anna met Mehmet
Arik from the Wheelchair Dance Project
in Turkey. A workshop and performance by
Alvarez and Arik will take place at Brooke
Mead (30th, 3pm), a council housing scheme
which enables people with dementia to carry on
living independently. “Anybody can go to the
workshop and performance, they’re completely
open. I’m a standing dancer and Mehmet is a
seated dancer. The workshops cater for both,
and we will be making the workshop very
accessible to the residents there.”
Alvarez is also arranging Romeo and Juliet,
which is inspired by a few scenes from the first
act, when the lovers meet at a masquerade ball.
“It’s about feuding families and a disparity
between generations, the elders deciding what
the young people should be doing. I wanted to
use that echo of what’s going on in the country
now, so the project is very much a collaboration
with the young people at Brighton Youth
Centre (BYC).” Alvarez hopes that she can
surprise audiences with a modern twist on the
classic romance that explores the rebellious
nature of youth – “about what people want
to do and what they’re told to do” – through
working with young people from BYC directly.
The final piece will be performed in both
Jubilee Square (30th, 12pm) and Tarner Park
(30th, 1pm), and is also supported by Mandinga
Arts, who will be facilitating workshops with
Brighton Youth Centre on making masks for
the show. “We don’t want to use the aesthetic
of Elizabethan masks because that has a set
type, we want to see the more Latin American
side. They’re going to be a little bit mythical,
probably brightly coloured and quite large.”
Elsewhere at Our City Dances, there will be
over 15 workshops and events to take part in
(ranging from hula hooping to a Charlestoninspired
Ceilidh) at Tarner Park on Sat 29th.
On Sun 30th, professional dance commissions
will be performed around the city, including
Without Touch at BYC, where audiences are
asked to close their eyes and to experience
the dance through their other senses (2.15pm
& 4.30pm). Zoo Humans at Jubilee Square
meanwhile, features parkour dance in an
alternate reality in which humans have
forgotten to move, inspired by the fact that a
third of the UK’s young people spend less time
outdoors than its prisoners (1.15pm & 5pm).
Joe Fuller
June 29-30, southeastdance.org.uk
....49....

COMEDY
.............................
Brighton Comedy Garden
Larks in Preston Park
After the success stories
of the Greenwich Comedy
Garden and the Bristol
Comedy Garden, the
producers of these festivals
have turned their attention to
Brighton with the arrival of
the Brighton Comedy Garden
for its very first residency.
It’s been felt in some quarters
that the suspension of the
Brighton Comedy Festival a
few years ago created a gap
in the market. Siblings Will
Briggs and Cass Randolph
explained: “Brighton is
famous for its vibrant arts and
festivals scene, and we hope to add even more
quality to that. Perhaps now, more than ever,
it’s good to be reminded of the absurdity and
humour in life, and our acts have some of the
most brilliantly absurd minds in the country.”
Which they have: filling their Big Top tent are
a mixture of already long established names
from the world of comedy like Alan Davies,
Sara Pascoe, Sean Lock, Adam Hills and Zoe
Lyons. Alongside are comedians currently
riding their own wave of award nominations
and fresh faces on TV panel shows, podcasts
and Comedy Central new twists like Kiri
Pritchard-McLean (The Guilty Feminist), Phil
Wang (Taskmaster), Rachel Parris (The Mash
Report) and Rose Matafeo – 2018’s Edinburgh
Best Newcomer Award winner.
Unlike many comedy festivals which offer
individual tickets to individual comics’ shows,
the Brighton Comedy Garden presents its
shows as a series of mixed bills, meaning that
each ticket gets you four to five comedians in
one go, with a different
line-up featured in each
performance. It does keep
the festival vibe going
however, as you’ll also find
craft beers, street-food
traders and summerinspired
cocktails at the
bars surrounding the
comedy main event.
In keeping with their
appearances at a Garden
for comedy, I asked a few
of the featured comedians
what their favourite
outdoor activities might be.
Suzi Ruffell, recently seen
on Comedy Central’s The Comedy Bus, was brief
but set the scene: “rosé in the garden.”
Ivo Graham set a different but equally clear
landscape with his reply: “a long walk on the
Wiltshire Downs with my father, discussing
my career and the things he thinks I could be
doing to improve it.”
Edinburgh Comedy award winner and
podcaster John Robins was happy to enlighten:
“Golf, golf, golf, golf, golf golf, golf... You can
watch me play golf – badly – with Alex Horne
via our YouTube Channel ‘BadGolf’.”
And finally – not everyone is as big a fan of
fresh air. Comedian and podcaster Ed Gamble
told me his favourite outdoor activity is “going
outside, realising I have a fridge in my flat,
and then going back indoors.” Turning that
midnight hungry wander to the ice box on its al
fresco head. Victoria Nangle
Brighton Comedy Garden, Preston Park, June
19-23, 7.30pm, June 22 3.45pm, £20-25
brightoncomedygarden.co.uk
Pictured: Ed Gamble
....50....

THEATRE
.............................
Plenty
One of the great female roles
Actor Rachael Stirling talks to Viva about
taking on the role of a lifetime in David Hare’s
Plenty, which explores post-war Britain via its
female protagonist, Susan Traherne, who was a
WWII Special Operations Executive in Nazioccupied
France and is struggling to return to
civilian life.
The part of Susan Traherne has been played
by actors from Cate Blanchett to Meryl
Streep and, most recently, Rachel Weisz;
have you seen any of their versions? I saw
Cate Blanchett do it in the West End when I
was 18 or 19 and it had a lasting effect on me.
I was die-hard in love with Cate and I hadn’t
seen her on stage before and was so enamoured
of her and of the play. I remember feeling, oh
God I’d like to give that a go.
What did you find exciting about the part?
It’s one of the great female roles. There’s
Hedda Gabler, Blanche in Streetcar and then
this character, Susan Traherne in Plenty.
She’s a kind of behemoth, an encyclopaedia of
womanhood. You do want to spend three hours
with her, you want to go to a party with her –
she’s brilliant company. But at the same time
she’s very destructive. It’s about every woman
that knows her full potential and is frustrated
at being unable to find an outlet for it.
When Plenty first opened at the National
Theatre in 1978 it was reported to have
caused an uproar. Why do you think that
was? I know exactly why! There was this
stunning, wild, articulate, intelligent, sexually
free woman railing against the machine and it
was presented at the National Theatre to the
‘machine’ – or the Establishment. David was
definitely preaching to the non-converted. He
said he has never experienced such an appalling
sense of loathing coming from the audience as
he did on that first night.
How have you prepared? I’ve read loads of
stuff. The SOE Manual [How To Be An Agent
in Occupied Europe] is amazing – you can read
exactly what they were expected to do, how
they dressed, what they ate. Then there’s a
wonderful book called Flames in the Field about
four SOE operatives who were captured and
taken to a concentration camp where they were
killed. I’ve also been watching Now It Can Be
Told, which is a 1944 drama about two British
agents being dropped into occupied France
and their setting up of a cell. The acting is
terrible but it’s been very useful. I really enjoy
researching a part and tend to put as much
legwork in as possible before I get into the
rehearsal room.
Is this your first time at Chichester?
I went as a child, aged seven, to see my mother
[Dame Diana Rigg] doing Cleopatra. I would
arrive and go to her dressing room and put
on all her jewellery – which was quite a lot
given that she was playing Cleopatra – and
clunk around backstage. So I’ve been there as a
visitor but not as a performer. I love how much
affection there is for the place. Nione Meakin
Chichester Festival Theatre, June 7-29
....51....

