28.08.2019 Views

Viva Brighton Issue #79 September 2019

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Image: Painted collage by Shadric Toop<br />

No Ordinary Opera<br />

DONIZETTI L’elisir d’amore<br />

HANDEL Rinaldo<br />

VERDI Rigoletto LIMITED AVAILABILITY<br />

Chorus Christmas Concert<br />

Book now<br />

October – December<br />

Glyndebourne (NEAR LEWES)<br />

Tickets £20 – £72


VIVA<br />

B R I G H T O N<br />

<strong>#79</strong> SEPT <strong>2019</strong><br />

EDITORIAL<br />

...........................<br />

.......................<br />

<strong>Viva</strong> Magazines is based at:<br />

Lewes House, 32 High St,<br />

Lewes, BN7 2LX.<br />

For all enquiries call:<br />

01273 488882.<br />

Every care has been taken to<br />

ensure the accuracy of our content.<br />

We cannot be held responsible for<br />

any omissions, errors or alterations.<br />

When we decided on ‘footprint’ for our <strong>September</strong><br />

theme, my mind filled with rambling thoughts of<br />

trekking, tightrope walkers and shoes. But, with<br />

things the way they are, it was no surprise that<br />

environmental concerns and our carbon footprint<br />

came to the fore.<br />

As we measure our collective environmental impact<br />

in the death of glaciers, we need all the reminders we<br />

can get if we’re to turn the (rising) tide of the climate<br />

emergency.<br />

So, in this issue we do indeed have a shoemaker and<br />

plenty of inspiration to get out walking, but we also<br />

hear from some local change makers – environmental<br />

and otherwise. Like Mary-Jane Farrell, one of<br />

the organisers of the <strong>Brighton</strong> youth strike for<br />

climate action; Atlanta Cook of the environmental<br />

consultancy Ocean’s 8 <strong>Brighton</strong>; Alexander Thomson<br />

who is on a mission to freecycle waste from the<br />

construction industry with his virtual skip and Justin<br />

Francis who has been leading the way with low<br />

impact tourism since 2002.<br />

Plus we meet a Sussex University epidemiologist who<br />

is determined to eradicate a particularly nasty but<br />

largely forgotten tropical foot disease, and Lewes FC<br />

who are levelling the (football) playing field in pay<br />

equality. Inspiring people who are walking the talk.<br />

On the copper plaque recently unveiled to<br />

commemorate the death of the Okjökull glacier, the<br />

Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason wrote, in a<br />

letter to the future, ‘We know what is happening and<br />

what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.’<br />

If we are to do what needs to be done, we all need to<br />

tread a great deal more lightly.


VIVA<br />

B R I G H T O N<br />

THE TEAM<br />

.....................<br />

EDITOR: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com<br />

SUB EDITOR: David Jarman<br />

PRODUCTION EDITOR: Joe Fuller joe@vivamagazines.com<br />

ART DIRECTOR: Katie Moorman katie@vivamagazines.com<br />

PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst mail@adambronkhorst.com<br />

ADVERTISING: Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com,<br />

Sarah Jane Lewis sarah-jane@vivamagazines.com<br />

ADMINISTRATION & ACCOUNTS: Kelly Mechen kelly@vivamagazines.com<br />

DISTRIBUTION: David Pardue distribution@vivamagazines.com<br />

CONTRIBUTORS: Alex Leith, Alexandra Loske, Amy Holtz, Ben Bailey, Charlotte Gann,<br />

Chris Riddell, JJ Waller, Jacqui Bealing, Jay Collins, Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer,<br />

Lizzie Enfield, Mark Greco, Martin Skelton, Michael Blencowe,<br />

Nione Meakin, Rebecca Cunningham, Robert Littleford and Rose Dykins.<br />

PUBLISHER: Becky Ramsden becky@vivamagazines.com<br />

Please recycle your <strong>Viva</strong> (or keep us forever).


LAURIE ANDERSON<br />

& HSIN-CHIEN HUANG:<br />

TO THE MOON<br />

30 SEPTEMBER<br />

– 4 OCTOBER<br />

CATERINA BARBIERI<br />

& RUBEN SPINI<br />

MYRIAM BLEAU:<br />

BALLISTICS<br />

10 OCTOBER<br />

PLANNINGTOROCK<br />

11 OCTOBER<br />

TIM HECKER<br />

PRESENTS ANOYO<br />

SUGAI KEN<br />

15 OCTOBER<br />

HOLLY HERNDON<br />

PRESENTS PROTO<br />

17 OCTOBER<br />

BRIGHTON<br />

DIGITAL<br />

FESTIVAL<br />

<strong>2019</strong><br />

ELECTRONIC MUSIC & AUDIOVISUAL ART<br />

01273 678 822<br />

attenboroughcentre.com


CONTENTS<br />

...............................<br />

Bits & bobs.<br />

10-27. Robert Littleford on his cautionary<br />

cover, the formidable Elisabeth<br />

Howard is on the buses, and Alex Leith<br />

is in the Bow Street Runner. Elsewhere,<br />

Alexandra Loske examines an<br />

epic painting in an epic space; we find<br />

out about the council’s health walks;<br />

<strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Brighton</strong> gets upcycled by an<br />

inventive ten year old, and we review<br />

Doug McMaster’s Zero Waste Blueprint.<br />

And much more besides.<br />

Ivon Hitchens, Flowers, 1942. © The Estate of Ivon Hitchens<br />

58<br />

My <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />

28-29. George Sauverin on Infinity<br />

Foods’ 40th year as a co-op.<br />

Photography.<br />

31-37. Mary-Jane Farrell and the<br />

young <strong>Brighton</strong>ians striking for climate<br />

action.<br />

Columns.<br />

39-43. John Helmer ponders small<br />

steps and giant leaps, Lizzie Enfield is<br />

turning heads, and Amy Holtz is a long<br />

way from Willmar.<br />

On this month.<br />

45-55. Ben Bailey’s pick of the gigs;<br />

Lynne Truss is coming to Shoreham<br />

Wordfest; Cerys Matthews on Where<br />

the Wild Cooks Go at The Old Market,<br />

and a modern adaptation of Hedda<br />

Gabler at Chichester Festival Theatre.<br />

Natural navigator Tristan Gooley is at<br />

the Catalyst Club; one man’s homage<br />

to George Bernard Shaw at Rialto, and<br />

a new writing festival for the LGBTQ<br />

community from New Writing South.<br />

Plus, there’s a festival of digital immersion<br />

with #TOMtech this month.<br />

Robert Littleford<br />

10<br />

....7 ....


CONTENTS<br />

...............................<br />

Art & design.<br />

57-69. The Museum of Ordinary People<br />

starts a new chapter; David Jarman<br />

visits three exhibitions at Pallant House;<br />

Jessica Zoob shows works from afar<br />

in her Sussex studio, and we meet the<br />

designers from the Sustainability Design<br />

Collective at Falmer. Plus, just some of<br />

what’s on, art wise, this month.<br />

The way we walk.<br />

71-75. Adam Bronkhorst falls in step<br />

with some local walkers, and asks them<br />

‘why do you love walking?’<br />

Food.<br />

77-81. An ethical brunch at Neighbourhood;<br />

a wood-fired pizza on St. James’s<br />

Street, and a fisherman’s recipe for the<br />

catch of the day. And just a taster of this<br />

month’s food news.<br />

86<br />

Features.<br />

82-95. We meet The Little Shoemaker<br />

Kevin Rowley in his workshop; a<br />

man who’s hoping to bring freecycling<br />

to the construction industry and talk<br />

equality and football with Lewes FC.<br />

Plus, we take a boat trip to Rampion<br />

Windfarm with the <strong>Brighton</strong> Dolphin<br />

Project; meet eight local women<br />

on an environmental mission; man<br />

who’s leading the way in low-impact<br />

tourism, and a University of Sussex<br />

epidemiologist who’s working to<br />

eradicate a debilitating foot condition<br />

in Africa.<br />

Photo by Lizzie Lower<br />

Wildlife<br />

97. Michael Blencowe marks a milestone<br />

and makes an impression.<br />

Photo by Lizzie Lower<br />

77<br />

Inside left.<br />

98. An underfoot Victorian legacy;<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>’s brick-built sewersystem.<br />

....8 ....


THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTIST<br />

.......................................................<br />

I enjoy <strong>Viva</strong>’s more abstract themes. Seeing<br />

how our contributors interpret them and<br />

how different strands get woven in. ‘Foot<br />

print’ inevitably struck an environmental note<br />

for many, including our cover artist Robert<br />

Littleford.<br />

Working at his studio in the King's Road<br />

Arches between <strong>Brighton</strong>’s piers, and visiting<br />

Rottingdean beach most days with his dog<br />

Moose, he’s frequently confronted with one of<br />

our worst predicaments. “Every time I go down<br />

to the beach, I see all the plastic, the rubbish<br />

and the barbeques. I’m just appalled by the<br />

state that people leave the beach in.”<br />

His fears about the overwhelming scale of<br />

the problem are captured in his cover design.<br />

“<strong>Brighton</strong> Council spends a fortune keeping<br />

the beach clean every single day. But it’s<br />

an avalanche of waste. It’s just depressing.<br />

What can you do against that? When I was<br />

a kid, there was the whole ‘keep Britain tidy’<br />

campaign. You would never go to a beauty spot<br />

and leave rubbish. So, what’s changed? Is it that<br />

people aren’t being educated about it? Or that<br />

it’s virtually impossible to buy anything that’s<br />

not wrapped in plastic?”<br />

Behind him, on the walls of his subterranean<br />

studio, are paintings from his recent Just So<br />

exhibition, which started out as a reworking of<br />

the classic Rudyard Kipling stories, but then<br />

took an unexpected twist. “The Arts Council<br />

suggested that I do some research in the local<br />

community and the stories I discovered were<br />

darker and more interesting. Like the sea<br />

serpent off Seaford, big cats on the loose in<br />

Friston Forest, and flocks of starlings falling<br />

....10....


ROBERT LITTLEFORD<br />

......................................................<br />

dead from the sky. Falling birds! It’s all<br />

a bit biblical, a bit ‘end of days’. Virginia<br />

Woolf describes it in Orlando.”<br />

Speaking of Woolf, visitors to the studio<br />

often compare Robert's work to that<br />

of the Bloomsbury group of artists, but<br />

Robert doesn’t see it and cites Georgia<br />

O’Keeffe, Léger and Hockney as<br />

influences. He trained as an illustrator,<br />

doing a foundation at Stafford, three<br />

years at Harrow School of Art and a<br />

further three at the Royal College,<br />

then worked for a time as an animator.<br />

Now he divides his time between his<br />

own painting and commercial work<br />

– illustrating books and magazines<br />

including the Sunday Times, Condé Nast<br />

and National Geographic.<br />

“I’m an armchair traveller. I like<br />

working on travel magazines because it<br />

gets me drawing things that I wouldn’t<br />

normally draw, and going to places in<br />

my head that I wouldn’t normally go to.<br />

Left to my own devices, I’d probably be<br />

like O’Keeffe, living in New Mexico and<br />

drawing cactuses.”<br />

But for now, he’s preoccupied with more<br />

pressing concerns on the shoreline. “I’ve<br />

heard that once the oceans die, we’ve<br />

got five years left and they’re giving the<br />

oceans until 2045… It’s bleak. But I’m<br />

not innocent; I use acrylic paints and<br />

wash my brushes out in the sink, and I<br />

bag things in plastic to sell. Even though<br />

I’m mindful, I know I could do a lot<br />

better. We all have to do a lot better.”<br />

Lizzie Lower<br />

See Robert's work at his open studio at<br />

168 King's Road Arches.<br />

instagram @robertlittleford<br />

robertlittleford.co.uk<br />

....11....


TRIPS AND BOBS<br />

SPREAD THE WORD<br />

Holocaust of Polish Jews. ‘I love quirky and<br />

slightly unusual facts’, writes Rachel, ‘and that’s<br />

why I read <strong>Viva</strong>. Did you know that Britain’s<br />

only Polish newspaper (supporting the Polish<br />

Government in exile-in-London) was printed in<br />

Hove?’ Join Rachel on one of her walks to find<br />

out more… [email hoveactuallywalks@gmail.<br />

com or visit the Facebook page]. Finally, here’s<br />

our June issue reincarnated as a party bag by<br />

Védís Vífilsdóttir. She is taking the call for action<br />

to recycle, reduce and reuse in the name of<br />

protecting the planet very seriously, and wanted<br />

to limit the environmental impact of her 10th<br />

birthday party. What a brilliant idea! What will<br />

you make out of your copy of <strong>Viva</strong>?<br />

‘Here I am in Leipzig, Germany, during a Bach<br />

pilgrimage choral tour with ‘Run By Singers’,’<br />

writes <strong>Brighton</strong> resident Marion Adler. ‘I’m<br />

standing by this magnificent statue of JSB<br />

outside the Thomaskirche, where the great<br />

composer died in 1750.’<br />

And Rachel Bridgeman – local historian and<br />

tour guide at Hove Actually Walking Tours –<br />

took us to Krakow in Poland. Here she is sat<br />

next to heroic Jan Karski, who tried to stop the<br />

Wherever you’re going, and whatever you’re doing<br />

keep taking us with you and keep spreading the<br />

word. Send your photos and a few words about<br />

you and your trip to hello@vivamagazines.com<br />

....12....


