Here & Now Issue 34 | July 2019

COMMUNITY MATTERS
Glow with the flow
Where once was retribution spat, where
bonfire boys made fright, where seas of
stagnant darkness sat, there flows a tide
of light.
THAT’S NOT A HYMN FROM 150 YEARS AGO, but it’s meant
to sound like one because, when it comes to bonfire night,
Worthing wasn’t always the best place to be. There was a time
when the town was best avoided in early November, as the
bonfire boys took their cruel vengeance upon anyone judged
to have slighted the working class or offended a Protestant
doctrine that its defenders barely understood. Holy smoke,
how things have changed.
“This year will see the brightest, most spectacular Tide of
Light yet,” explains coordinator Jess Estcourt. “We’ve already
completed one round of workshops in schools and now we’ve
teamed up with the New Carnival Company, who have been
working on the carnival in Rio. They are helping us with
workshops in our community, showing us how to light up the
night with amazing illuminated sculptures.”
The lantern-making will be popping up all over town
throughout the summer. You’ll find them at Pride, Rotary
Carnival, Green Dreams and even the Pumpkin Picking Patch in
Sompting.
Tide of Light has also partnered up with the energetic people
who organise Worthing Parkrun, and they’ve come up with the
brilliant idea of the Dark Run. It may sound like a throwback
to the murky days of south coast smuggling, but it’s nothing
more threatening than an illuminated 5k adventure. According
to Jess, “You can walk, jog or run, but you’ve absolutely got to
glow.”
These days we’re more enlightened. These days we have
Tide of Light: a volunteer-led project that sees its genesis in
workshops and masterclasses, and its revelation in a shivering,
shimmering stream of fairy-lit lanterns and sculptures, surfing
through the town on a wave of non-sectarian celebration.
Everything you see has been assembled in Worthing by
enthusiastic amateurs. Tide of Light is art
on legs.
Tide of Light:
Saturday 2
November
tideoflight.co.uk
info@tideoflight.
co.uk
If you’re wondering why we’re describing
a winter carnival before we’ve enjoyed
most of the summer ones, it’s because
the work is already underway and you are
most welcome to join in.
“We really want people to get involved in the whole process,”
says Jess. “We call our volunteers ‘Mighty Makers’ but you don’t
need any special skills to make the lanterns. There’ll be adults
and kids and instructors, all working together in organised
chaos to prepare for the big night. You just need a sense of
humour and a little bit of patience.”
Some of those already signed
up to parade the sparkling
sculptures are precisely the
wonderful Worthing groups
you’d expect – Superstar Arts,
Dad La Soul, Sight Support
and Blueprint 22 – but the
event might hold one or two
big surprises this year, not that
Jess is giving too much away
just yet. “Strange creatures
will be washing ashore,” she
says cryptically, “carried into
Worthing on a Tide of Light.” n
Karl Allison
Worthing
Community Chest
HEREANDNOWMAG.CO.UK HERE & NOW | July 2019 | 11