MUSIC
.............................
Billy Bragg
Anglo-Americana
It’s hard to think of a performer who is as quintessentially
English as Billy Bragg, that singer of
Jerusalem, and vociferous purveyor of ‘progressive
patriotism’. So what, I ask him down the
phone, is he doing performing at the Black Deer
Americana and Country Music Festival?
“Americana is country music for Smiths fans,”
he quips. “It’s what we used to call singer-songwriting.
But singer-songwriters in cowboy
boots, and shirts with pearl-snap buttons. I fit
in because I made an album of Woody Guthrie
songs, with [American band] Wilco, who had a
role in founding the alt.country thing. I qualify
as an in-law, if you like.”
He even changed his accent, for the part. “With
the Woody Guthrie songs I found it was impossible
to sing his songs in my accent, so I kind of
leaned over a little bit more to that mid-Atlantic
twang and I’ve found since then that I go in and
out of it depending on what song it is and what
the nature of it is.
“Americana isn’t something that is geo-specific,”
he adds. “You can be an Americana artist anywhere
if you were influenced by the roots music
of America. Think about the first Beatles album:
what would that have sounded like if they’d only
played English music and only worn English
clothes? It would have been pretty boring,
wouldn’t it? Everyone knew they were inspired
by the music of black America.”
Like Woody Guthrie, Bragg has been labelled
a ‘protest singer’, a term he’s not entirely
comfortable with, as he finds it ‘pigeon-holing’.
Photo by Jacob Blickenstaff
“I’d rather you put me down as a dissenter,” he
says. “In fact I would argue that dissent is the
tradition that defines the English.”
Tom Paine comes up in the conversation. Bragg
cites the 18th-century English activist in the
pamphlet he’s recently written for Faber &
Faber, The Three Dimensions of Freedom, describing
him as ‘the greatest revolutionary England
ever produced’. “I wish he’d been born 150 years
before so he could have written his pamphlet
and given it to the New Model Army at Naseby:
then we may have had a republic that lasted,” he
says. Instead, of course, he helped the United
States of America to become one.
Bragg’s sets have always been punctuated by
political diatribes, and he’s going to make no
exception to this practice, he says, at the Black
Deer Festival. He’ll not decide on his set until
the day of the performance. “When I arrive at a
festival I have a long walk around the site. I try
and suss out the audience… are they soaking
wet, are they pissed off, are they chilled out?
Then I decide how I pitch the set to them.”
So will he ‘countrify’ himself up, I wonder, to
fit in with the likes of Kris Kristofferson and
Hayseed Dixie, also on the line-up? “I won’t be
wearing cowboy boots,” he says, “but I will undoubtedly
have a shirt with pearl-snap buttons
on it.” Alex Leith
Black Deer Festival, Eridge Park, June 21-23
....53....

Takepart Festival
Give it a go
Mark 22nd June in your diary if you’d like to
explore a wide range of opportunities to get
active in Brighton and Hove. People of all
ages will be able to try out over 70 different
activities, including yoga, skateboarding,
martial arts, funk exercise sessions and many
more. We spoke to Ryan Edwards, Healthy
Lifestyles Manager at Brighton & Hove City
Council, ahead of Takepart 2019 at The Level.
There are so many different clubs and
groups out there, often run by volunteers.
They don’t have big marketing budgets, but
provide a fantastic role in the community. We
want to help promote those opportunities and
help people become more aware of what goes on
in Brighton and Hove. For example, there are
26 dance organisations at Takepart that provide
a whole host of different dance opportunities in
the city, ranging from capoeira to street dance,
such as Outta Puff Daddys, which is an older
male street dance crew.
The Circus Project, who are based in
Hangleton, are running circus workshops
and performances throughout the day.
There will be free yoga sessions with Brighton
Yoga Foundation, and activities from Albion
in the Community. We’re also working with
ESAB VIABLE, who provide opportunities
for people who are visually impaired, including
sound tennis, where the ball has a bell in it.
Brighton Handball Club will be there too:
handball is a sport that is massive in Europe but
developing in England. The club was started
by Europeans living in Brighton and are now
working with local schools and teachers and the
community to help people give it a go.
Takepart is one of a range of ‘Active for Life’
initiatives that the council runs, which are
low-cost and local, to provide opportunities
for people to lead active lifestyles. These also
include group exercise sessions and volunteerled
health walks taking place across the city,
which can help people to build up fitness levels,
bring people together and reduce isolation.
Our Healthy Lifestyle Zone is a go-to point
on the day, if anyone has any interest in
becoming more active, or if they need any
particular support and want to find out what’s
available in the city. Takepart showcases a
significant amount of that but there's still lots
more: we have around 200 organisations that
are registered with our team, plus there’s lots of
other support services.
The emphasis of the day is on participation:
it’s not about being good at something,
it’s about giving it a go, joining in, trying
something different. The best outcome would
be for someone to find something they love
doing at Takepart, get really involved in it
throughout the year, make friends, and find a
new passion for leading an active lifestyle in the
city. As told to Joe Fuller
The Level, June 22, 12-5pm. To enquire about
opportunities to get active in the city, contact
01273 294589 or healthylifestyles@brightonhove.gov.uk,
brighton-hove.gov.uk/takepart
....54....

COMEDY
.............................
Gill Sims
Doesn’t give a ****
Gill Sims’ name may
not be immediately
familiar, but her
work probably is –
at least if you’re a
parent. Her scrawled
cartoons and posts,
published on her
hugely successful
Peter and Jane
blog, document the
reality of raising
small children with
painful accuracy,
from the fights over odd plastic toys to the
guilty breakfast cereal ‘dinners’. She was one
of the first parent bloggers to swerve what she
describes as the ‘#SoBlessed’ approach to social
media in favour of the honest, sweary, messy
reality – and mums and dads tend to relish her
work like an end-of-day gin.
Her popularity came as something of a shock
to Sims, a former software engineer who only
started the blog because a friend told her she
was funny. She says she was “actually quite
terrified” when one of her early posts went
viral. “Every time I looked another 5,000
people had liked the page and I thought, oh
no, I’m going to delete it. Then the Daily Mail
picked up on it and I had to break it to my
husband that there I was in the paper, with
a glass of wine, and they had captioned it, in
their helpful way, with ‘I’m getting sh**faced’.”
Sims has been praised for her ‘bravery’ in
sharing the less picturesque side of parenting.
She’s not sure it’s especially ‘brave’, however.
She was simply weary of parenthood being
portrayed as a series of magical moments to
treasure. “I remember a particular, very warm
day, when I had
vomit dripping
down both my back
and my cleavage
and thinking, I’m
not treasuring this
moment. I’m never
going to look back
and think, do you
know what I wish
was happening now?
This. But I was just
letting off steam
really.”
On the back of the blog, Sims was
commissioned by Harper Collins to write a
series of humorous novels about the titular
‘Mummy’, her husband, their two ‘precious
moppets’ Peter and Jane and ‘Judgy Dog’ (who
is so adored by her readers that he now has his
own Facebook page).The third – Why Mummy
Doesn’t Give A ****! – has just come out and
while Sims doesn’t want to give too much away,
she says readers can expect a slightly different
version of family life as the ‘precious moppets’
enter their teenage years. “Things have moved
on a bit for her… she’s in a new chapter of her
life and she is adjusting to that.” Sims’ real-life
children are also becoming teenagers; has she
found parenting becoming any easier? She
laughs, slightly bitterly: “I was just having this
conversation with a friend yesterday. There’s
less wiping of bodily fluids, certainly, but then
there’s a lot more arguing and answering back.
We both agreed they don’t really get better,
they just annoy you in different ways…”
Nione Meakin
Why Mummy Doesn’t Give A **** – An Evening
With Gill Sims, Komedia, June 12
Photo by Toby Madden
....55....