Share the Roads,<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove<br />

focus<br />

LOOK<br />

LISTEN<br />

42% of collisions in <strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove<br />

occurred because people were<br />

not looking properly<br />

6241_road_safety_A4.indd 1 14/09/2017 15:08<br />

ON THE BUSES #53: ELISABETH HOWARD ROUTE 29<br />

Elisabeth Howard was one of the best known figures in Lewes<br />

throughout the 70s and 80s, renowned as an inveterate campaigner<br />

for various causes in and around the town.<br />

Born in Seaford in 1929 – where her parents ran Chesterton<br />

Boys’ Preparatory School – Howard was musically talented and<br />

fluent in French. In 1968, she became a founding member of<br />

the Lewes Traffic Study Group, which sought a ‘less damaging<br />

solution to the threat posed to the town by the motor-car’,<br />

according to an East Sussex Record Office yearly report. This was in response to a proposed fourlane<br />

highway through the centre of town.<br />

Howard campaigned to prevent St Anne’s House being sold by East Sussex County Council –<br />

unsuccessfully – but was successful in campaigning to save the Old Needlemakers building (now<br />

a collection of shops and a café), All Saints Church in Friars Walk, and the Railway Land (now a<br />

nature reserve).<br />

Elisabeth was often seen cycling around Lewes at speed, arriving at meetings via bicycle, ‘formidably<br />

briefed’. A Sussex Express article, published in 2010, explains that ‘officials used to dread<br />

seeing her approach, although she was a kindly woman’. Howard died in 2006; a plaque and<br />

memorial cycle rack were erected in Southover Grange Gardens in 2010. Joe Fuller<br />

Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)<br />

....13....


Lancing College<br />

Senior School & Sixth Form<br />

Open Morning<br />

Saturday 5 October<br />

10.30am – 1pm<br />

Registered Charity No. 1076483


JOE DECIE<br />

...............................<br />

....15....


CURATOR’S CITY<br />

...............................<br />

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF IVON HITCHENS AND BASIL SPENCE<br />

A LARGE BUT LITTLE-KNOWN ABSTRACT BEAUTY AT SUSSEX UNIVERSITY<br />

Falmer House courtyard. Photos by Alexandra Loske.<br />

Day's Rest, Day's Work by Ivon Hitchens viewed from the mezzanine of Mandela Hall.<br />

In the August issue of <strong>Viva</strong> <strong>Brighton</strong> I wrote<br />

about architect Sir Basil Spence’s Meeting<br />

House at the University of Sussex campus and<br />

briefly mentioned Falmer House, the university’s<br />

gatehouse. If you approach the university by rail,<br />

bus or bicycle, from east or west, this is still the<br />

building through which you will enter the campus.<br />

It deserves its own article, not just because<br />

of its architectural features and underlying ideas<br />

of transparency, but also for a particular surprise<br />

you will find inside.<br />

Falmer House was built between 1961 and 1962<br />

and originally called College House. It was the<br />

first and grandest of Spence’s campus buildings,<br />

much discussed in architectural circles, and the<br />

only one on site that is Grade I listed. It looked<br />

radically modern in the early 1960s but made<br />

references to classical architecture and traditional<br />

Sussex building materials. Spence had spent<br />

much time in Rome, admiring the imposing<br />

ruined structure of the Colosseum, which he<br />

used as inspiration to create a 20th century<br />

public building that looked both protective and<br />

inviting. Falmer House was meant to be the<br />

social hub of campus, with students’ rooms,<br />

offices, a debating hall, shops, a bar, TV and<br />

music rooms and other amenities. It was, and<br />

still is, the seat of the Students’ Union, and from<br />

....16....


CURATOR’S CITY<br />

...............................<br />

Falmer House Staircase<br />

Falmer House Mandela Hall<br />

the high vantage point of the common room<br />

students can see all the comings and goings of<br />

the university, with a clear view of the main<br />

north-south axis, the central library square, and<br />

the inner courtyard of Falmer House with its<br />

concrete moat that naturally fills with rainwater<br />

from concrete gargoyles.<br />

As with all his campus buildings, Spence emphasised<br />

the subtle interaction of material, light<br />

and colour. Sunlight bounces off the knapped<br />

flint wall in the main staircase, and reflects from<br />

the moat onto the underside of the vaulted<br />

colonnades. The west wing of the quadrangular<br />

building is pierced by a large barrel-like structure<br />

with a copper roof. It dramatically protudes<br />

and rises through two floors, with a mezzanine<br />

gallery. It is one of the most striking features of<br />

the building and once again references historical<br />

structures, such as medieval cathedrals. Now a<br />

multi-functional room called Mandela Hall, it<br />

once housed the dining hall.<br />

In keeping with the Spence look, ornament and<br />

decoration are kept to a minimum in this space.<br />

But a surprise awaits in Mandela Hall: high<br />

on its north wall hangs Day’s Rest, Day’s Work,<br />

a spectacular seven-metre-long four-panelled<br />

‘mural’ of overlapping, intertwining shapes and<br />

lines, thickly painted in warm and sumptuous<br />

colours, which look particularly good against<br />

Spence’s exposed red brick. It was painted<br />

in c.1960 by Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979) and<br />

gifted to the university in 1962. In the 1920s<br />

and 30s Hitchens had been working with other<br />

renowned Modernist artists such as Barbara<br />

Hepworth, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson.<br />

His use of colour was inspired by French<br />

Post-Impressionists, especially Cezanne. Based<br />

in West Sussex for many years, he became<br />

known for his abstract or semi-abstract landscapes<br />

and is now considered one of the greatest<br />

20th century British painters. The painting in<br />

Falmer House could be described as an abstract<br />

landscape, but look closer and you can also see<br />

the outlines of figures, some full of movement<br />

and activity, while one is curled up – or resting,<br />

as the title suggests. These figures are based<br />

on studies of woodcutter Ted Floate, Hitchen's<br />

close friend, who in this dreamy painting<br />

represent everyone studying or working at the<br />

University of Sussex.<br />

Alexandra Loske, Art Historian and Curator<br />

The building is normally open and free to visit,<br />

except when special events are taking place in<br />

Mandela Hall.<br />

....17....


FREE!<br />

RESERVE A<br />

TABLE FOR 2<br />

AND ENJOY A<br />

COMPLIMENTARY<br />

BOTTLE OF<br />

WINE!<br />

Love food -<br />

Follow Football…<br />

Join us at our friendly<br />

sports bar where the hospitality,<br />

food, beers and<br />

wines are second to none!<br />

Tuck into our tasty<br />

street-food dishes taking<br />

inspiration from<br />

all around the world!<br />

Focusing<br />

on you<br />

Counselling, Psychotherapy<br />

and Psychological services<br />

in central Hove<br />

01273 921355<br />

www.brightonandhovepsychotherapy.com<br />

admin@brightonandhovepsychotherapy.com


BITS AND PUBS<br />

...............................<br />

PUB: BOW STREET RUNNER<br />

The Bow Street Runner,<br />

hidden away down Brunswick<br />

Street West, is one of a dying<br />

breed: a little backstreet boozer<br />

where everyone seems to know<br />

everyone else’s name.<br />

I walk in one early Friday<br />

evening for a quick pint with<br />

my wife before we go to the<br />

cricket, and it’s like stepping<br />

into the 80s. There are about 20<br />

people in there, all but two of<br />

them men, average age maybe<br />

65. Many of them seem to be in<br />

the curious limbo of being on<br />

their own, and simultaneously<br />

part of the group.<br />

The mild banter is the only<br />

sound: the small-screen TV’s<br />

turned off, there are no video<br />

games or fruit machines, and<br />

there’s hardly a mobile phone<br />

in evidence. It’s bigger than it<br />

looks from the outside, but the<br />

current numbers pretty much<br />

fill the place – we get the last<br />

little table going. There are no<br />

windows on the side or back<br />

walls: it must have been difficult<br />

to breathe in there before<br />

the smoking ban.<br />

The décor is curious. Red-velvet<br />

banquette seating, green<br />

fluffy carpet up to the dado<br />

rail, nicotine-coloured marbling<br />

and gilt-edged mirrors.<br />

Pre-woke-humour signs tacked<br />

to the wall: ‘alcohol helps removes<br />

stress… and bras… and<br />

panties’; ‘it’s not a hangover, it’s<br />

wine flu’.<br />

It’s been a hot day: I favour a<br />

pint of Moretti over a Harvey’s<br />

Best, and we eavesdrop the<br />

constant stream of good-natured<br />

chatter, the cheerful<br />

barman its hub. Perhaps, we<br />

ponder, some of these guys<br />

have been coming here since it<br />

was called ‘The Station Inn’.<br />

Owner John Barnett must have<br />

called it that, when it opened<br />

in 1867, because Hove’s police<br />

station was then based next<br />

door. And it remained ‘The<br />

Station’ until 1989 when,<br />

legend has it, the landlady<br />

changed the name because she<br />

was sick of fielding phone calls<br />

asking what time the next train<br />

to London departed. A clever<br />

nod to the past: the Bow Street<br />

Runners were, of course, Britain’s<br />

original police force.<br />

I imagine the pub didn’t attract<br />

many ne’er-do-well punters<br />

in those Victorian days, then:<br />

Hove’s early coppers would<br />

surely have popped in for<br />

a jar or three, after work.<br />

And it’s hard to imagine the<br />

current clientele causing much<br />

mischief, either. I dare say the<br />

same faces will be in the same<br />

places this time next year,<br />

savouring their quiet, good-natured<br />

Life on Mars. Alex Leith<br />

Illustration by Jay Collins<br />

....19....


POST-<br />

IMPRESSIONIST<br />

LIVING:<br />

THE OMEGA<br />

WORKSHOPS<br />

14 SEPTEMBER <strong>2019</strong> - 19 JANUARY 2020<br />

CHARLESTON.ORG.UK/OMEGA<br />

WITH GENEROUS<br />

LOANS FROM THE V&A


BITS AND BOGS<br />

...............................<br />

MAGAZINE OF THE MONTH: ELEMENTUM<br />

For the first five years of my life<br />

I grew up close to the land. We<br />

lived with my grandparents and<br />

the unaccountably large piece of<br />

land that came with the house.<br />

(No-one knew how my grandmother<br />

had pulled this trick but<br />

that’s another story.)<br />

For me that meant, apple trees<br />

to climb, soft fruit to pick and<br />

eat, eggs to collect for breakfast<br />

from the chicken coop, damp<br />

grass to walk through, dry grass<br />

to lie in, and the smell of earth, growth and<br />

mould. And then we moved.<br />

Since then, I’ve left this behind. My dad commuted<br />

to London, which I visited with him at the<br />

weekend. Our first and subsequent houses had<br />

only small patches of garden. For much of my<br />

own working life I travelled, latterly internationally,<br />

flying to places for a short time. I lost my<br />

contact with the natural world.<br />

Carbon footprint? I certainly have one. Natural<br />

shoe-free footprints on real ground? Only at<br />

weekends and holidays. Local fresh food? Nothing<br />

much that I had actually<br />

picked myself.<br />

Elementum, our featured<br />

magazine this month provides<br />

the re-correction I need. It’s<br />

not preachy; anything but. This<br />

‘journal of nature and story’ is<br />

the most beautiful celebration<br />

of fire pits, ocean paths, living<br />

lava, mountains and floods,<br />

learning to look, settlers and<br />

more.<br />

The moment I pick it up, it<br />

reminds me of the infinite care which the writers,<br />

photographers, designers and others have taken<br />

to produce a magazine that can’t help but make<br />

us respect not only the magazine but its subject<br />

matter and can’t help but make us think of how<br />

our different footprints are helping or hindering<br />

this precious planet we live on.<br />

You won’t find that last rather preachy statement<br />

anywhere inside the magazine. But you will be<br />

thinking it every time you pick it up and put it<br />

down.<br />

Martin Skelton, Magazine <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

TOILET GRAFFITO #56<br />

This month’s toilet graffito is pretty self-explanatory.<br />

After all – we’re reminded by the young people<br />

on school strike for climate action – there is no<br />

planet B.<br />

You know what to do (and what not to do).<br />

But where is it?<br />

Last month’s answer: The Foundry<br />

....21....