Surrealist Picnic
Farleys Garden
Sunday 25 August 2019 4-8 pm
Live Jazz & Performance
BYO Picnic - Dressing up encouraged
Refreshments available - Ice cream & cake
Tickets £15 non-refundable, spaces limited
For information & booking visit: www.farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk
Farleys House & Gallerey, Muddles Green, East Sussex, BN8 6HW
Much Ado Books
Alfriston - New and Old
Books for Readers and Collectors
With special thanks to the picnic’s generous sponsors
@FarleysHG
Jazz, Surrealism
& Performance
Picnic,Ile Saint-Marguerite,Cannes,France,1937. By Lee Miller © www.leemiller.co.uk

PERFORMANCE
.............................
Marisa Carnesky
And the last ever Zap cabaret
Brighton’s The Zap is most remembered for
the raucous club nights at its long-term venue
at 189-192 Kings Road Arches, where some
of Britain’s most finger-on-the-pulse DJs
championed acid house and other late 80s/
early 90s music trends in front of those punters
who looked the part enough to get past the
discerning bouncers.
But there was much more to The Zap than
just rave music. The club was founded as
early as 1982, by Neil and Patricia Butler and
Amanda Scott, as a showcase for cutting-edge
performance art, and it has been running, in
one form or another, in many different venues,
ever since.
Which is why the last-ever Zap show – at The
Old Market on the 22nd June – is such a big
deal, as you might expect from its grandiose
title: The Final Programme and the Future of
Art. Organised by Neil Butler, it features a
cast of artists and performers who have been
Zap regulars over the years, including Marisa
Carnesky, Liz Aggiss and Stella Starr.
I catch up with Olivier Award-winner Carnesky
in her Kemp Town flat, as she digs through
early 90s Zap flyers and remembers the days
when the club was pioneering, among other
genres, the ‘new cabaret’ scene and the very
early days of British burlesque.
Carnesky, then performing as Marisa Carr,
was introduced to the club in 1991 by her
teacher and mentor Liz Aggiss, of Wild
Wigglers fame. For several years she became a
regular. “I presented my first ever full-length
show there,” she remembers. “I showed the
piece Duchess V Dentata, in the 1991 Brighton
Festival. It was quite a big stepping-stone for
my burgeoning career.” And a fairly radical
feminist performance, by the sound of things.
“The ceiling was draped with pairs of knickers,
through which boiled strawberry jam was
dripped onto the heads of the crowd.” She also
performed for the late Roger Ely, in The Devil’s
Chauffeur “wearing multiple latex breasts, in
my early work Enter the Dragon Lady.”
“Everything at The Zap felt very exciting and
forbidden,” she says. “I used to go there once
or twice a week. It was a great place to meet
and watch other artists. A lot of collaborations
were hatched. A lot of careers, too. In the days
before the internet it was an important physical
hub for building artistic communities and
networking.”
Carnesky’s career has since seen her
performing as a resident of New York, LA,
Mexico City and London, before moving
back to Brighton two years ago. Having
over the last three years toured her show Dr
Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman over three
continents, she’s delighted to be able to join
a number of old friends and colleagues at the
Old Market, all performing a short set. “I’m
looking forward to showcasing part of my work
in progress,” she says, “called Showwoman.
Ritual. Action, where spectacular entertainment
traditions, women, and esoteric activism
collide.” Which all sounds aptly cutting edge.
Alex Leith
The Old Market, June 22, £10/12.50
....57....

ART
.............................
Lothar Götz, in front of his installation at the MAC Belfast. Photo by Jordan Hutchins
Lothar Götz
Transforming the Towner
“I like the Bauhaus idea of Gesamtkunstwerk”
says the artist Lothar Götz when I ask him
how he describes his large, site-specific wall
paintings. “An artwork where different areas
– architecture, design, painting, colour – meet
without a clear border. I was always interested
in that cross-over.”
Citing influences as diverse as the aweinspiring
painted interiors of Baroque
churches, to the pared-back modernist
aesthetic of the Bauhaus, Lothar creates
bright, geometric abstract artworks on an epic
scale. This month sees the unveiling of his
largest painting to date: the transformation
of the entire exterior of the Towner Gallery
in Eastbourne. Commissioned to celebrate
the gallery’s tenth anniversary in its current
building, the painted façade will remain in situ
until May 2020.
As we chat on Skype, Lothar holds up a sketch
for Dance Diagonal, which, by the time you
read this, will wrap the gallery’s huge walls in
converging, technicolour diagonals. His design
responds to different architectural details
on the building: the curved window alcoves,
the jutting balcony and the unpredictable
movement that will be created by the curved
gallery walls. “The exciting thing with these
wall paintings and site-specific works on this
scale is that you can plan them – and you have
to plan them quite precisely so that you know
where to start – but there is still this element of
surprise, where you don’t know exactly what it
will look like.”
....59....

ART
.............................
Crash: Acrylic and Emulsion on wall, Küstlerhaus / Kunstverein Hanover, 2012. Photo by Raimund Zakowski
....60....

ART
.............................
Lothar is well used to creating largescale works
– previous commissions include the Southbank
Centre in London, and Leeds Art Gallery – but
the Towner will be a first for the artist. “What
is very unusual about this project is that I’m
painting the whole of the outside, which will
turn the building itself into a giant public art
sculpture. It crosses over from architecture or
painting and becomes part of the topography of
the town. It’s not like going into a gallery and
saying, ‘there are the paintings’. People will
walk along the street, not necessarily expecting
to look at art, but then suddenly there it is.
It will create quite a landmark in the town
centre and that’s very special. It doesn’t happen
very often, to have an opportunity to do
something which is so visible to the public.”
The installation is set to take three weeks
and, when we speak in early May, Lothar isn’t
sure how much paint he will need for each of
the 15 colours, each needing four coats. But,
with Brewers Decorator Centres sponsoring
the commission, he is guaranteed a sufficient
supply. Nor does he know how much tape it
will take to mask the crisp diagonal lines across
such distances (one of the walls is more than 30
metres wide and 15 metres high), but he’ll be
working with an expert team from the London
Mural Company to manage the process. What
is certain is that the Towner – always a striking
building – is about to become an artwork in its
own right. And an eye-catching centrepiece for
Eastbourne’s new Devonshire Quarter.
Towner’s celebratory summer season launches
on the 15th of June.
Lizzie Lower
townereastbourne.org.uk
Xanadu: Acrylic on wall, Victorian Staircase, Leeds Art Gallery, 2017. Photos by Jerry Hardman Jones
Double-Take: Acrylic and emulsion on wall, MAC Belfast, 2013. Photo by Jordan Hutchins
....61....

ART
.............................
© Peter Blake, 2019. All rights reserved
Peter Blake
Joseph Cornell’s imaginary Sussex day-trip
At the age of 75, Sir Peter Blake, ‘the
godfather of British Pop Art’ announced
that he had entered his ‘late period’, a term
usually used by critics after painters have
died. “Artists go a bit crazy, so I gave myself
the licence to do that,” he says.
Now he’s 90, so you might say he’s in his
‘late, late’ period: his most recent body of
work, some of which is being shown for the
first time over the summer at Farleys House
and Gallery, sounds like he’s getting good
value from that licence.
“It’s called Joseph Cornell’s Holiday,” he tells
me, revealing that the idea came to him
after attending an exhibition about the
American ‘shadow-box’ artist, Wanderlust, at
the Royal Academy, in 2015.
There were two elements of Cornell’s life
that Blake wanted to change, for the better.
The first was that “he loved the idea of
travelling, and Europe, but never ventured
far from his home on Long Island” (the
artist was devoted to his mother and had to
take care of his disabled brother). And then
“he fell in love constantly with women…
but never consummated a relationship. He
....62....

ART
.............................
died a virgin.”
So Blake is posthumously
treating Cornell, in this
series of paintings, to
everything he missed while
alive: “he meets lots of
women all the time, and has
lots of affairs, all around
Europe.”
Back in the sixties, the
British surrealist Roland
Penrose, the co-founder
of the Institute of
Contemporary Arts, acted as
something of a ‘mentor’ to
Blake and the generation of
young artists involved in the
British pop art movement. “I
went to their [Penrose and
his photographer wife Lee
Miller’s] flat in Kensington
a number of times,” he says,
“and saw their amazing
collection of Picassos and
Dalis, wonderful pictures.
I’d say he was a friend.”
Blake didn’t, however, visit
the couple’s Sussex residence
in Chiddingly until recently,
and it was after that visit
he decided, with the
collaboration of Roland’s
son Antony Penrose, to
make part of the Joseph
Cornell series site-specific
to Farley Farm, which now
has an exhibition space. “A
lot of the surrealists visited
Roland and Lee in Sussex,
as did Picasso, and were
photographed by Lee Miller,
and what I’ve done is a kind
of sub story imagining
Cornell visiting Farley Farm,
and meeting them.”
Cornell, it so happens,
already knew Lee Miller,
who also hailed from New
York State, and, among
the twenty or so paintings
in the exhibition, “there’s
an image of him, at Farley
Farm, holding a collage with
the image that Lee Miller
took of him when he was a
young man.”
Had the artist ever made it
to Europe, Blake reckons
Cornell would have jumped
at the chance to make a
real visit to Farley Farm.
“Lee was very beautiful,” he
concludes. “I’m absolutely
convinced she was one of
the many women he fell in
love with.”
Alex Leith
Day Trip to Farley Farm,
Sundays 9th June to 4th
August. Farleys House and
Gallery, Muddles Green,
Chiddingly
farleyshouseandgallery.co.uk
Portrait by Catherine Hyland. catherinehyland.co.uk
....63....

Summer 2019 Towner Art Gallery
TEN
Towner curates
the collection
Phoebe Unwin
Iris
Lothar Götz
Dance Diagonal
Image: courtesy Lothar Götz
Dineo Seshee Bopape
Sedibeng, it comes with the rain
www.townereastbourne.org.uk @ townergallery
Devonshire Park, College Road, Eastbourne, BN21 4JJ

ART
....................................
ART & ABOUT
In town this month...
Lyn Holly Coorg
Grand Piano by Jeb Haward
Moving Still: Urban Landscapes is at 35 North.
This is the first solo exhibition by the Brightonbased
photographer Lyn Holly Coorg, whose
extraordinary images of ordinary urban scenes
capture the constant presence of movement and
transition in everything around us; even when
captured as a still. Open Wednesday-Saturday,
June 8-30.
The Dog Rehoming Society, at Phoenix Brighton
this month, is an exhibition of paintings by Sophie
Barber, Jeb Haward and Kath Thompson. Kath
taught at the Tunbridge Wells summer school run
by Roy Oxlade and Rose Wylie in the 90s, where
Jeb was a student, who then became Sophie’s
teacher in Hastings. Three generations of painters,
born decades
apart, but
united by their
shared belief
in the value of
painting. June
1-July 7, with
an exhibition
tour on
Saturday June
1 at 4 pm.
Just So – an exhibition of paintings by Robert
Littleford – is at the Fishing Quarter
Gallery this month. Named after the series
of stories that Rudyard Kipling wrote for his
daughter, Robert’s paintings reflect modern
folklore about animals and hint at larger,
more ominous truths. ‘The paintings betray
an unease with nature,’ he explains, ‘a fear
that nature will one day seek its revenge for
our casual disregard, that we are on the edge
of a precipice, and the kraken is about to rise
up from the deep.’ Visit the exhibition at 203
Kings Road Arches, June 18-30.
See the city’s latest wave of creative talent as
the University of Brighton opens its doors
for the Graduate Show 2019. From June 1-9,
the Grand Parade and Edward Street galleries
host final year shows for graduates in Fine
Art, Design, Illustration, Fashion, Textiles,
History of Art and Design, Photography,
Film, and Media. Then, from June 8-14 at
Mithras House, Moulsecoomb, it’s the turn
of Architecture, Interior Architecture and
Product Design graduates.
Robert Littleford
....65....

ART
....................................
In town continued...
Kate Sherman
Photography, childhood innocence and natural
human curiosity are the subjects of a new series of
oil paintings by the Ditchling-based artist Kate
Sherman, showing at ONCA this month. The
works in Coast depict the urban landscape along the
Sussex coast as it might be captured from a moving
car. Slightly out of focus
and capturing the unique
bleached light of the
region, these paintings
have an uncomfortable
voyeuristic quality.
June 22-30.
There’s a last chance to see Chinoiserie-on-Sea – the extraordinary exhibition of Stephen Jones’ hats at
the Royal Pavilion. Hat-maker to the stars, Stephen has created headwear for a cornucopia of A-listers,
as well as collaborating with designers including Dior and Comme des Garçons. More than 160 of his
whimsical creations are on display throughout the royal palace until June 9.
Night Bloomer by Julian Brown
Out of town...
Over three
weekends this
month, Fitzroy
House in
Lewes hosts
Moon Gazing
– an exhibition
celebrating the
moon and some
of its many manifestations in art, culture
and science. Planned to coincide with the
50th anniversary year of the first manned
moon landing, a series of lunar-related
events accompanies the exhibition. Visit
sarahokane.co.uk for more details of the
events. Fitzroy House, 10 High Street,
Lewes. Open 10am-5pm, Saturdays and
Sundays only, June 8-23.
Inspired by Burne-
Jones – an exhibition of
contemporary stained
glass – is at the Grange
Museum and Gallery in
Rottingdean, from June
6-14. Featuring work by
25 glass artists from all
over the country (and
one from Chicago), the
exhibition is part of a
two-year programme of
events relating to Edward
Burne-Jones, one of
Rottingdean’s most famous
residents. For more
information, and a full
list of exhibiting artists,
visit rottingdeanpreservationsociety.org.uk
Juliet Forrest
....66....

ART
....................................
Out of town continued...
Also in Lewes, Katie Whitbread is the featured
artist at Chalk Gallery until June 9, swiftly followed
by Sue Collins, whose exhibition opens on the 10th.
Sue is based in Hassocks, and many of her stylised
linocuts are inspired by the downland views she can
see from her studio window. Sue will be at the gallery
for a ‘meet the artist’ event at 2pm on June 11, where
she will be giving a short demonstration of her
reduction printmaking process.
Sue Collins
Harold Mockford
Towner gallery are celebrating their tenth anniversary in their ‘new’, Rick
Mather-designed building with a busy summer season. Exhibitions include
a large-scale installation by South African artist Dineo Seshee Bopape;
an exhibition of works from the Towner collection, curated by Towner’s
own team; a presentation of new paintings by London-based artist Phoebe
Unwin and a major outdoor commission by Lothar Götz (see pg 59). Join
them for a celebratory summer party marking the launch of the exhibitions
on June 15 (6pm-late).
Plinth Home
Charleston hold their second Designer & Maker Fair
on Saturday June 22 (11am-5pm). Thirty carefully
curated designers and makers present
a selection of ceramics, textiles, jewellery,
clothing, prints and home wares. If the
success of their Christmas makers’ fair
is anything to go by, you might want to
book early. (Tickets £5 in advance, £6 on
the door.)
Lucy Ogden
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft present Women’s Work, an exhibition of
work by a pioneering group of women in craft, who turned their practice
into successful businesses between the two world wars. Many of the featured
artists are relatively unknown, and yet hugely significant to the development
of the Arts and Crafts movement. Drawing on the museum’s own, and other
specialist collections, the exhibition features more than 100 pieces of textiles,
ceramics and jewellery, made by craftswomen including Ethel Mairet, Enid
Marx, Phyllis Baron and Dorothy Larcher. A series of events accompanies
the exhibition, including a weaving residency using an historic loom.
Continues until October 6.
Ethel Mairet. Image kindly provided by the Craft
Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts.
....67....

Contemporary
British Painting and
Sculpture
We look forward to welcoming
you to our gallery in Hove.
OPENING TIMES
Mon—Sat 10.30am—5pm
Sunday/bank holidays 12pm—5pm
Closed Tuesday
For more details visit
CAMERONCONTEMPORARY.COM
Sea of Dreams by Colleen Slater
ivaLewes_Advert_66x94_June2018_v1.indd 1 17/06/2018 09:08

ART
....................................
Same Sky
30 years of community
art activism
John Varah, Artistic Director at community arts
charity Same Sky, is happy to be unknown (in
part at least). “One of our biggest successes is the
fact that no one knows who we are. No one really
knows we do Burning the Clocks [and Brighton’s
annual Children’s Parade] because it’s supposed
to feel like something that’s always happened...
Everyone thinks they own it, and that’s great. But
that’s become the problem when we try to raise
money.”
The funding challenges facing community arts
charities will be one of the topics discussed at
Pure Enchantment: A Same Sky 30th Anniversary
Symposium, being held at ACCA. The event is
open to everyone with an interest in community
arts, with the morning focusing on talks and
discussion, and the second half focusing on
practical matters such as workshops for making
lanterns or applying for funding.
Confirmed speakers include Lucy Bear, a Maths
teacher in Crawley who set up LPK Learning
(who deliver innovative learning opportunities
across Sussex), Tom Andrews from People
United (who look at how participatory arts
can promote kindness), and Daniel Bernstein,
Executive Director of outside arts company
Emergency Exit Arts.
John tells me that one of the biggest changes
over the last 30 years is the “consistent
reductions in funding”. Jonathan Swain,
Same Sky Associate Artist, sees some hope
in changing attitudes however. “There’s an
encouragement for participatory arts. They
[councils] actively want it, because they can see
its value. Partly from a health perspective, partly
because there’s a dwindling in communities and
they’re wondering why.” Alistair Hill, Director
of Public Health at Brighton & Hove City
Photo by David Bracey
Council, will discuss his 2018 annual report,
‘The Art of Good Health’.
There is a need for “doers”, as Jonathan describes
them, to encourage creativity and participation
in communities. “We call them community
activists”, says John. “They can be of any political
persuasion, but they’re doing stuff in their
community, they’re running a football club,
they’re engaged, they want things to happen. We
did some work with Tide of Light in Lancing:
it was a couple of mums with kids setting it up
because they thought Brighton had all these
things and they didn’t. Our role is always to
support people like that.”
The symposium also offers what Jonathan
terms an “indulgence” once the daytime event
ends, with food, drink, fire and music. John
compares the symposium to training courses
that Same Sky have run, with artists who
wanted to work in communities meeting people
in those communities who weren’t confident
about the art side of things. “That combination
of working together meant that they all enjoyed
learning from each other.”
Jonathan sees that as a neat summary of what
they are aiming at in the symposium. “It’s
creating a space for magic. It gives John an
opportunity to say this is what we’ve done, you’re
here together in this symposium, perhaps we can
go forwards and make something from that. It’s
as hippy as that.” Joe Fuller
ACCA, June 21, 10am-4pm, £10
....69....