BITS AND BOBS<br />

...............................<br />

CHARITY BOX #41: HEALTHWALKS<br />

Richard Ince is a volunteer leader for the council’s<br />

award-winning Healthwalks scheme – a daily<br />

programme of free walks in and around the city<br />

designed to boost health and encourage social<br />

interaction.<br />

I like walks that involve a bit of a climb. So<br />

there’s one I run two Saturdays a month that<br />

starts up on Hollingbury Hill Fort – where<br />

there are fantastic views over the city – and goes<br />

through Wild Park to the Amex Stadium. The<br />

other is on Wednesdays. It starts in Benfield<br />

Valley, Portslade, and goes towards Devil’s Dyke.<br />

We walk along the old railway line that used to go<br />

up to the Dyke.<br />

My walks are not very long – about three<br />

miles – and they last about an hour and a half.<br />

Anyone can turn up. There are two leaders on<br />

each walk so one of us will walk upfront with the<br />

fastest walker and the other will keep pace with<br />

the slowest.<br />

When someone attends for the first time we<br />

ask them a few fixed medical questions to<br />

check they’re okay to do it. If one walk isn’t<br />

suitable, there are lots of others to choose from.<br />

There’s one around Preston Park that’s completely<br />

flat, probably not more than an hour – and<br />

everyone stops at the café. We usually try to take<br />

routes with cafés nearby so people can sit down<br />

together and chat.<br />

People come on these walks for the friendship<br />

as much as anything. One lady said that when<br />

her husband died and her children weren’t in<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong> any more she realised she didn’t actually<br />

know many people. She started coming on a<br />

walk and that changed. I always make a point of<br />

chatting to anyone who’s new and trying to make<br />

them feel welcome.<br />

It surprises me what a range of people turn<br />

up. We get unemployed people, people who have<br />

been in high-paying jobs and are now retired…<br />

but what I find about walking is it’s a great leveller.<br />

Everyone chats to each other.<br />

I trained as a volunteer Healthwalk leader<br />

when I retired. I had been volunteering at<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong> Unemployed Centre – where I still help<br />

out on reception – when the lady in charge of the<br />

volunteers there mentioned the scheme. I’ve been<br />

doing it for about 14 years now.<br />

I grew up in the country and we never had a<br />

car in the family so we walked everywhere.<br />

The habit has never left me. I’m 79 now and as<br />

well as the walks I lead, I’m usually out every day,<br />

walking purely for pleasure.<br />

It relaxes me more than anything; to get away<br />

from the sound of traffic and be out in nature.<br />

I like talking to people but I also like walking on<br />

my own, sitting on the grass and looking at insects<br />

and trees.<br />

It’s interesting because you can do the same<br />

walk the other way around and it changes. If<br />

you do a walk in the morning or in the evening it’s<br />

different. So there’s always more to see. I’m never<br />

bored. As told to Nione Meakin<br />

brighton-hove.gov.uk/activity-provider/healthwalks<br />

....22....


Jem<br />

Lower Fifth<br />

Media Studies<br />

You are warmly invited to our<br />

Senior School Open Morning<br />

Saturday 14 <strong>September</strong> <strong>2019</strong><br />

9.30am to noon<br />

HMC – Day, weekly and full boarding<br />

Boys and girls 13 to 18<br />

(Entry at 13 and 16)<br />

To register please contact:<br />

admissions@bedes.org<br />

T 01323 843252<br />

or online at bedes.org<br />

Bede’s Senior School<br />

Upper Dicker<br />

East Sussex BN27 3QH


CLARITY IN A<br />

COMPLEX WORLD<br />

Time to plan for the future?<br />

Expert legal skills to ensure your assets are left<br />

to those you care about most. Giving you peace<br />

of mind for the future.<br />

• Inheritance Tax, Trusts & Estate Planning<br />

• Wills & Probate & Lasting Powers of Attorney<br />

• Elderly & Vulnerable<br />

Call: 03333 231 580<br />

Email: enquiries@dmhstallard.com<br />

quoting reference VIVA19<br />

For the complete care and protection of families<br />

and their assets.<br />

Solicitors For You And Your Business<br />

BRIGHTON GATWICK GUILDFORD HORSHAM LONDON


JJ WALLER<br />

...............................<br />

JJ Waller had a field day at last month’s Pride celebrations, watching the people<br />

watching the parade. ‘The owner of these feet was standing on a wall. I stopped to<br />

take this picture then looked up to see the owner staring quizzically down at me.<br />

We made eye contact, we both laughed and then I walked on.<br />

Theme of footprint – sorted.’<br />

....25....


BITS AND BOOKS<br />

...............................<br />

BOOK REVIEW: SILO – THE ZERO WASTE BLUEPRINT<br />

BY DOUGLAS MC MASTER<br />

I remember when I first went into Silo, the<br />

‘zero waste’ restaurant which started out in<br />

North Laine and has since moved to London. I<br />

sat on an upcycled wooden stool at an upcycled<br />

wooden table, drinking water from a jam jar,<br />

and thinking ‘I’ve been more comfortable in a<br />

restaurant’. Then the food arrived… Wow.<br />

I was there to interview Doug McMaster,<br />

the visionary chef who, after working under<br />

sustainable food guru Joost Bakker in Australia,<br />

came back to the UK with the ambition of creating<br />

the UK’s first ‘restaurant without a bin’,<br />

where nothing is wasted: not a scrap of potato<br />

peel, or an empty bottle, or a fish bone. And<br />

of serving his customers Michelin-star-standard<br />

dishes, sourced from the most sustainable<br />

products he could find, cooked in the most<br />

planet-friendly manner he could devise.<br />

If you tried out Silo, you will know that he<br />

succeeded (though there were certainly some<br />

ups and downs on the way). I went on to eat<br />

there several times and the food rarely failed to<br />

surprise – and delight – both palate and eyes.<br />

Sadly, it appears that <strong>Brighton</strong> may not have<br />

been big enough to sustain this most sustainable<br />

of eateries: Doug has moved his pioneering<br />

operation lock, stock and self-dispensing food<br />

container to Hackney Wick. Meanwhile, he’s<br />

written a book, Silo – The Zero Waste Blueprint,<br />

outlining his philosophy and methods for anyone<br />

who might want to participate in what he<br />

sees as a revolution in the restaurant trade.<br />

‘This book is a dedicated overview of our food<br />

system, it is not a cookbook’, he writes, and,<br />

though there’s a month-by-month section of<br />

recipes featuring seasonably sourced ingredients<br />

– pickled Japanese knotweed, anyone?<br />

– many of the methods are too complex for<br />

your average home cook to contemplate. In the


BITS AND BOOKS<br />

...............................<br />

‘<strong>September</strong>’ recipes section, for example,<br />

if you wanted to cook ‘carrots, egg yolk<br />

and stems’, you might be hard pressed<br />

to ‘steam the carrots whole until the<br />

temperature reaches 95C in the centre, so<br />

they are spongy but still firm’, or ‘blend<br />

the egg yolks until they reach 62C in the<br />

blender, acidify to taste’.<br />

No matter. The book, written in four<br />

sections, and readable in one sitting, is an<br />

inspiration to anyone who is considering<br />

making their kitchen – whether they are<br />

professional chefs or curious amateurs – a<br />

more planet-friendly environment. Having<br />

digested Doug’s hard-line message,<br />

I’ll certainly work harder at sourcing sustainably<br />

produced food, and think twice<br />

before throwing anything away – be that<br />

a fish-head or a jam jar – without considering<br />

how it might be re-used, upcycled<br />

or, at the very least, recycled.<br />

A battle-cry, then, to galvanise the<br />

converted, and convert the uninformed.<br />

As Doug concludes: ‘People who believe<br />

that industrialism is the only way to feed<br />

the world are short-sighted muppets who<br />

can’t see the bigger picture… [Silo’s mission<br />

is] one giant pre-industrial leap back<br />

to the future of food, back to nature – to<br />

the land without a bin’.<br />

Alex Leith<br />

Leaping Hare Press, £20


INTERVIEW<br />

..........................................<br />

Photo by Lizzie Lower<br />

....28....


INTERVIEW<br />

..........................................<br />

MYbrighton: George Sauverin<br />

Shop worker at Infinity Foods<br />

Are you local? I’m from Norfolk originally<br />

but I’ve lived here for ten years. I moved<br />

down to study Animal Sciences at Plumpton<br />

College and that sparked my interest in the<br />

food industry. I’d always wanted to work at<br />

Infinity Foods and I’ve been here just over<br />

two years.<br />

Infinity are celebrating a landmark…<br />

Yes. We’re marking 40 years of being run<br />

as a cooperative. But the idea for Infinity<br />

Foods started even earlier when, in 1970,<br />

Peter Deadman and a few of his friends set<br />

up a café at the University of Sussex called<br />

Biting Through. People hadn’t eaten that<br />

kind of food before – vegetarian, macrobiotic<br />

health food – and they wanted to get hold of<br />

the ingredients, so they opened a small shop<br />

called Infinity Foods in a converted terraced<br />

house in Church Street.<br />

Infinity was running as an informal<br />

cooperative from the outset but, in 1979, the<br />

workers had the opportunity to take on the<br />

running of the business and the cooperative<br />

was formalised. Ever since, it has grown and<br />

grown, which I think goes to show what<br />

you can do when you get a group of people<br />

working together.<br />

What’s the secret of its longevity? I put it<br />

down to the cooperative structure. There are<br />

around 40 members working in the North<br />

Laine – in the shop, bakery and kitchen – then<br />

another 60 at the wholesale warehouse in<br />

Shoreham. Everything is done democratically.<br />

We have regular meetings where people can<br />

bring all sorts of ideas to the table, and things<br />

are decided by consensus. People are always<br />

coming and going, bringing in fresh ideas.<br />

There’s no other shop like it in <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />

We have customers whose grandparents<br />

used to shop here (and who are now getting<br />

their 10% discount for seniors). It’s an<br />

intergenerational thing.<br />

What do you like most about living in<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>? It’s an amazing place where shops<br />

like Infinity Foods can flourish, and there’s a<br />

great vegetarian food scene. I’d recommend<br />

our Infinity Kitchen (of course), Terre à Terre<br />

is amazing, and I love Planet India. <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

has always been a great place to eat but it’s<br />

getting more exciting all the time. And I’m<br />

loving the works going on in Valley Gardens<br />

to open up more pedestrian areas.<br />

What would you like to change about the<br />

place? I would like to see more cooperatives.<br />

Things are becoming more homogenised as<br />

businesses get bought up and I’d like to see<br />

more diversity and people in control of the<br />

local economy. That’s the great thing about<br />

co-ops – they’re run by people who live in<br />

the local area. People say to me, ‘it must be<br />

great having no boss’, but you actually end up<br />

having 40 bosses – and you’re one of them!<br />

You all have to be as dedicated as each other.<br />

It’s empowering to work somewhere your<br />

voice and opinion matter.<br />

When did you last swim in the sea? Last<br />

night. I was swimming by the West Pier and I<br />

was, like, ‘this is why I live here!’<br />

Interview by Lizzie Lower<br />

infinityfoods.coop<br />

....29....


“What is certain is that hitherto<br />

woman's possibilities have been<br />

suppressed and lost to humanity,<br />

and that it is high time she<br />

be permitted to take her own<br />

chances in her own interest<br />

and in the interest of all.”<br />

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex<br />

Lewes FC is the only football club in the world to<br />

pay its women's team the same as its men's team.<br />

Endorse us, support us and help us do more.<br />

JOIN THE CLUB:<br />

www.lewesfc.com/owners


CLIMATE EMERGENCY<br />

....................................<br />

Mary-Jane Farrell<br />

Youth Strike 4 Climate activist<br />

Photo of Mary-Jane by geetakesphotos<br />

Mary-Jane Farrell is a<br />

21-year-old University<br />

of Sussex student, who<br />

has been involved in the<br />

Youth Strikes for Climate<br />

Change, and has collated<br />

these amazing photos from<br />

students involved.<br />

Can you tell us how the<br />

strikes started? In August<br />

2018 Greta Thunberg,<br />

then 15, began protesting<br />

outside the Swedish Parliament. She has been<br />

striking from school every Friday since. Her<br />

actions kickstarted school strikes globally, with<br />

Youth Strike 4 Climate in the UK organising<br />

its first strike in February <strong>2019</strong>, led by the UK<br />

Student Climate Network. <strong>Brighton</strong> has been<br />

involved from the start when we signed the city<br />

up online.<br />

What was the age range of protesters? The<br />

age range has been huge! From primary to<br />

university level and beyond, as well as even<br />

younger kids coming with their parents. Adults<br />

have supported in solidarity. Breaking down<br />

the barrier between primary school level and<br />

university level has been refreshing.<br />

I believe there were some interesting placards<br />

on display… There have been so many<br />

amazing banners at each strike! We hosted a<br />

workshop recently with Global Justice Now’s<br />

youth network, to talk about how colonialism<br />

and capitalism perpetuate the climate crisis,<br />

and how we need to be putting the voices of<br />

those on the frontlines of climate change at<br />

the forefront. In response to this workshop, we<br />

made a huge banner to lead the strike in June,<br />

reading ‘CAPITALISM + COLONIALISM<br />

= CLIMATE BREAKDOWN’. At the March<br />

strike, another banner read<br />

‘Defenders of the Earth<br />

Killed’ with traced images<br />

of Isidro Baldenegro of<br />

Mexico, Hernán Bedoya<br />

of Colombia, and Berta<br />

Cáceres of Honduras, who<br />

were all killed between<br />

2016-17 fighting for environmental<br />

and land rights.<br />

The work that people<br />

have been doing across<br />

the world is hugely inspiring. It is horrific to<br />

hear from the recent Global Witness report<br />

that more than three environment and land<br />

defenders were murdered every week in 2018,<br />

with countless more attacked and arrested. We<br />

must recognise our differing privileges to take<br />

to the streets as youth strikers, and amplify the<br />

voices of those who are being silenced.<br />

How do you think social media has been<br />

key to the movement? Whether messaging<br />

about the strike, exchanging knowledge on<br />

the climate crisis, or photos going viral, social<br />

media has allowed for a huge response to this<br />

movement. This being said, speaking face-toface<br />

with someone conveys a whole lot more<br />

passion than over a screen. It might not spread<br />

as fast but maybe it is more valuable…<br />

How confident do you feel about the future<br />

of the planet? It is difficult to feel confident in<br />

the future of the planet when the climate crisis<br />

is already a reality for so many people across<br />

the world. Or a future that may still be run by<br />

the likes of Trump, Bolsonaro or Johnson. But<br />

the power and energy of the youth, and the<br />

inter-generational collaborations that are occurring<br />

certainly give me confidence.<br />

Alex Leith<br />

....31....


CLIMATE EMERGENCY<br />

....................................<br />

Photo by Jess Turner<br />

....32....


CLIMATE EMERGENCY<br />

....................................<br />

Photos by Jess Turner<br />

....33....


Photos by David Plummer


CLIMATE EMERGENCY<br />

....................................<br />

Photos (this page and previous page) by geetakesphotos<br />

....36....


CLIMATE EMERGENCY<br />

....................................<br />

Photo by geetakesphotos<br />

....37....


COLUMN<br />

...........................................<br />

John Helmer<br />

Lunacy<br />

Illustration by Chris Riddell<br />

My wife has jetted off to Greece with her nurse<br />

friends to lay on a beach, occasionally raising<br />

herself on one elbow to text me a picture of<br />

her foot backed by sand, twinkling sea, and a<br />

sky of unimpeachable blue in whose top corner<br />

can faintly be discerned, pale as a watermark, a<br />

children’s moon. These images usually reach me<br />

as I am stooping to pick up dog-poo in Preston<br />

Park, with the wind howling and rain running<br />

down the back of my neck.<br />

Onward surge the beasts, tugging at their leads<br />

as they leave squelchy footprints in the sodden<br />

earth, and as I hurry to put my phone away it<br />

pings again, this time with an invitation from<br />

Hugh the Poet to join him at The Dome for<br />

a concert of Brian Eno’s music. Why not? I<br />

deserve some fun. Although I’m not sure which<br />

category of fun an evening with Brian Eno<br />

would fall into, exactly.<br />

‘It’s all right,' says Hugh, 'he won’t<br />

be there’. Hugh was bought the<br />

tickets as a Father’s Day present,<br />

he explains as we shuffle into<br />

the stalls later that week. ‘But<br />

Bethan decided she didn’t<br />

want to go. She doesn’t like<br />

Brian Eno.’<br />

What has Eno done to<br />

wind us all up so much, I<br />

wonder? After all, he used to<br />

hang around with a couple<br />

of my pop heroes – and no,<br />

I’m not talking about Chris<br />

Martin and Bono. However,<br />

it turns out his ‘Apollo' music<br />

(composed mostly in 1983)<br />

has worn well; standing as a<br />

suitably awed response to the<br />

first moon-landing, film of which is projected on<br />

a screen behind the musicians as they play.<br />

I find it’s unexpectedly familiar, this footage.<br />

Every frame. I’m transported back to 1969 and<br />

experience all over again a twelve-year old’s<br />

chills at the deathly whiteness of the Moon and<br />

the bigness of the ambition to reach and place a<br />

human footprint on its surface.<br />

I recall that I watched these images for the first<br />

time from a Pontins holiday camp in Somerset.<br />

You can read more about it in the memoir I’m<br />

writing online (johnhelmer.blog). This covers my<br />

life’s entanglement with music from the earliest<br />

years, and through a massive coincidence that<br />

I’d love to pass off as timing, managed to arrive<br />

at July 1969 in time for the 50th anniversary of<br />

Neil Armstrong making his giant leap.<br />

Next day, I remember, we visited<br />

a beach that seemed to<br />

me as desolate as the<br />

moon. No-one wanted<br />

to swim there. It was<br />

littered with coal waste<br />

from South Wales across<br />

the Bristol Channel.<br />

Presumably those pits<br />

are closed now – bad<br />

for communities<br />

and livelihoods, but<br />

probably good for the<br />

planet, which we don’t<br />

want to step away from<br />

just yet, or turn as ashen<br />

as that big dead rock<br />

coming and going in our<br />

skies, pulling the tides<br />

up and down all the<br />

beaches of the world.<br />

....39....


A hidden gem in the Open Market,<br />

Wastenot is <strong>Brighton</strong>'s original zero<br />

waste shop selling bulk produce,<br />

refills and homewares to help you<br />

reduce your impact on the earth.<br />

www.wastenot.shop<br />

wastenot_shop<br />

HARRIET’S OF HOVE<br />

– A plastic free refilling haven, for all your package-free pantry, kitchen and bathroom goods.<br />

48 Blatchington, Hove, BN33YH<br />

www.harrietsofhove.com<br />

A plastic free refilling haven,<br />

for all your package-free pantry,<br />

kitchen and bathroom goods.<br />

48 Blatchington, Hove, BN33YH | www.harrietsofhove.com


COLUMN<br />

.........................<br />

Lizzie Enfield<br />

Notes from North Village<br />

Illustration by Joda (@joda_art)<br />

The luggage label has the logo of a walking<br />

company on it: two footprints stomping their way<br />

across the back of the plastic tag. The reverse is a<br />

clear window into which I slipped a card with my<br />

surname and phone number.<br />

It was years ago I travelled with this particular<br />

company, but the tag has been on the suitcase<br />

ever since.<br />

And someone has spotted it.<br />

I’m in my office working when my phone pings<br />

with a text alert.<br />

It’s an unfamiliar number and a bizarre message.<br />

‘I saw you on the train this morning,’ it reads.<br />

‘And I kinda memorised your phone number<br />

from your luggage label. I thought you were cute.<br />

How are you?’<br />

So, let me explain. I’m in my early fifties. This<br />

kind of thing does not happen to me. My first<br />

reaction, if I am completely honest and I am<br />

being, is to be flattered.<br />

Someone thinks I’m cute. This is a novelty.<br />

To my daughters, who are young and beautiful<br />

and used to this sort of thing, it’s an irritation.<br />

At supper recently we were discussing a male<br />

friend whom my husband claims has a bit of<br />

a reputation for trying it on with just about<br />

everyone.<br />

“He’s never tried it on with me,” I say, in defence<br />

of this man who I find interesting and good<br />

company. “And I see quite a lot of him.”<br />

“He likes you because you’re clever and funny,”<br />

says husband.<br />

“Oh, poor mum,” says my daughter. “Men just<br />

appreciate you for your wit and wisdom.”<br />

“I know,” I say, a little dejectedly.<br />

“I was joking,” she says.<br />

“I wasn’t!”<br />

I know it’s not very hashtag me too, but when<br />

you’re at the invisible age you start wishing you<br />

weren’t.<br />

I have a friend who wears a bright orange coat<br />

specifically to counter the cloak of invisibility.<br />

Another who claims carrying a large Mac store<br />

bag makes men twenty years younger look at her<br />

as if she might be interesting, rather than straight<br />

through her.<br />

So yes, I am flattered by this text. Initially anyway.<br />

But reaction two is a little more hashtag me too<br />

appropriate.<br />

That’s kind of creepy and stalkerish, I think.<br />

I mean if someone was sitting opposite me<br />

on the train why didn’t they just strike up a<br />

conversation?<br />

They might have discovered I was deadly dull<br />

and could have saved themselves the bother of<br />

texting.<br />

But apparently it’s not weird. There are whole<br />

pages in London newspapers dedicated to people<br />

wanting to meet with people they have spotted<br />

on trains.<br />

‘On 8.52 London to Orpington,’ they read.<br />

‘Spotted. Middle age woman in orange coat with<br />

enormous Mac bag. Please contact …’<br />

So, my stalker is only doing what contemporary<br />

commuters do.<br />

And then a third thought occurs and it all makes<br />

sense.<br />

I text a reply.<br />

‘I’m good.’ Well, they did ask how I was.<br />

‘And my daughter was on the train this morning,<br />

with my suitcase…’<br />

I never heard back!<br />

....41....


10% OFF<br />

WITH THIS<br />

ADVERT<br />

Gallery and shop on Portland road showcasing a collection of<br />

original works including cards, jewellery, ceramics, textiles,<br />

paintings, decorative plant displays, home decor and clothing.<br />

Relaxed and informal in style, we offer something for everyone.<br />

100 Portland Road, Hove, BN3 5DN | 01273 038127 | Facebook @Julesemporium | Instagram @jules_emporium


COLUMN<br />

...........................<br />

Amy Holtz<br />

The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan<br />

I’m wrestling with a<br />

Nice Ride bike in south<br />

Minneapolis; it’s resisting<br />

my advances as I’m about<br />

two foot out of range of the<br />

WiFi at Powderhorn Park’s<br />

rec centre, yet somehow<br />

must simultaneously wave<br />

my phone over the bike while<br />

tugging it free from its base.<br />

The cacophony of the pool<br />

next door is soundtracking<br />

this experience with a kind of frenzied panic as<br />

the sun beats down on my forehead. With one<br />

last yank, it gives and the eight hundred pound<br />

wheeled-monster jingles its irritation. Of<br />

course, it’s the one with the broken bell.<br />

“HEY YOU GUYS! How do you get one of<br />

those?”<br />

I glance up, still wheezing with exertion. A<br />

little girl of about ten is imperiously inspecting<br />

my partner and I, braids dripping chlorinated<br />

water onto the bright white concrete. She looks<br />

a little bit lordly, like a tiny Caesar, draped in a<br />

voluminous brown towel.<br />

“Uh, well…” I trail off. Ride timer ticking, this<br />

isn’t a great time to delve into the intricacies of<br />

‘how one gets things’ in life. But my partner,<br />

ever the teacher, can’t help himself.<br />

“You get a code over there,” he explains,<br />

patiently. “Or you get an app which lets you take<br />

out a bike for a ride.”<br />

“How do I get an app?” She replies, before<br />

eyeing him suspiciously. “You have an accent.”<br />

This accusation makes me laugh, the bike<br />

ringing erratically in time to my guffaws. I<br />

spend lots of time thinking how best to stop<br />

people correcting me when I’m in England.<br />

Boot, not trunk. GARage, not GarAGE.<br />

Trousers, not pants. All the times<br />

I’ve asked where the ‘bathroom’<br />

is, only to have the person stare<br />

at me blankly before finally,<br />

apparently, understanding. “Oh,<br />

you mean the loo.” Because, of<br />

course, somehow, that word is<br />

more in the vicinity of toilet than<br />

what I, silly Yankee Doodle, said.<br />

But it’s a funny feeling, the<br />

‘other’ shoe being on someone<br />

else’s foot.<br />

“I’m from England,” he says.<br />

“England?” She tries the word out, perhaps for<br />

the first time, unconvinced. She turns to me,<br />

demanding, “Where are you from?”<br />

I stop laughing. Hopefully this child pursues<br />

a career in interrogation, as it’d be a shame to<br />

waste such a gift. “Me? Willmar.”<br />

“Never heard of it.”<br />

“No,” I say, thinking of the vastness of the city<br />

in which we stand, “Probably not.”<br />

“I want a bike,” she says, thoughtfully. “And a<br />

phone.”<br />

We both nod. Phones and bikes are pretty great.<br />

“Someday, I reckon you’ll have both. And maybe<br />

you’ll be able to visit England too.”<br />

She considers this. “I hope so. And get a credit<br />

card.”<br />

Fears for the next generation slightly<br />

diminished, we lumber onto our iron steeds.<br />

“Have fun at the pool!”<br />

“Bye Accent! Bye… Wherever You’re From!”<br />

the kid screeches joyfully as we wobble our<br />

tanks down the path. There may be 4,035 miles<br />

between our homes, but it’s kind of comforting<br />

we’ve got so much in common with this little<br />

centurion. As encounters go, it’s a reassuring<br />

cultural meet-cute.<br />

....43....