DESIGN
.............................
Lois O’Hara
Colour is power
Lois O’Hara’s murals buzz with
an almost neon intensity. Her
signature palette of magenta,
blood orange, peppermint and
royal blue are the opposite
of a rainy day, or a stressful
commute.
Bold, fluid, and – as O’Hara
says herself, ‘wavy’ – her public
artworks are like tearaways
to another dimension – and
a supremely happy one at
that. The joy emanating from
O’Hara’s work is an expression
of her own positive outlook,
which she says comes pretty
naturally to her. “I really believe
in the law of attraction and I
feel as though I always have the
urge to work hard and try to
inspire others.”
O’Hara’s free-flowing murals
are a perfect match for
Brighton, her life-long home.
You may have spotted her
Colourful Wave Crossing on
Brighton seafront last July, or
her revamp of the terrace of
Patterns bar. The undulations
and splashes of vivid colour
in her work convey a sense of
motion, inspiring vitality and
energy in those who see them.
“My practice is based on the
idea of capturing movement
and time” she says. “I used
to surf quite a lot and I have
always been fascinated by the
sea and the moving tide. I love
to renovate spaces using colour,
which I see as a powerful tool.
Being surrounded by colour can
be really good for your mental
health and wellbeing. It’s also
a fact that children partake in
more physical exercise when
they are running on colour.”
Painting the UK’s first ever
giant basketball court for
Brighton’s Saunders Park in
September 2018 took a year’s
worth of planning, 400 litres of
paint and a lot of determination
from O’Hara (especially
when persuading the council).
But thanks to the advice
and support from Project
Backboard – an organisation
that uses public basketball
courts for creative expression to
benefit communities – as well
as fundraisers and sponsors,
she achieved her vision for the
court of many colours.
The idea was to reimagine
a traditional sporting space,
and create something
that encouraged the local
community to come together
and play: “I wanted the design
to represent the flow of a
basketball game. So when
....70....

DESIGN
.............................
players dribble the ball, they
can follow my waves of colour.
Every time I drive past, I see
people playing on the court,
which is amazing!”
O’Hara’s basketball court
creations will keep coming,
as she’s just finished painting
two more at the University of
Sussex. And next time you’re in
London, stop by the first floor
lobby of the OXO Tower to see
her large-scale mural, named
Colour is Power (her personal
mantra).
For O’Hara, it’s vital that,
rather than simply taking a
photo, people feel mentally
energised by her murals, to the
point where they interact and
get moving. “It’s so important!
I think that this comes down to
how you apply the paint or the
artwork. If the painting is crisp
and well executed, the artwork
becomes more powerful. Good
design can influence and inspire
others.”
Rose Dykins
loisohara.co.uk
....71....

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THE WAY WE WORK
This month Adam Bronkhorst has been out photographing
five sporty sorts. He asked them: “who is your sporting hero?”
adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401333
Luke Styles, Sussex Thunder American Football
‘Marshawn Lynch (Beast Mode). He was probably the first name that stood out
to me when I started American football. Very humble and an awesome player.’

THE WAY WE WORK
Mark Barrowcliffe, Brighton and Hove Fencing Club coach
‘Aldo Nadi – triple fencing gold for Italy at 1920 Olympics,
beat everyone for years, fought duels, mad as a snake.’

THE WAY WE WORK
Wings Chan, Skater
‘Gou Miyagi, because he’s weird, creative and always
does things outside the norm.’

THE WAY WE WORK
Tim Houghton, teacher of Karate-Do at The Reiwaryu School of Karate-Do
‘Dorando Pietri, an Italian baker who famously became a great marathon runner and
captured hearts at the 1908 Olympic Games. Spirited, dedicated, with great heart.’

THE WAY WE WORK
Donna Holland/Skate Bush, #42 Brighton Rockers Roller Derby
‘Caster Semenya – she’s an incredible sportswoman who faces every
challenge, on and off the track, with such strength and dignity.’

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For our corporate brochure email us at
business@rathfinnyestate.com

FOOD
.............................
The Paradiso Social
Original small plates
Located on Preston Road – at the point where
things begin to feel residential – The Paradiso
Social’s décor has a slight 70s vibe, with
modern touches such as its navy and copper
colour scheme. Office-style display boards
have been left intact on the walls and painted
over, allowing the building’s original character
to shine through. Chintzy framed pictures
give the space a homely, relaxed feel, while the
booths, upholstered in tan crocodile leather
and the long copper bar create a pleasing, social
layout in an intimate space.
Our fellow diners seemed relaxed and happy,
bobbing their heads along to the funky soul
playlist, and it was a vibrant yet chilled place to
let our hair down on a Friday evening. Service
was friendly and the cocktails were generously
measured.
I found the menu an intriguing read, and was
curious to see how the plates would look, and
how the combinations of ingredients would
taste. Apparently the menu changes almost
weekly, depending on whatever seasonal
ingredients the chefs have picked up from the
Open Market (or the spoils gathered by their
expert forager). A constant is the line-up of
fairly-priced small plates, with the option to
add on a main. Pretty much half the dishes
were vegan during our visit, along with
seafood options (such as natural oysters for
£2 each) and a 550g aged rump steak for two,
served with Sriracha hollandaise (£29). I love a
place that kicks things off with quality bread,
so was pleased when we were served fluffy
bread topped off with salt crystals along with
flavoursome whipped butter.
The most surprising dish was the smacked
cucumbers with peanut and togarashi (£4).
Photo by Rose Dykins
....79....
Never have cucumbers been more exciting,
crunchy and zingy, well-paired with smoky
peanuts. Likewise, the roasted peach with
blood orange and bitter leaves (£7.50) was
surprisingly hearty. The fleshy peach quarters
were chargrilled to perfection, impossibly soft
and lifted by the trimmings of fresh mint and
dill. The plate was piled with miscellaneous
bitter leaves, which were a bit too bitter for
my taste, and the dressing a bit acidic. My
companion’s favourite dish was the English
peas, asparagus and house-made ricotta with
lemon butter, topped off with breadcrumbs,
(£9), where the fresh flavours of the vegetables
came through. My favourite was the chargrilled
baby aubergine with miso glaze, jalapeño and
avocado (£7), which I kept going back to to dip
things in as the small plates piled up.
We also tucked in to the whole roast globe
artichoke, served up with a dip of sunflower
miso hummus (£8). Our waiter kindly talked
us through how to dissect (it was a bit like
sharing a plate of nachos). I found the dish
super-interesting, and enjoyed the pure flavour
of the vegetable amplified by the earthiness of
the dip.
All in all, our evening at The Paradiso Social
was filled with highly creative, beautiful plates
of food, served amid a fun, down-to-earth
atmosphere. Rose Dykins
38 Preston Road, 01273 262029

RECIPE
.............................
Photo by Alex Leith
....80....

RECIPE
.............................
Cardamom ice cream
Phil Wood from Brass Monkey learnt to make ice cream in
LA, and this flavour was the inspiration behind his business
I was visiting some friends in LA a few years
ago and they took me to a fantastic ice cream
parlour, called Carmela’s, in Pasadena. The
ice cream culture in the States is way more
sophisticated than it is here in the UK – and
this place, they said, was the best in town.
I took one taste of their cardamom ice cream,
and I had one of those Eureka moments. Why
not in the UK? So I asked Carmela’s if I could
do an internship with them, and spent six
weeks learning the trade, then started my own
place up in Kensington Gardens, a year ago,
having completely refitted and refurbished the
building.
We make ice cream unlike anyone else around
– making all the flavours ourselves, from
scratch, using raw ingredients. So, when we
make cardamom ice cream we use real organic
cardamom pods; when we make strawberry ice
cream we use fresh organic strawberries and
so on. We don’t use commercial stabilisers, to
make it all ‘chewy’. It makes all the difference,
and if you don’t believe me, take a look at our
reviews on TripAdvisor.
If you have an ice cream maker – they cost as
little as £60 – the good news is you can make
it at home, too. Follow these instructions to
make around 700ml of ice cream.
Warm 300ml of organic full fat milk in a
saucepan, with 250ml of organic double cream,
62.5g of organic unrefined cane sugar, and 15g
of crushed cardamom pods, until you see a
wisp of steam coming off the liquid, then turn
off the heat.
Separate two egg yolks and whisk in another
62.5g of sugar, and two teaspoons of
Himalayan Pink salt, until it’s a pale-yellow
colour of even consistency. Temper this by
gradually whisking in the milk mix, ladle by
ladle, warming it, though gently enough not
to shock the yolks. Pour the tempered mix
back into the pan, and heat it up to 80 degrees
(you’ll need a temperature probe) staying at
this temperature for 30 seconds. Cool this
down as quickly as possible by immersing it
in an ice bath (or a sink full of ice cubes), still
in its pan, of course. Sieve out the cardamom
husks, and pop the mixture in a bowl in the
fridge for at least four hours (overnight if you
have time).
Put the mix into an ice-cream maker, and
churn, for approximately half an hour, or
according to the machine manufacturer’s
instructions. It’ll come out as lovely soft-scoop
ice cream: store it in the freezer at -18 degrees
or below. That’s it!
The secret is in using the best ingredients
you can get, and sticking to the formula. If
you haven’t got an ice cream maker, or the
patience to try this out yourself, you can enjoy
one or more of our ever-changing menu of
flavours, in Kensington Gardens or in our
brand-new parlour in Hannington’s Lane. We
look forward to welcoming you soon…
As told to Alex Leith
brassmonkeyicecream.com
....81....

FOOD
.............................
The Flour Pot
Flour power on Portland Road
I like Portland Road. Mainly for its interesting shops – a pleasing mix of the
independent, artisanal and useful – and now for the addition of The Flour Pot
bakery, who share their smart new premises with Gunns Florist, at the corner of
Rutland Road.
It seems the locals like it too. When Katie, Winnie and I meet at The Flour Pot
for elevenses, a couple of weeks after its opening, the place is buzzing. People are
busily picking up bread and cakes to take away, and others are lingering over a
coffee and something delicious from the counter.
We opt for a vegan potato and spinach roll for me, a pork and fennel sausage roll for Winnie, and a
cheddar and piccalilli sandwich for Katie. They are all good. Winnie eats every last bite of her sausage
roll (it’s a two-handed job for a two-year old girl), and my potato and spinach roll is very tasty too;
mildly curried and wrapped in flaky pastry. But Katie’s sandwich gets the prize. A soft ciabatta roll,
nicely filled with sharp, crumbly cheddar, and laced with house made pear piccalilli (which, I note with
glee, is on sale for £3.80 a jar!). It’s delicious, and reason enough to make the trip to Portland Road
more often. Although, this being the seventh Flour Pot in the city (hooray for the busy bakers) I could
probably find one closer to home. Decisions, decisions. Lizzie Lower
121 Portland Road
enjoy a
complimentary
bottle of wine
- Choose from either -
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or
Chemin de Marquiere Merlot
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Master_VivaLewes_June2019.indd 1 15/05/2019 13:06:26

A-news bouche
Find us at 7 Church Street, Brighton, BN1 1US,
for breakfast and lunch.
Vegetarian and vegan options available.
crunchandco.co.uk
Head to The Level for Brighton Vegan
Summer Festival, which will include over 80
food stalls, talks, demos, live entertainment and
more. 11am-7pm 8th, 11am-5pm 9th, £5 entry
per day.
Alternatively that weekend, there is a Dragon
Boat Festival Event at the CEDP Chinese
Centre: all are welcome to experience Chinese
culture through food,
music, tea and more.
12.30pm, 8th,
BMECP Centre
on Fleet Street.
The Flint House restuarant opened recently
on Hannington's Lane, offering small plates,
a cocktail bar, and a roof terrace overlooking
the striking new development. And the first
ever Brighton Craft Beer Festival comes to
the Clarendon Centre, with a
surprising ‘all-in’ ticket offering
punters the chance to consume
as much craft beer as they like,
with the caveat to ‘please drink
responsibly’. 20th to 22nd, Various
afternoon and evening sessions,
From £49.50.
The College of Naturopathic Medicine has a
free open evening on inspiring careers in natural
therapies. 6.30-8.30pm, Brighton Aldridge
Community Academy, naturopathy-uk.com
And Brighton says farewell to Silo in Upper
Gardner Street, as they take their zero
waste ethos to London. There is
far less information regarding
the surprise closure of
Choccywoccydoodah
however, announced by a
sign on the door stating that
they have ceased trading.
Photo © Mike Pennington
....83....

WE TRY...
.............................
Beach Box Sauna
Amy Holtz sweats it out
“Would you like me to beat you with this stick?”
I ask my partner, politely.
We’re in the newest ‘box’ at Brighton’s Beach
Box Sauna, and co-owners Liz Watson and
Katie Bracher have just walked us through
the purpose of the delightfully pagan birch
bundle; handcrafted and delivered especially
for the seafront attraction from a Lithuanian
sauna expert. My limited experience of saunas
thus far has been as follows: take off (most of)
your clothes, tiptoe into a wooden box, avoid
eye contact and sweat, profusely. But the ethos
here at Beach Box is far more neighbourly –
everyone’s up for a chat.
Outside it’s bright and blowy – the little
portholes offer picturesque views of pebbles, sea
and horizon – inside, we’re cooking. But this
brand-new addition to the box family is only
moderately baking at 50 degrees, courtesy of a
stove recycled from the London 2012 Summer
Olympics, surrounded by raw-edged walls that
have been round the world as packing crates. It’s
a calm, serene, sweet-smelling space. Well, calm
aside from the blows I’m raining down on my
partner’s legs. I’m attempting to ‘whisk’ with the
birch stick; bringing blood to the surface of the
skin (a good thing, we’re told).
I’ll admit I’ve always found the predilection to
sauna curious, the milieu of, ahem... gentlemen
of a certain age. But getting old myself, and
living starting to hurt a bit more, means I’ve
come around to the idea of revelling in the close,
sweaty presence of strangers. And, with our
tempestuous climate rendering summer a pipe
dream, I’ll take the warmth where I can.
But, as a novice, it’s not long before a break is
needed. My partner waves me away, so I go and
sit in a stripy beach chair, under a warm blanket
....84....

WE TRY...
.............................
and feel... peaceful. Gazing out brings giddy
excitement at the prospect of my first 2019 dip
in the sea. A mightily ambitious but necessary
step towards the pinnacle of Brighton’s saunaing
experience – the Horse Box. At around 90
degrees, it’s hot (to-trot).
The sea, however, was not. After much shrieking,
we hoof it back up the pebbles and grab a jar of
body scrub; herbs, honey, aloe and, of course, salt,
which helps exfoliate our skin and possibly goes
some ways towards extracting last night’s pints of
Blue Moon out through my skin. I slather on a
bit more around my liver for extra strength.
Inside the Horse Box is... cosy. It’s an intimate
place for four people who’ve just met, especially
now we’re trussed like salt-encrusted trout. But
even so, there’s a camaraderie in sitting salty
thigh to salty thigh, dripping profusely. I’m
having a great time – and there’s no phones, no
Netflix, barely any clothing. Nice to set aside a
bit of time to sit and shoot the breeze. Just the
antidote I’d say, to our usual frenetic Brighton
existence. Amy Holtz
The Beach Box Sauna is at Sea Lanes on Madeira
Drive; sessions start at £15 for 120 minutes
beachboxspa.co.uk.
Photo by Sarah Ketelaars
Photo by Sarah Ketelaars
....85....