<strong>Brighton</strong>’s longest running comedy show<br />

THE TREASON SHOW<br />

Sat 21 <strong>September</strong><br />

Book online www.treasonshow.co.uk


MUSIC<br />

..........................<br />

Ben Bailey rounds up the local music scene<br />

STRANGE CAGES<br />

Fri 13th, Rialto Theatre, 7pm, £8/6<br />

Strange Cages’<br />

early releases<br />

gained some good<br />

traction on the<br />

radio, but their<br />

latest offering sees<br />

the band expanding<br />

their sound<br />

with an ambitious<br />

medley of pop and garage rock. This gig is part<br />

of a tour to mark the launch of their debut album<br />

Pop Therapy, which local promoters Acid Box are<br />

putting out in their first venture as a label. Lead<br />

single Dance Like an Alpha Male is bouncy and<br />

melodic with plenty of post punk attitude. With<br />

hints of Television and even Led Zep, the song’s<br />

retro vibe is offset by its wry take on the current<br />

crisis of masculinity. Strange Cages describe<br />

themselves as ‘four handsome, young men in the<br />

prime of their lives,’ so who are we to argue?<br />

IDLE BONES<br />

Fri 13th, Pipeline, 8pm, £5<br />

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Lanes, Idle<br />

Bones are holding a launch party of their own.<br />

Though it’s still early days for the four-piece,<br />

Layers of Fear is the band’s second EP in two<br />

years. It was recorded with help from indie noir<br />

outfit Birdeatsbaby which should work well with<br />

what they like to call their ‘horror twist’. Idle<br />

Bones claim to be inspired by both The Cure and<br />

Misfits, but only one of those is on the money<br />

in terms of describing the band’s blend of metal<br />

and punk. It’s fast, fun and potentially deafening.<br />

Support comes from balaclava punk duo Credentials,<br />

Welsh punk trio Tenplusone and <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

anarcho punks Austerity.<br />

FRACTURED<br />

Sat 21st, Green Door Store, 7pm, £8<br />

Fractured started out in the early 80s, so they’ve<br />

seen a fair few changes over the years. Their last<br />

album, London Road, was full of shouty, barbed<br />

lyrics about middle-aged angst and the gentrification<br />

of their adopted hometown. With an oldschool<br />

punk sound and one foot in the Half Man<br />

Half Biscuit camp of comic nonsense, the band<br />

are a perfect match for the humorous garage rock<br />

of support act Asbo Derek. This benefit gig for<br />

Sussex Homeless Support is also Fractured’s final<br />

appearance. Their reason for splitting? Brexit,<br />

apparently. After holding a band referendum they<br />

found the result was 50:50 so the singer and bass<br />

player have committed to leaving to “respect the<br />

will of some of the people”.<br />

234 FEST<br />

28th & 29th, Green Door Store, 1pm, Free<br />

The Green Door Store<br />

put on their first 234 Fest<br />

six years ago as a showcase<br />

for local bands and favourites<br />

from elsewhere. This<br />

year’s line-up is drawn<br />

from all over, but around<br />

half are <strong>Brighton</strong> acts.<br />

Among them are Feral<br />

Youth (pictured) whose gorgeously mournful dreampop<br />

will be quite a contrast to the energising<br />

alt rock of School Disco, Tundra Love and Squig.<br />

On the second day of the weekender Heirloom<br />

bring their strange blend of gothic pop and surf<br />

rock while Les Bods and The Slaughter House<br />

Band will have anyone with a taste for garage<br />

rock jumping about the cobbled floor. Wizard<br />

Sleeve are also worth a watch, if you’re after an<br />

intense dose of heavy psych.<br />

....45....


wELCOME<br />

tO WoRK<br />

Saturday 21 <strong>September</strong> • 10am–4pm • The Grounds • Hove<br />

How do you make work wonderful? Join us this<br />

<strong>September</strong> as VP of Twitter, Bruce Daisley, and<br />

leaders in professional development explore how<br />

to strike the right balance between leading a<br />

fulfilling life and nurturing a successful career,<br />

in a series of insightful talks and workshops.<br />

Early bird tickets: £20<br />

General Admission: £35<br />

Group ticket (5 for the price of 4): £78<br />

To RSVP and for further details of the event head<br />

to platf9rm.com/events/welcometowork<br />

Award-winning independent<br />

3 screen cinema<br />

Next to Lewes station<br />

Pinwell Road, Lewes BN7 2JS<br />

01273 525354<br />

lewesdepot.org


FESTIVAL<br />

.............................<br />

#TOMtech<br />

Agency in theatre<br />

“How are we going to be relevant in 20 years’<br />

time?” This question is posed by James<br />

Turnbull, Creative Producer of #TOMtech at<br />

The Old Market, who goes on to explain that<br />

“theatre audiences, generally, nationally, are<br />

declining. It is probably led by the idea that<br />

people don’t want to sit in the dark for two and<br />

a half hours and be told something. Audiences<br />

want more agency: it’s linked to the rise of<br />

escape rooms and immersive theatre. How<br />

do you make work that gives people a more<br />

personal experience?”<br />

A lab space for artists is one way to explore<br />

potential answers. The labs have been created<br />

to build bridges between small to medium<br />

scale theatre companies who use some form<br />

of technology on stage, with technological<br />

companies who can offer expertise and advice.<br />

“We put all these creatives in a room and<br />

ask them to find a common language, and to<br />

explore the tech around what they’re doing.”<br />

A motion capture-focused lab resulted in<br />

Fatherland for example, a premiere this season.<br />

“One of the audience members is selected to<br />

sit on stage, and that person is kind of your<br />

guide and camera position. The performer<br />

acts in front of them in motion capture. So you<br />

get to see the working of it and the computergenerated<br />

image on screen.<br />

“Justice Syndicate is a piece exploring<br />

confirmation bias and groupthink. It’s a show<br />

for twelve people at a time: you are a jury and<br />

you discover elements of a trial. There are no<br />

actors, there’s no audio or anything guided for<br />

you. You have an iPad in front of you, and you<br />

are led through individually, and as a group, to<br />

read and review evidence.”<br />

vrLab meanwhile, offers VR makers of all sizes<br />

the opportunity to try out their work in front<br />

Choreocracy. Photo by Alisa Boanta<br />

of an audience. I have had a lot of fun trying<br />

wildly different experiences over the past few<br />

years of vrLab. I've sat opposite Sir David<br />

Attenborough and handed him objects to<br />

discuss, relaxed with a guided meditation while<br />

observing a computer-generated image of my<br />

own heart beating, and investigated a room in<br />

a fun adventure game, using my hands to open<br />

drawers. This year, James is introducing a zone<br />

focusing on creation. “You can create objects,<br />

paint walls, play with space and time, colour<br />

and light, things like that. And Sheffield Doc<br />

Fest will bring their 360° film programme.”<br />

James returns to the theme of agency<br />

when discussing this year’s programme. In<br />

Choreocracy, “you can control a show from the<br />

stalls. You download an app and guide a laser,<br />

which draws a pattern on stage, which will<br />

guide a dancer to perform something unique<br />

based on your choreography. It’s democratic<br />

choreography.” Democratic tomfoolery is<br />

welcome. “It’s really fun to do and the lasers<br />

are great to see. It’s not as po-faced as a dance<br />

show: it’s very much a comedy gig.”<br />

Joe Fuller<br />

12-20 Sept, theoldmarket.com<br />

....47....


LITERATURE<br />

.............................<br />

Lynne Truss<br />

Writes books, and plays<br />

“People say ‘I like your book’, and I feel like<br />

saying ‘which book?’, but I don’t want to be<br />

rude. After all, it’s difficult to resent something<br />

that’s been so good to you.”<br />

I’m having a coffee in a Kemp Town café with<br />

Lynne Truss, author of ten novels, countless<br />

radio plays and six non-fiction titles, the<br />

most famous of which – the bestselling 2003<br />

grammar and punctuation bible Eats, Shoots and<br />

Leaves – turned her into a household name.<br />

But we’re not here to talk about that. She’s<br />

appearing at the Shoreham Wordfest in<br />

<strong>September</strong> to promote the hardback release of<br />

her latest novel, The Man That Got Away, the<br />

second of her ‘Constable Twitten’ series. Both<br />

titles are set in <strong>Brighton</strong>, in the summer of<br />

1957; both are adaptations of a successful run of<br />

Radio 4 plays.<br />

Lynne describes the books with great relish.<br />

Constable Twitten is a 22-year-old policeman,<br />

a keen rookie in a station run by Inspector<br />

Steine, who believes there is no crime in<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>, as he’s already cleared it all up.<br />

Steine is aided by Sergeant Brunswick, a WW2<br />

veteran who enjoys dressing up for undercover<br />

operations, unaware everyone knows exactly<br />

who he is. And then there’s Mrs Groynes:<br />

“She’s the station’s char lady, but actually she’s<br />

a criminal mastermind.”<br />

The first in the series, A Shot in The Dark, was<br />

positively received. “I won an award!”, she<br />

tells me, with evident excitement. “The ‘Best<br />

Humorous Crime Novel’ of 2018. Yes, there<br />

is such a category. And there was some stiff<br />

competition: I’m very, very proud of it.” The<br />

book has just been released in paperback “so<br />

we’ll soon see how well it really does.<br />

“I’ve been living in 1957,” she tells me, of<br />

the research she’s been doing. This has<br />

involved reading novels, watching movies and<br />

documentaries, and binge-reading copies of<br />

The Evening Argus, from 1955 to 1960.<br />

“It seems a lot of writers set their books in the<br />

decade they were born,” she says. “1957 was<br />

voted the post-war year in which people were<br />

happiest: memories of the war were fading,<br />

rationing and National Service were over, we<br />

were drinking coffee from Pyrex cups. We’d<br />

never had it so good. Also, it’s nice to think<br />

of a period in which my parents were walking<br />

around, still young.”<br />

And the <strong>Brighton</strong> area, where she’s lived for<br />

25 years, was an ‘obvious’ setting for the<br />

series. “It’s such a great place for getting an<br />

atmosphere,” she says. “I can’t imagine why<br />

anyone sets stuff anywhere else.”<br />

She’s been careful, of course, to get all the<br />

period details correct, including linguistic<br />

conventions of the era. And, I imagine, her<br />

proof-readers won’t have had too much work to<br />

do, correcting her grammar and punctuation.<br />

Though she doesn’t consider herself a<br />

zero tolerance ‘stickler’: “I do put relevant<br />

apostrophes in text messages,” she admits, “but<br />

predictive text often takes them out again.”<br />

Alex Leith<br />

Shoreham Wordfest, 28 Sept<br />

shorehamwordfest.com<br />

....49....


BOOKS, FOOD & MUSIC<br />

................................<br />

Cerys Matthews<br />

Recipes from the road<br />

As a devoted foodie and enthusiastic traveller,<br />

Cerys Matthews has been collecting recipes even<br />

back when she was touring with Catatonia. She’s<br />

now published a book called Where the Wild Cooks<br />

Go full of recipes, poems and quirky food facts<br />

from around the world. The Radio 6 DJ will<br />

be sharing her culinary adventures at The Old<br />

Market this month with readings, cookery tips<br />

and a sprinkling of songs.<br />

What is a ‘Wild Cook’? It has a few meanings.<br />

In terms of cooking I’m a bit of an improviser.<br />

I like things that are simple and fast, where<br />

you can literally throw things together and get<br />

delicious results. Another element is the idea that<br />

we can take cooking away from indoor kitchens.<br />

It’s also about my love of nature and being happy<br />

to try new things and to know what’s edible in<br />

the world around you.<br />

How did the book come about? I’ve spent<br />

pretty much my entire life as a musician, and<br />

musicians are itinerant, travelling from country<br />

to country, but I’ve always tried to keep my<br />

eyes and mind open. I’ve always carried a<br />

book with me where I’d write down song ideas<br />

or little motifs I wanted to remember from<br />

other cultures, proverbs or bits of language,<br />

the occasional poem. Basically, it’s not just a<br />

cookbook, it’s this whole collection of interesting<br />

curiosities that I’ve kept over the last 30 years.<br />

Have you got a favourite recipe? There’s one<br />

that I learnt when I was 18 when I ran off to<br />

Spain. It’s a Catalan staple, and all you need is<br />

bread, garlic, ripe tomatoes and olive oil. It’s<br />

absolutely delicious and my children all do it now<br />

for themselves, they love it. A lot of the recipes<br />

are really so simple, you look at the ingredients<br />

and think they can’t be that special, but they<br />

are. Another example is a cocktail I picked up<br />

from Ian Brown on a tour in the late 90s while<br />

we were paddling in a little stream at the foot<br />

of a mountain in Japan. It’s called Death by<br />

Chocolate!<br />

Has your attitude to food changed over<br />

the years? It has in terms of the environment,<br />

absolutely. I could not be a thinking, cognisant<br />

person living in a first world country and not<br />

want to try and make incremental changes for the<br />

next generation. The book is about sustainable<br />

cooking; it’s also about fast, delicious cooking<br />

that’s value for money.<br />

What came first for you, music or cooking?<br />

I think they’re both just part and parcel of living<br />

life. You know, the joy is similar. I’ve done 6<br />

Music for ten years now, and a lot of people on a<br />

Sunday will be cooking in their kitchen listening<br />

to the radio show, and I would be doing the same<br />

at home. So there’s a symbiosis between music<br />

and cooking. Some of the best times I’ve ever had<br />

in my life have been a combination of company,<br />

music, literature, food and drink – the whole<br />

gamut of great times and enchantment. It’s more<br />

than just the recipes, or what’s on the plate, it’s<br />

everything.<br />

Interview by Ben Bailey<br />

The Old Market, 25 Sept, 7.30pm<br />

....50....