Cycle safely
Cycling is a great way to keep fit, save
money and help the local environment
Wearing a properly fitted helmet when
cycling reduces the risk of a serious
head injury by almost 70%
Sharetheroadsbrightonandhove
6664 Cycle Helmet poster 3.indd 1 09/05/2019 15:18

THE LOWDOWN ON
.............................
Photo by Paul Zara
parkrun
It’s not a race, it’s a run
Even if you haven’t heard of parkrun, you might
have seen it. Hundreds of lycra-clad people
congregating in parks and on proms, up and
down the country, every Saturday morning at
9am. We asked local parkrun fanatic Paul Zara
to give us the lowdown.
parkrun is free to enter; you register on the
website, get a barcode, turn up and run, walk
or jog 5k. I started going with my friend Pete,
who was coaching a kids’ football team and
wanted to get the boys fitter. The boys didn’t
turn up for long, but Pete and I got hooked.
I’m not a born athlete and, like lots of people,
initially found the idea of running 5k quite
intimidating. But this is so friendly and inclusive;
you don’t have to be the world’s best runner –
or even a runner at all – to join in. All sorts of
people go. At the finishing tape your barcode
gets scanned and your time goes on to your own
webpage of parkrun stats, so you can monitor
your progress. It doesn’t matter what time you
do. They always say ‘it’s not a race, it’s a run’.
Everyone is immediately made welcome and
I’ve found good friends through going. It’s a
little bit like going to church – something you do
at the same time every week, rain or shine, getting
together with a group of people, and staying
afterwards for a coffee and a chat. By 9.30am
you’ve had a huge boost, no matter how sluggish
you felt when you got out of bed at 8.30am.
There used to be just the one local parkrun,
in Hove Park; now there are five. They had to
open more because it was getting to be 500+
people turning up every Saturday. Now there
are also runs in Preston Park, Bevendean, Hove
Prom and East Brighton Park.
I’ve done 341 parkruns in Hove Park, which
sounds a bit mad, but I’ve also done parkruns
on holiday in East Anglia in the snow, and in
Copenhagen on a wet Saturday morning. I’ve
got friends who plan their holidays around them.
Lots of people go to boost their mental
health and wellbeing and I’ve heard that
doctors, in effect, ‘prescribe’ it to their patients.
I think there should be a parkrun poster in
every doctor’s surgery. There are leaflets about
stopping smoking and drinking, but I know so
many people who feel so much better for doing
parkrun. And it costs nothing but the price of a
pair of running shoes.
Just try it once. If you don’t like it, you haven’t
lost anything and, if you do, you might get
hooked. I started running 5k at parkrun and I
just ran my 10th Brighton marathon. If you’d
told me I’d be doing that ten years ago, I’d have
said you were mad.
There was a guy at Hove Park recently who
did a parkrun on his 90th birthday. I’ve got
a few years yet but, if I can be running around
Hove Park when I’m 90, I’ll be happy.
As told to Lizzie Lower
parkrun.org.uk/brighton
....87....

What are you
waiting for?
Lewes Football Club
is doing great things.
Own it:
www.lewesfc.com/owners

FEATURE
.............................
Yannis Pitsiladis
On transgender athletes
Forty transgender athletes have volunteered for
research at the University of Brighton, aiming
to determine the fairest way of integrating
transgender athletes into elite sport. Yannis
Pitsiladis, Professor of Sport and Exercise Science
and member of the International Olympic
Committee’s medical and scientific commission,
tells us more.
There is an urgent need to conduct studies that
evaluate athletic performance in a greater number
of subjects, including potentially elite athletes,
before and after transition. Studies of this
nature are complex, time-consuming and costly.
Other difficulties in performing such studies
include determining appropriate parameters for
measuring athletic performance before and after
the suppression of testosterone, as well as the
difficulty in finding volunteers for this type of
research.
It is timely, therefore, that we are about to
investigate roughly 20 men and 20 women as they
transition, in the largest study of its kind. Our
team of endocrinologists, muscle physiologists,
exercise physiologists and mental health
professionals (amongst others) will oversee the
transition at a London-based gender clinic from
baseline (before) and at regular intervals, for at
least 2 years in the first instance. A longer follow
up is also planned.
Despite being imperfect, the use of serum
testosterone levels as the primary biomarker to
regulate the inclusion of athletes into male and
female categories is currently being justified as
the only method that is based on an objective
biomarker. That is supported by most available
scientific literature, and accomplishes integration
of athletes with disorders of sex development and
transgender athletes in a manner that is consistent
with the principles of the Olympic Charter.
There are, however, many unresolved issues
needing clarification before unreservedly using
testosterone levels or other biomarkers to define
“athletic gender”.
Resolving these issues will require the scientific
community to employ innovative research ideas,
including targeted studies investigating the effects
of hormonal variations and the so-called “muscle
memory” effect. Muscle memory refers to the
persistence of the cellular phenotype related to
testosterone exposure. For example, it has been
shown that, in addition to hormone levels, the
number of nuclei within individual muscle cells
(called myonuclei) can affect the response to
skeletal muscle training.
In a study, short-term treatment with testosterone
increased the number of myonuclei. After the
drug was discontinued, the number of myonuclei
remained elevated for at least three months. It
has been suggested that the number of myonuclei
not only reflects the current size of the fibre,
but also the history of the fibre. The analogy has
been made that myonuclei number is similar to
a peg inside a conventional minimum/maximum
thermometer, where the mercury column pushes
the peg upwards and leaves it at the highest
temperature measured.
It seems everyone now is an ‘expert’ and has an
opinion: there is almost no data so all opinions
can be argued as the correct one. We need data,
so most opinions can be ‘deleted’ and evidencebased
opinion used to integrate these athletes
fairly. We should get rid of emotion and just deal
with the facts. As told to Joe Fuller
brighton.ac.uk/news
....89....

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MY SPACE
.............................
Photo by Lizzie Lower
Boulder Brighton
James Gomez, co-founder
I set up Boulder Brighton with my friend
Tom. We started climbing together at
university, about 20 years ago. We felt that
Brighton was in need of a decent climbing
centre, took the plunge and started to get
this place built. We opened in 2013 and have
just celebrated our sixth birthday with a big
competition. In bouldering, competitions
are about the number of attempts. If you
can complete a climb first time, you get the
maximum number of points. More attempts
mean fewer points. We have fun events for
everyone to get involved with, as well as some of
the best climbers in the country coming down
to show their thing.
In bouldering we call the climbs ‘problems’,
because they are like a puzzle. They involve
complex moves, quite close to the ground,
where it’s not always obvious what you might
have to do. There might be a trick to it, or a way
of approaching the route that isn’t immediately
obvious. Bouldering used to be what roped
climbers did to train, but in the last 20 years
it’s become a sport in its own right. When I
started bouldering regularly, it was the mix of
the physical challenge and the mental problemsolving
that got me really hooked.
We colour code all the climbs. If you look at
the wall, there will be 20 different colours of
holds, but you need to stick to one colour to
follow a route that we have set. As route setters,
we’re trying to create climbs that flow nicely,
and that lead to a varied and interesting range
of movement.
The climbing walls are all built of plywood
which allows us to swap the holds around and
....91....

....92....
Photo by Paul Alexander

MY SPACE
.............................
change the angle of the climbs by adding
triangular forms – called volumes – which can
be two or three metres across. It’s nice to work
with wood – it allows us to build onsite and to
make last-minute adjustments. We 3D model
on a computer sketch, but it’s never the same
as standing in front of the wall and seeing how
it works in the space.
We mainly get adults coming to the centre,
but we recommend bouldering for ages seven
and up. We’ve got a very active youth squad
that go around to the South East climbing
competitions. From small beginnings, they
are now regularly getting on the podium and
winning events. Some have gone on to be
Team GB climbers.
Climbing is coming to the Olympics, for
the first time, in Japan. Contestants will
have to do bouldering, lead climbing and
speed climbing. That’s a bit controversial as
different styles of climbing require different
training, and being able to do all of them
simultaneously is really hard. You never know,
we might be training some of our youth squad
for Paris ’24. As told to Lizzie Lower
Victoria Road Trading Estate, Portslade
boulderbrighton.com
Photo by Paul Alexander
Photo by Paul Alexander
....93....

FEATURE
.............................
Poppy Joshi
I can now out-lift most
of the men I know
Poppy Joshi, combines studying Physics and
Astronomy at the University of Sussex with
competing at an international level in powerlifting.
This year she will be defending a new world
record that she set last year.
I am the sort of person who wants to push
themselves. I started powerlifting competitively
in 2017. I’d seen all these big guys doing it, and
I thought, I’m strong, I could do that too. One
of the instructors in my gym told me about his
coach, Callum Barney, who’s now my coach. I
can now out-lift most of the men I know.
I competed last November in the junior section
of the World Powerlifting Championships
in Glasgow against countries such as Russia and
the USA and achieved 171.5 kg in the deadlift–
beating the world record by 0.5kg. I was expecting
it to be really hard, but the second I started
lifting I knew I had it in the bag. It flew!
I receive a sports scholarship from the university.
It helps pay for my competition transport,
accommodation and competition entry
fees. I get free physio too, which is great because
I also play hockey for Sussex and I get injured
a lot. The scholarship gives me some academic
flexibility, so if there’s a competition that clashes
with an exam, my exam can be moved.
I usually get up at 5.45am and am in the
gym as soon as it opens, and then I study for
the rest of the day. In the run-up to the world
championships I was also working out in the
evening too. My friends thought I was mad. I’ve
got a better balance now between my studies
and my sport.
I got involved with the Sussex This Girl Can
campaign because I want to help get more girls
involved in competitive sports. I hate seeing
them intimidated by the gym. There’s no reason
why anyone should feel like that.
I started off studying Neuroscience, but I
really wanted to do Physics. I didn’t think it
would be possible because I didn’t have Maths
A-level, but Sussex suggested I do the foundation
degree first. I had a rocky start, but by the
end of the year I was consistently getting above
80 per cent.
I’d love to become an astronaut, as I know
competitive sport isn’t something I’ll do forever.
When I finish my MPhys I’d like to study for
a PhD. I realise it’s a hard job to get into, especially
if you’re British. I really respect the UK
astronaut Tim Peake.
I don’t want to reach retirement and think,
I really wish I’d done that. For a while I had
dropped out of my A-levels. But my mum also
didn’t follow a traditional academic route, and
she said I should do what I want as education
will always be there. Taking time out was the
best thing that I have ever done because of what
I learned from it.
As told to Jacqui Bealing
....95....

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WILDLIFE
.............................
Stag Beetles
Two Falls, Two Submissions or a Knockout
Michael Blencowe
I’ve only ever had one sporting hero. In the
red corner, standing 6ft 6 and weighing in at
365lbs, Big Daddy kept my Gran and me glued
to the TV set on wet Saturday afternoons, as he
wrestled Giant Haystacks or Kendo Nagasaki in
his sequined spandex.
In June, Stag Beetles – the big daddies of the
beetle world – are emerging from the ground and
getting ready to rumble. There’s around 3,000
different species of beetle in Sussex and an estimated
29,000 species across Europe. Just as Big
Daddy’s 64-inch chest earned him a place in the
Guinness Book of Records, the 2.5 inch long Stag
Beetle holds the coveted title of Europe’s Biggest
Beetle. And, like a 26 stone man in a spangly
leotard, the adult male Stag Beetle is equally
impressive and ludicrous. Its 3-segmented black
and maroon armoured body is crowned with a
ridiculous pair of trademark stag-like ‘antlers’.
They are actually modified mandible mouthparts
and are used to impress the antler-less females
and to grapple rival males.
Before these tiny titans step into the ring they
have to put in some long hours in training. The
beetle’s larvae spend an incredible 5-6 years
munching on a deadwood diet of buried logs and
roots, building the bulky body that will sustain
them to survive above ground. As adults they will
live for just a few weeks without feeding, relying
solely on the fuel tanks accumulated underground.
In early summer, after pupation and
transformation, they burst from the ground and
go looking for a fight. I always find it incredible
that these chunky, bulky beetles can fly, but on
warm evenings they whir through the air with the
grace and subtlety of a Chinook on aerial reconnaissance
for females. But if another male beats
them to it, that’s when things get nasty.
In my fantasies I imagine these beetle brawls
to play out on a dead tree stump. A crowd of
over-excited elderly invertebrates gather round;
the grasshoppers and crickets chirping in with
a chorus of “We shall not be moved” while the
earthworms and earwigs chant “Eas-eh! Eas-eh!”
The fighters face off, before charging and locking
antlers. With incredible strength a Stag Beetle
can lift his opponent into the air, holding him
there heroically before spectacularly body-slamming
them down onto the stump.
We’re fortunate that Southeast England is a
hotspot for these Herculean heavyweights, but
sadly our Stag Beetles are on the ropes. The
loss of old trees from the countryside has had a
dramatic impact on the survival of the beetles’
underground larvae, and their numbers are
declining. So, if you see a Stag Beetle we’d really
like to hear about it. Send details and a photo to
wildcall@sussexwt.org.uk
Michael Blencowe, Senior Learning & Engagement
Officer, Sussex Wildlife Trust
....97....

INSIDE LEFT: SS BRIGHTON, c 1959
..........................................................................................
There’s plenty of seemingly contradictory information
to take in from the walls of this building,
on the corner of West Street and Kings Road,
once one of the most popular venues in Brighton.
SS Brighton was opened in June 1934, billed as
the largest covered swimming pool in the world,
with 2,000 seats for spectators. The interior was
fashioned in the shape of an ocean liner, hence
‘SS’. You can see ‘SS Brighton’ written vertically
on the south-facing wall.
But a run of hot summers meant it never took
off, as people took to sea swimming. It was soon
(by September 1936) converted into an ice rink,
and renamed Brighton Sports Stadium, though
people still used its former name.
This was a much more popular concern. Not
only could punters skate on the rink, they could
also take in shows, and watch Brighton’s championship-winning
ice hockey team, the Brighton
Tigers, who in their mid-century pomp drew
in regular capacity crowds of 4,000, famously
beating a touring Soviet team 6-3 in 1957.
The space was also used for other sports events,
including tennis and wrestling. In 1957 it hosted
the Labour Party Conference, during which
Aneurin Bevan famously disavowed unilateral
nuclear disarmament.
Above the doorway you can see that the building
has another name: Brighton Palladium. It was
taken over and given this moniker in 1959, the
year this picture was probably taken, according to
Kevin Wilsher, of the Regency Society, who hold
the James Gray archive. This incarnation only
lasted till 1961.
We must be in the Christmas period, because
the show being advertised, Humpty Dumpty on
Ice, was a pantomime, starring David Whitfield, a
hugely successful tenor, the first British singer to
have a top ten hit – Cara Mia – in the American
charts.
This elegant and much-loved building was
demolished in 1966, when the Rank organisation
bought the site with the intention of making
it part of the Top Rank complex. But the space
remained vacant – used as a car park – until 1990,
when the Oak Hotel, now a Travelodge, went up.
Alex Leith
Thanks to Kevin Wilsher, and the Regency Society
for the use of this image from the James Gray
Collection. regencysociety.org
....98....

Spirit of the Rainbow
We are starting a movement
Awakening to Oneness
Oneness means our first loyalty is to our humanity, above any country, religion
or ideology: humanity both in the sense of all human beings and also of human
decency, kindness, compassion. Oneness means we recognise we are part of nature
and that we treat our environment with reverence and respect. Oneness works
too at a personal level as we grow into a sense of wholeness. Oneness means we
recognise that we are children of our universe however we experience it.
OUR AIMS & ACTIVITIES:
Come and share your ideas so together we can:
• deepen our experience of oneness
• spread our message locally and globally
• build a world based on oneness
Come to our first meeting on the 22nd June 2019
Starting at 2.30pm and ending c.3.30pm
@ Conference Room 2, Brighton Library, Jubilee St, Brighton BN1 1GE
For further information contact spiritoftherainbow@yahoo.co.uk

alistairflemingdesign.co.uk
01273 471269