THEATRE<br />

.............................<br />

Cordelia Lynn<br />

Hedda Tesman playwright<br />

Tell me about the genesis of Hedda<br />

Tesman. Henrik Ibsen was concerned with a<br />

play’s relevance to its society, writing, ‘I have<br />

not yet come to an understanding with ancient<br />

art; I cannot make out its connection with our<br />

own time’. [Director] Holly Race Roughan and<br />

I were talking about his play Hedda Gabler, and<br />

the difficulties of producing a modern version<br />

when the socio-political conditions under<br />

which he wrote have changed so much. Holly<br />

suggested I write a modern adaptation that<br />

would actively grapple with this problem.<br />

What drew you to Hedda Gabler? We were<br />

particularly drawn to the protagonist, Hedda.<br />

She’s a woman who’s caged in by a patriarchal<br />

society, and tortured by her failure to break<br />

out. What’s so compelling about her is she’s<br />

a really tricky character. A lesser playwright<br />

would have created a perfect victim, but Ibsen<br />

dares us to go on a journey with a woman who,<br />

while a victim, is also an abuser. On top of that<br />

she’s witty, smart, caustic, thrilling, gorgeous.<br />

Would you describe Hedda Tesman as a<br />

sequel? It’s definitely not a sequel! It’s an<br />

adaptation, but because it contains a lot of new<br />

writing, I describe it as being ‘After Henrik<br />

Ibsen’. It’s a new play living in the house of the<br />

original. It follows the same story, it has the<br />

same structure, it has fundamentally the same<br />

characters… Hedda Tesman is like a bead of<br />

water on a wire, one end of the wire is Home<br />

(Ibsen’s original), and one end of the wire is<br />

Departure (my new writing), and the play<br />

is constantly sliding and slithering between<br />

those two poles.<br />

How has Hedda’s life panned out? In<br />

the original Hedda is a privileged, twentynine-year-old<br />

newlywed who has made a<br />

bad marriage. She’s bored, frustrated, and<br />

horrified by her pregnancy. My Hedda is an<br />

older woman who, having made unsatisfying<br />

choices, feels like she’s running out of time<br />

even though she never really got started. An<br />

opportunity arises for her to take power, and<br />

she grabs at it.<br />

The blurb explains that Hedda has an<br />

estranged daughter, Thea, who reappears<br />

and asks for help. And that the show<br />

explores motherhood, power and sabotage?<br />

Part of why I wanted to make Hedda and<br />

Thea mother and daughter is because I feel<br />

there aren’t enough stories about mothers and<br />

daughters. It was also a response to a radical<br />

act in the original, which is that when Hedda<br />

commits suicide at the end of the play, she is<br />

also having an abortion. I wanted to see what<br />

would happen if I gave her the child. Themes<br />

of family, generation and inheritance are<br />

heightened in Hedda Tesman. Hedda is torn<br />

between a past represented by her father, and a<br />

future represented by her daughter.<br />

What can audiences expect from the show?<br />

Cooking, cleaning, carnage.<br />

Cordelia Lynn was interviewed by Joe Fuller<br />

Chichester Festival Theatre, 30 Aug to 28 Sept<br />

....51....


The magical winter lantern trail<br />

Every Thursday to Sunday, 21 November – 22 December<br />

For details visit kew.org/glowwild<br />

www.bigplantnursery.co.uk<br />

AN OUTTA SPACE SELECTION OF:<br />

HARDY EXOTICS<br />

PALMS<br />

BAMBOO<br />

MAPLES<br />

TREES<br />

SHRUBS<br />

FERNS<br />

GRASSES<br />

Hole Street, Ashington, West Sussex RH20 3DE<br />

e: info@bigplantnursery.co.uk<br />

t: 01903 891466


TALK<br />

.............................<br />

Tristan Gooley<br />

The Natural Navigator<br />

Tristan Gooley’s love of adventure has taken<br />

him all over the globe. “I’ve been exploring for<br />

thirty years. In the beginning, it was very much<br />

goal-driven, but I was never really an adrenalin<br />

junky. Others were always wanting to peer into<br />

the abyss, but I was much more motivated by<br />

understanding how to shape the journey.”<br />

He set out to learn everything that he could<br />

about navigation, and, once he’d reached the<br />

limits of conventional understanding, he began<br />

to draw on ancient stories, academic research<br />

and, most importantly, his own observations.<br />

“Go outside and ask yourself ‘which way am I<br />

looking?’, then allow the natural clues to give<br />

you the answer. Very quickly you’ll realise that<br />

every single natural thing is trying to tell you<br />

something. Every animal, every plant, every<br />

star, every cloud. It’s something our ancestors<br />

would have been much more attuned to.<br />

“I set myself the challenge of walking across a<br />

couple of miles of English countryside without<br />

any maps or technology, and that was a turning<br />

point. Trying to get up bigger mountains and<br />

across bigger oceans gave diminishing returns,<br />

philosophically. Whereas understanding how<br />

to find my way across small distances, using<br />

only natural cues, has become increasingly<br />

fascinating.” Over decades, Tristan has learnt to<br />

find his way using the sun, moon, stars, weather<br />

and water – a set of skills that he describes as<br />

natural navigation. He knows more than 20 ways<br />

to use a tree as a compass; can ‘read’ a rainbow<br />

to forecast the weather, and spot the multiple<br />

subtle pointers in a woodland that will lead you<br />

back to civilisation. (Or away from it, should you<br />

so choose.)<br />

Of course, with smartphones in our pockets<br />

we no longer need these skills to find our way<br />

but, Tristan explains, they stimulate our<br />

inherent problem-solving capabilities, enrich<br />

our experience of the landscape and go a long<br />

way to filling the “nature deficit”; something<br />

we’re hungry for, if sales of his bestselling<br />

books are anything to go by. He’s also set up a<br />

natural navigation school and, this month, he’ll<br />

be sharing some tips to try out in the Sussex<br />

countryside at a Catalyst Club special. “Some of<br />

them will leave you open-mouthed,” he tells me.<br />

“You won’t be able to look at the outdoors the<br />

same way again.”<br />

Word is, once you know what to look for, natural<br />

navigation becomes addictive and, once you’ve<br />

learned to read the signs, the skills will travel with<br />

you. “A small Sussex woodland is shaped by similar<br />

forces to those that shape ice ridges in Antarctica<br />

and mountains in the desert. And we all share the<br />

same stars, by and large.”<br />

Who knows how far you’ll go? Lizzie Lower<br />

The Joy of Natural Navigation, a Catalyst Club<br />

Special. Latest Music Bar, Manchester Street,<br />

Thurs 26 Sept, 7.30pm.<br />

catalystclub.co.uk naturalnavigator.com<br />

....53....


THEATRE<br />

.............................<br />

Bernard Shaw<br />

Bestriding the world<br />

Actor Paddy O’Keeffe is reviving his ‘joyous<br />

romp’ of a one man show, Bernard Shaw Invites<br />

YOU, in Lewes and <strong>Brighton</strong> this month. I meet<br />

Paddy in his <strong>Brighton</strong> home, where he tells me<br />

that the format is similar to stand up comedy,<br />

due to its interconnected vignette storytelling.<br />

O’Keeffe himself certainly makes for eloquent<br />

and jovial company, boding well for an<br />

entertaining evening with his Bernard Shaw.<br />

It starts off as I come on stage and talk<br />

about my fascination with Bernard Shaw,<br />

and how I long to discover the real person<br />

behind the mask of ‘GBS’. I explain how he<br />

bestrode the theatrical and political world like<br />

a colossus. Then black out! I storm on as Shaw,<br />

declaring that the purpose of life is not to<br />

discover yourself, but to create yourself, so that<br />

you can become the person you need to be in<br />

order to do what you’ve come here to do.<br />

When Shaw first came to London, never<br />

mind getting published, he had difficulty<br />

getting a word understood. The first half<br />

of the play is about the public man, his earlier<br />

life in London, his success on the stage, his<br />

politics, his connection with Ireland, his<br />

defence of the 1916 rising. The second half<br />

is with Shaw in a psychiatrist’s chair being<br />

questioned about his childhood, and then there<br />

is an audience Q&A after every performance.<br />

I’m planning to take the show to Spain next<br />

year for the International Shaw Society<br />

conference. We went to Delhi… and there was<br />

one guy staring at me all the way through. His<br />

hand was the first up at the Q&A and I thought<br />

‘oh no!’ He said “I first came across Shaw as a<br />

student 50 years ago and I fell in love with the<br />

man and his works. And you’ve brought him<br />

to life for me tonight.” Actors like engagement<br />

and interest, but you often assume they’re<br />

engaged because they hate it. But in fact he was<br />

loving it.<br />

Hesketh Pearson, an Englishman who did<br />

a biography of Shaw in the 50s, said that<br />

‘no one since the time of Tom Paine has<br />

had so definite an influence on the social<br />

and political life of his time and country<br />

as Bernard Shaw’. He used to be a staple in<br />

the 60s and 70s. When in doubt, you would<br />

do two stock productions: there would be a<br />

Shakespeare and a Shaw, and they would be<br />

bound to sell out.<br />

The Irish connection is often forgotten.<br />

The English assume that the likes of Shaw<br />

and Wilde are Irish in name only. In fact they<br />

were quintessentially Irish. I love his wit and<br />

I share his politics. He was a socialist, and his<br />

speeches on poverty and inequality are as fresh<br />

and meaningful today as they were when he<br />

delivered them in the 1890s and the 1900s.<br />

As told to Joe Fuller<br />

All Saints Centre, Lewes, 7 Sept, 3pm & 8pm<br />

Rialto Theatre, 15 Sept, 3pm & 7pm<br />

irish-theatre.com<br />

....54....


LITERATURE<br />

.............................<br />

The Coast is Queer<br />

Celebrating LGBTQ writers<br />

Juno Dawson. Photo by Eivind Hansen<br />

Sara Beedle, programme manager at New<br />

Writing South, talks to <strong>Viva</strong> about The Coast<br />

is Queer, a new, three-day festival devoted to<br />

LGBTQ+ literature.<br />

We’ve done a lot of work with the LGBTQ<br />

community in <strong>Brighton</strong> and we felt there was a<br />

gap for a festival that focused solely on LGBTQ<br />

writers. These writers are making phenomenal<br />

contributions to literature but aren’t necessarily<br />

being celebrated as a community.<br />

It’s a partnership between New Writing<br />

South and The Marlborough. The<br />

Marlborough has been very generous in offering<br />

us access to The Spire [the community arts<br />

centre they run in Kemp Town] and sharing<br />

their contacts in the arts community. We’re<br />

also connected with both universities, who<br />

are supporting us and have had input into the<br />

programme, and we have funding from the<br />

LGBT Consortium.<br />

We talked to a lot of people to find out<br />

what audiences might want from a festival<br />

like this. Who was doing important work?<br />

What conversations were important? So we<br />

have writers such as Patrick Gale and Jonathan<br />

Harvey, who are very well known, to more niche<br />

artists and activists who are doing something<br />

very specific within the LBGTQ community.<br />

It’s fantastic to have guests such as Fox and<br />

Owl Fisher [a non-binary couple who don’t<br />

identify as fully male or female]. They have<br />

been vocal in campaigning for trans rights –<br />

including taking quite a bit of flak – and there’s<br />

a lot there that needs to be said and heard. Their<br />

book, The Trans Teen Survival Guide, is a vital<br />

piece of support for people going through that<br />

experience.<br />

I’m also really excited about spoken word<br />

artist Dean Atta, who has recently written The<br />

Black Flamingo, a novel about a boy coming to<br />

terms with his identity as a mixed-race gay teen.<br />

LGBTQ literature for younger readers is, to my<br />

mind, a very valuable thing.<br />

Then we have an event with Jonathan Harvey<br />

when he’ll be talking about his writing life<br />

and what it’s like to be a gay man and a writer.<br />

Obviously, Jonathan has been around as a writer<br />

for a long time; it was 1993 when he wrote<br />

Beautiful Thing, which was a seminal piece of<br />

gay literature – and he’s since written more<br />

‘mainstream’ stuff including Gimme Gimme<br />

Gimme and episodes for Shameless and Coronation<br />

Street.<br />

There’s a practical element to the festival<br />

too, such as the publishing workshop we’re<br />

running with Sharan Dhaliwal, editor of Burnt<br />

Roti, and Untitled Writing, a monthly salon for<br />

underrepresented writers to present work. The<br />

workshop will look at how LGBT writing is<br />

getting out into the world and what opportunities<br />

there are – because LGBTQ writers can<br />

sometimes have a harder time getting heard.<br />

Anyone is welcome to attend; you don’t have to<br />

identify as LGBT to get something out of it. Our<br />

intention is to celebrate rather than ghettoise.<br />

As told to Nione Meakin<br />

The Coast is Queer, 12–15 Sept.<br />

newwritingsouth.com/coast-is-queer<br />

....55....


pc 19-20_Layout 1 12/08/<strong>2019</strong> 10:33 Page 2<br />

<strong>2019</strong>-2020 Programme<br />

8 October Susie Boyt Novelist, author of Love & Fame and My Judy Garland Life<br />

12 November Jacqueline Wilson Celebrated children’s novelist (limited to over 16s)<br />

21 January Ruth Ware International bestselling thriller writer<br />

11 February Sathnam Sanghera Times journalist, author of The Boy With The Topknot<br />

10 March Fiona Sampson Poet, biographer, author of In Search of Mary Shelley<br />

21 April Alexander Masters Author of Stuart: A Life Backwards and A Life Discarded<br />

All events start at 8pm, All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes BN7 2LE.<br />

Doors open 7.30pm Season tickets £40, single events £10, under 25s £5<br />

Information & tickets: www.lewesliterarysociety.co.uk<br />

www.facebook.com/lewesliterarysociety @leweslitsoc<br />

Shoreham<br />

Wordfest<br />

Creative Writing<br />

Children's Theatre<br />

Climate Change<br />

Conference<br />

7 SEPT - 13 OCT<br />

www.shorehamwordfest.com<br />

John Humphrys<br />

Simon Armitage<br />

Stanley Johnson<br />

Polly Toynbee<br />

Lynne Truss<br />

Simon Brett


ART<br />

.............................<br />

MOOP:JOURNALS<br />

A museum on the move<br />

“Museums today are, to<br />

some extent, working<br />

towards improving<br />

their accessibility,”<br />

says Lucy Malone,<br />

co-director of the<br />

Museum of Ordinary<br />

People (MOOP). “But<br />

we want to challenge<br />

the very definition of a<br />

museum and its methods<br />

of recording, so that more people start to see<br />

themselves represented in collections. And we<br />

thought: ‘how can we bring a museum collection<br />

directly to people?’”<br />

Launched at the 2018 <strong>Brighton</strong> Fringe by Jolie<br />

Booth and Lucy Malone, MOOP won the<br />

festival’s Visual Arts Award after working with<br />

nine local people to build exhibits that creatively<br />

told the story of an ordinary person’s life<br />

through the objects they owned – everything<br />

from letters, paint-spattered overalls and rusty,<br />

crushed cans of Coca Cola were featured. These<br />

exhibits were re-imagined into a live format at<br />

this year’s fringe in a series of evenings – called<br />

MOOP:STORIES held at Phoenix <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />

Currently a pop-up museum, MOOP continues<br />

its quest to have a permanent space in<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>, with exhibitions that celebrate the<br />

lives of real people through everyday objects.<br />

In the meantime, MOOP wants to challenge<br />

the idea that museums should be passive,<br />

static spaces that simply house rare treasures,<br />

or only chronicle the lives of the rich and<br />

famous. “While we acknowledge that there’s<br />

a necessity for large institutions to showcase<br />

relics that need specific care, we’re part of a<br />

new wave of museums that believe their role<br />

is to question what deserves to be collected, to<br />

be representative, and change the perspectives<br />

of those who visit,” says<br />

Malone. “We believe<br />

everybody’s story<br />

deserves to be told.”<br />

This month,<br />

MOOP launches<br />

its latest concept,<br />

MOOP:JOURNALS.<br />

MOOP wants to<br />

experiment with a new<br />

way of gathering snippets<br />

of everyday life. “We’re posting several blank<br />

journals around the UK, so that people can<br />

add an entry, then post the book on to the next<br />

person,” says Malone. “We want each person<br />

to describe an everyday object of significance<br />

to them, and the story behind it. They should<br />

include a written description and they can then<br />

be creative and add a photo or draw the object if<br />

they want. Each book will become a travelling<br />

mini-museum that expresses the power of<br />

objects to convey meaning. People can choose<br />

to be anonymous. All we ask is that they post<br />

it on to the next person, so it can continue its<br />

journey.” If participants can’t afford to pay to<br />

post the journal onwards, the museum will<br />

reimburse them.<br />

Malone says that MOOP:JOURNALS is also<br />

about breaking down the barriers of physically<br />

visiting a museum. “The journals will make<br />

their own footprint across the country,” she<br />

says. “The notebook arrives through your<br />

letterbox for you to explore, and you can then<br />

participate by adding your own story, your own<br />

exhibit. It’s about finding ways for museums to<br />

become representative and more accessible”.<br />

What object would go into the museum of your<br />

life? Rose Dykins<br />

To take part in MOOP:JOURNALS, email<br />

museumofordinarypeople@gmail.com<br />

....57....


ART<br />

.............................<br />

Walter Nessler, Haverstock Hill, London, 1938-9, Oil on board, © Estate of the Artist<br />

Pallant House<br />

Three exhibitions<br />

Two of the three current temporary exhibitions<br />

at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester are<br />

part of Insiders / Outsiders, a nationwide arts<br />

festival running until March 2020, celebrating<br />

the contribution made by refugees from Nazi<br />

Europe to British culture. There are two<br />

single-room displays, one devoted to Walter<br />

Nessler, the other to Grete Marks. Neither<br />

household names, of course, but regular visitors<br />

to Pallant House will know of Nessler if only<br />

because of his strange, almost apocalyptic<br />

vision of Haverstock Hill (1938) that has been<br />

on loan to the gallery from a Private Collection<br />

since 2006. And before that he featured in<br />

Alien Nation: Immigrant Artists in Britain, an<br />

exhibition that Pallant put on in 2003. Walter<br />

Nessler came to this country in 1937 with<br />

his wife Prudence, daughter of the Arts and<br />

Crafts architect CR Ashbee. The couple had<br />

met when Prudence was studying dance at<br />

the Mary Wigman School in Dresden where<br />

Nessler was painting stage sets. He was briefly<br />

interned in Liverpool before being released<br />

in <strong>September</strong> 1940 on the intercession of his<br />

wife’s parents. He then joined the Pioneer<br />

Corps. His marriage broke down in 1947, but<br />

he apparently remained on the best of terms<br />

with his mother-in-law whom he often visited<br />

in Morecambe. Interestingly, the couple of<br />

studies of Morecambe Bay on show are, to<br />

my mind, of more artistic vitality than his<br />

paintings of Paris and Spain which are pleasant<br />

enough but rather formulaic.<br />

I had never heard of Grete Marks. Born<br />

in Cologne, she studied art there and in<br />

Düsseldorf before gaining entry to the Weimar<br />

Bauhaus. There she studied ceramics, but soon<br />

clashed with her teacher and left the school<br />

....58....


ART<br />

.............................<br />

after just one year. Together with her first<br />

husband she established Haël Werkstätten,<br />

a modernist ceramics factory near Berlin.<br />

After her husband’s sudden death in 1928 she<br />

took over the running of the factory. She fled<br />

to England in 1936 and found employment<br />

at Mintons pottery in Stoke-on-Trent. She<br />

later set up the Greta Pottery. Some of her<br />

ceramics are on display but the main focus of<br />

the exhibition is a group of portrait drawings<br />

that Pallant House has recently acquired. She<br />

had a very original style and some of them are<br />

beautiful. Cataloguing work is obviously still<br />

going on. One portrait, for example, that is<br />

titled ‘Hebrew Teacher’ when reproduced in<br />

the Pallant House magazine is identified in the<br />

exhibition as the Ukrainian born pianist Leff<br />

Nicolas Pouishnoff.<br />

The main exhibition at Pallant (until 13 October)<br />

is devoted to Ivon Hitchens. In his introduction<br />

to the Penguin Modern Painters volume on<br />

Hitchens (1955) Patrick Heron wrote:<br />

‘I should like to express, if it is possible, some<br />

part of the purely pictorial excitement which<br />

the experience of seeing his works has so often<br />

afforded me; and which has prompted me in<br />

the past to make the claim that, all things<br />

considered, Hitchens is the most considerable<br />

English painter of his generation.’<br />

This marvellous show gives us all the<br />

opportunity to experience that pictorial<br />

excitement for ourselves. Not to be missed!<br />

David Jarman<br />

Ivon Hitchens, Spring Mood No.II, 1933, oil on canvas.<br />

©The Estate of Ivon Hitchens<br />

Ivon Hitchens, Roof Painting nr2 (The View From My Window,<br />

nr2), 1977, oil on canvas. ©The Estate of Ivon Hitchens<br />

Grete Marks, Untitled, n.d, watercolour on paper<br />

....59....


Summer <strong>2019</strong> Towner Art Gallery<br />

TEN<br />

Towner curates<br />

the collection<br />

Phoebe Unwin<br />

Iris<br />

Image: courtesy Lothar Götz<br />

Dineo Seshee Bopape<br />

Sedibeng, it comes with the rain<br />

Lothar Götz<br />

Dance Diagonal<br />

www.townereastbourne.org.uk @ townergallery<br />

Devonshire Park, College Road, Eastbourne, BN21 4JJ<br />

Morris & Co.<br />

Inspired by Natu re<br />

1 June - 10 November <strong>2019</strong><br />

Discover an exciting exhibition at<br />

Standen House and Garden that<br />

reveals the inspiration behind<br />

Morris & Co's iconic designs<br />

nationaltrust.org.uk/Standen<br />

Supported by Morris & Co.<br />

© National Trust <strong>2019</strong> . The National Trust is an<br />

independent registered charity, number 205846.<br />

'Trellis'. Standen © National Trust. Supplied by Morris & Co.<br />

#nationaltrust


ART<br />

.............................<br />

Hong Kong Sunrise by Jessica Zoob<br />

Oil painting on board<br />

For about three years, I’ve been spending<br />

half of my time in Sussex and half in Hong<br />

Kong, where my husband works. Hong Kong<br />

was meant to be a total respite for me but in<br />

the end I couldn’t really do that and I started<br />

working. I’ve created a collection of around<br />

40 works called ‘Inspired by Asia’, which are<br />

the result of my travels around Hong Kong<br />

and also across India, Vietnam, Indonesia and<br />

many other countries.<br />

Of all the paintings in the collection, this is<br />

the one that most encapsulates Hong Kong.<br />

It’s also probably one of the most figurative<br />

pieces. Where we live, on Lantau Island, it’s<br />

really mountainous and there are 12-foot<br />

pythons and spiders that I think are the biggest<br />

in the world – it’s an adventure. You have to<br />

take a boat across to the city, and when you<br />

get there it’s so colourful and vibrant, such<br />

a melting pot. There’s every kind of person<br />

wearing every kind of clothing and there’s<br />

always music and dancing.<br />

When the sun comes up in Hong Kong,<br />

you can see it in a way that you never see it<br />

anywhere else. It’s just enormous and it’s so<br />

present – it’s quite extraordinary. And because<br />

the air is so hazy you can really look at it.<br />

So I wanted to give a sense of all of it: the<br />

mountains and the peaks and the sun.<br />

My life in Hong Kong is a really stark<br />

contrast to my life in Sussex and my work<br />

here. The work that I’ve created in this<br />

studio is very meditative, very peaceful, very<br />

landscape-inspired, whereas the work I’ve<br />

done in Asia is much more dense and rough<br />

around the edges. Asia is incredibly beautiful<br />

and incredibly inspiring, but it’s also very<br />

confronting. I think you can see that reflected<br />

in the collection.<br />

It’s nice to be working small again because<br />

recently a lot of my pieces have been huge. I’ve<br />

got amazing loyal people who really love my<br />

work but when it gets too large it becomes<br />

physically out of reach and also financially out<br />

of reach for lots of people, and I don’t want<br />

that. This whole collection is made up of works<br />

that you can pick up and take home on the bus!<br />

As told to Rebecca Cunningham<br />

Inspired by Asia is on at Jessica’s studio in Banff<br />

Farm on the 21 & 22 Sept. jessicazoob.com<br />

....61....


Contemporary<br />

British Painting and<br />

Sculpture<br />

We look forward to welcoming<br />

you to our gallery in Hove.<br />

OPENING TIMES<br />

Mon—Sat 10.30am—5pm<br />

Sunday/bank holidays 12pm—5pm<br />

Closed Tuesday<br />

For more details visit<br />

CAMERONCONTEMPORARY.COM<br />

CCA_<strong>Viva</strong>Lewes_Advert_66x94_June2018_v1.indd 1 17/06/2018 09:08<br />

NOURISH YOUR CREATIVITY<br />

with over 800 arts and craft short courses<br />

Expert tutors and fully equipped workshops | Inspiring surroundings<br />

www.westdean.ac.uk<br />

West Dean College of Arts and Conservation,<br />

Chichester, West Sussex PO18 0QZ


ART<br />

....................................<br />

ART & ABOUT<br />

In town this month...<br />

The technical and support staff at our<br />

universities are often practising artists<br />

and researchers in their own right –<br />

and yet their work is rarely seen. This<br />

month, Salon is putting that right with a<br />

showcase of work by eleven highly skilled<br />

staff working within the University<br />

of <strong>Brighton</strong>’s School of Media. The<br />

exhibition includes photography, moving<br />

image, painting and installation, with<br />

many of the artists involved in external projects including researching with the V&A, participating in<br />

residencies from the Towner in Eastbourne to rural Finland and winning awards at international film<br />

festivals. After the exhibition, the curator is off to take up a post at The Getty, in Los Angeles. Visit<br />

Salon between Tuesday 27th August and Friday 6th <strong>September</strong> at the university’s Edward St Gallery.<br />

Jess Dadds, still from ‘Flowers’, <strong>2019</strong><br />

From the 21st the gallery at Phoenix <strong>Brighton</strong> becomes a<br />

dedicated space for Phoenix community projects to be created,<br />

showcased and celebrated. A pop-up photographic studio will<br />

be in situ for photographer Natasha Bidgood to create family<br />

portraits with local residents and visitors. The Phoenix street<br />

art project will reach the gallery walls, and resident Phoenix<br />

artists will offer portrait-based creative activities for everyone,<br />

transforming the space into an evolving visual representation of the neighbourhood. Why not be a part<br />

of it yourself? Check the website for the full events programme.<br />

Heritage Open Days returns for its 25th edition this month,<br />

with more than 60 historical properties and events in this year’s<br />

programme. Hear about the history of the <strong>Brighton</strong> Workhouses,<br />

take a tour of the <strong>Brighton</strong> College campus, or visit Preston Circus<br />

Fire Station. Visit heritageopendays.org.uk for full listings.<br />

Not an art event exactly, but most definitely a feast for the senses,<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>’s Hare Krishna community holds its annual free chariot<br />

festival on <strong>Brighton</strong> seafront at 12pm on Saturday the 14th. Based<br />

on a 2000 year-old tradition, the chariot festival – known as a<br />

Ratha Yatra – sees a large wooden chariot carrying three deities<br />

pulled along <strong>Brighton</strong> seafront, accompanied by singing, dancing,<br />

and the mass chanting of the famous Hare Krishna Mahamantra.<br />

There will also be a free vegetarian feast for everyone attending.<br />

....63....


British Wildlife<br />

An Art Exhibition by Peter Bainbridge<br />

28th <strong>September</strong> - 20th October<br />

A273 <strong>Brighton</strong> Road HASSOCKS<br />

BN6 9LY 01273 847707


In town this month cont...<br />

ART<br />

....................................<br />

Sussex-based artists, The Nimbus Group, are<br />

creating The Crucible – an interactive artwork and app<br />

for the redeveloped Royal Sussex County Hospital.<br />

Share your experiences and memories of the hospital<br />

at their next event at Sussex House lecture theatre, in<br />

Abbey Road on Friday the 6th (6-8pm).<br />

It is VERY early to be mentioning the C-word, but<br />

registration is now open for the Christmas edition of Artists Open Houses. Act fast and register by<br />

the 1st of <strong>September</strong> for early bird rates and no later than the 15th to save yourself a few £s.<br />

Out of Town<br />

Continuing at Standen House in West Sussex,<br />

Morris & Co. Inspired by Nature explores the work<br />

of William Morris, the leading figure in the Arts &<br />

Crafts Movement in Britain. He designed some of the<br />

most recognisable textile and wallpaper patterns of<br />

the nineteenth century, exemplifying the popularity<br />

of bringing nature indoors, and was the creative force<br />

behind Morris & Co., who still produce his designs today. Many of his patterns were used throughout<br />

Standen – the Arts & Crafts house designed for the Beale family in the late 19th century – and this<br />

exhibition includes original drawings, tapestries and wallpaper blocks, and a recreation of Morris &<br />

Co.’s original showroom. See nationaltrust.org.uk/standen for opening times.<br />

The Drawing Room at Standen © National Trust<br />

Image James Dobson<br />

Guy Pickford<br />

Guy Pickford spent<br />

20 years working as a<br />

graphic designer and<br />

art director before<br />

throwing off the<br />

confines of the office<br />

job and taking to the<br />

road. Since then he’s<br />

been travelling the<br />

highways and byways of<br />

England and Europe in his camper van and mobile<br />

studio, painting as he goes. See an exhibition of his<br />

vibrant, impressionistic landscape paintings at The<br />

Yurt Gallery at Townings Farm Shop, in Chailey.<br />

Sally-Mae Joseph<br />

Over at<br />

The Crypt<br />

Gallery in<br />

Seaford, local<br />

artist Sally-<br />

Mae Joseph<br />

exhibits her<br />

lively and<br />

colourful<br />

interpretations of local landscapes: a<br />

celebration of her daughter Debby Van<br />

Dyk, who lived locally with her family and<br />

who sadly died of cancer last year, at the age<br />

of 43. [thecryptgallery.com]<br />

....65....


Fri-Sun, 10-5pm (Sept)<br />

Townings Farm Shop, Chailey<br />

welcomes<br />

the<br />

yurt<br />

gallery<br />

landscape<br />

paintings<br />

by Guy Pickford<br />

07818 626 980<br />

guy.pickford@gmail.com


ART<br />

....................................<br />

Twins of Evil is a joint exhibition by Billy Chainsaw and Mark<br />

Wagner at Waterloo Square Gallery in Alfriston. Hovebased<br />

Billy Chainsaw describes his work as a ‘fertile mix of<br />

pulp and the arcane to engage with ideas of mortality, magick<br />

and sensuality’, and cites the notorious beat generation author<br />

William S. Burroughs as his ‘ghost muse'. Mark, meanwhile,<br />

works with acrylics, oils and reclaimed objects, taking<br />

inspiration from old magazine articles, film, art books and –<br />

more recently – a visit to the Kubrick exhibition at The Design<br />

Museum. 21st - 28th of <strong>September</strong>.<br />

“It is time that the spirit of fun was introduced into furniture<br />

and into fabrics. We have suffered too long from the dull<br />

and the stupidly serious.” So said Roger Fry, when he set<br />

up the Omega Workshops in 1913, inviting many of the<br />

avant-garde artists of the day to create bold, colourful and<br />

abstract items for the home. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant<br />

were both co-directors and designers for the Workshops<br />

and brought an array of Omega objects with them when<br />

they moved to Charleston in October 1916. From the 14th,<br />

Charleston hosts From Post-Impressionist Living: The Omega<br />

Workshops Exhibition, marking one hundred years since the workshops closed their doors.<br />

Lampstands with geometric decoration, designed and made by the Omega Workshops, 1913-1919. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.<br />

Over at Towner Gallery, from the 28th, an ambitious<br />

exhibition of works by sculptor David Nash fills all four<br />

of Towner’s major gallery spaces. 200 Seasons covers Nash’s<br />

career from the late 60s and explores his contribution to the<br />

British Sculpture and International Land Art movement.<br />

Towner is running a series of events alongside the Eastbourne<br />

& Lewes Walking Festival (20–29 <strong>September</strong>), which explore<br />

the relationship between art, walking and the landscape,<br />

including a conversation with David Nash, an artist-led<br />

twilight walk and much more besides.<br />

David Nash Mark Wagner<br />

Dance Diagonal by Lothar Götz<br />

Also at Towner, over the weekend of 21st & 22nd, Mainstone Press<br />

return for their third Ink Paper + Print Fair for local makers, artists and<br />

illustrators. There will be 60 exhibitors showcasing a range of printmaking,<br />

artist's books, 20th Century design, ceramics and contemporary crafts, with<br />

a series of talks and tours accompanies the exhibition. Further east, the<br />

Hastings-based festival Coastal Currents returns for its 21st edition with<br />

a month-long programme of exhibitions, commissions, talks, open houses<br />

and events spreading from Seaford to Rye. [coastalcurrents.org.uk]<br />

....67....


DESIGN<br />

....................................<br />

Sustainable Design Collective<br />

Building communities<br />

“The British building industry is the least<br />

innovative sector of our economy,” says Donal<br />

Brown, Sustainability Director at the Falmerbased<br />

Sustainable Design Collective. “We<br />

still build in much the same way as we did in<br />

the Victorian era, using the same traditional<br />

methods.”<br />

Wanting to do something different, Donal’s<br />

father Bill – a former local authority Director of<br />

Housing – founded the SDC in 2001. He looked<br />

to the progressive techniques employed by the<br />

German construction industry for inspiration,<br />

and partnered with a German manufacturer to<br />

produce timber frame ‘kit’ houses, which were<br />

batch-produced in a factory and assembled on<br />

site. Their early projects – one-off, ‘Grand<br />

Designs’ homes - utilised innovations like<br />

air-source heat pumps and solar water heating,<br />

which were new to the UK market.<br />

“I became much more involved in 2012, when<br />

we won a contract for a super-energy efficient<br />

social housing project down in Devon,”<br />

(pictured above) says Donal. “It was only four<br />

houses, but the idea was that it would be a test<br />

bed for larger social housing developments.”<br />

The team came up with a design for the homes,<br />

which featured integrated solar panelled roofs<br />

that provided energy and hot water, rainwater<br />

harvesting systems, and were completely carbon<br />

neutral. The project won awards for its energy<br />

efficiency and was the start of what would<br />

become a new focus for the business: social<br />

housing for the future.<br />

“We do a lot of one-off projects for clients, and<br />

those are exciting and really varied,” says Donal,<br />

“but how much are they really going to help? A,<br />

they don’t really help housing as an issue, because<br />

they are only for people who can afford to build<br />

....68....


DESIGN<br />

....................................<br />

their own homes, and B, climate-wise, they’re<br />

just a drop in the ocean.” Now Donal wants to<br />

invest more time and energy in bigger projects,<br />

like social housing, and also Community Land<br />

Trusts.<br />

“A Community Land Trust is like a co-op,” he<br />

explains. “There are members and everybody<br />

makes decisions as a group.” They are about to<br />

begin building a development in Harberton,<br />

in Devon. “That area is extremely expensive<br />

and people living there – particularly young<br />

families – can't afford to buy a house, so a lot of<br />

them are stuck in rented accommodation. We’ve<br />

been working with twelve families on a planning<br />

application to build twelve eco homes on a plot<br />

of land.”<br />

The design features meadow roofs, which<br />

encourage biodiversity and reduce the visual<br />

impact of the development on the surrounding<br />

countryside, and solar carports, where<br />

residents can charge their electric vehicles.<br />

Each of the families will receive a wind and<br />

water-tight shell, which they will self-finish.<br />

“Normally a 3-bed house in that area would<br />

cost £350-£400k,” says Donal, “but these<br />

will each be about £100k. The residents are<br />

held in the Land Trust ‘in perpetuity’, so<br />

they can’t sell the house and make money<br />

from it, but they can get their £100k back, so<br />

it de-marketises the development. The idea<br />

is to create a community, not an investment<br />

opportunity. It’s as much about social<br />

innovation as environmental innovation.<br />

“That’s where I want the business to go,”<br />

says Donal. Currently he is looking at sites to<br />

develop similar communities in and around<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>, with potential additions like coworking<br />

spaces and community gardens.<br />

“The current housing model just doesn’t<br />

work,” he says. “Basically we chuck up a load<br />

of poor housing in the middle of nowhere and<br />

people don’t want to live there. We don’t build<br />

communities; housing is just seen as a financial<br />

asset. It’s time for that to change.”<br />

Rebecca Cunningham<br />

sustainabledesigncollective.info<br />

....69....


THE WAY WE WALK<br />

This month Adam Bronkhorst photographed five keen local walkers.<br />

He asked them: 'Why do you love walking?'<br />

With thanks to Julia, who runs walking-talking for well-being group<br />

ipsewilderness.co.uk, for organising the shoot (pictured below).<br />

adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401333<br />

Julia Gillick<br />

‘Walking puts me in touch with my soul. I love connecting people to local landscapes<br />

and pockets of wilderness, to engage with the simplicity and freedom of nature.’


THE WAY WE WALK<br />

Gem Burrell<br />

‘Countryside walks help me shake off my stress, relax my mind and<br />

slow down. I love the changes of the different seasons and the<br />

challenges that the weather brings.’


THE WAY WE WALK<br />

Sarah Rayner<br />

‘I’m an author and I find walking and talking a brilliant way to<br />

work out ideas. Being in nature helps my creativity and<br />

gets me away from my desk, too.’


THE WAY WE WALK<br />

Jess Bavinton<br />

‘I love walking with friends. There’s something about the rhythm of<br />

the walking and the shared connection to beautiful surroundings<br />

that makes for flowing and deep conversations.’


THE WAY WE WALK<br />

Tom Walker<br />

‘I love walking because it’s a great way to venture outdoors and explore<br />

new areas whilst being slow enough to take in the surroundings, from<br />

the vistas to the small insects. And it's my name ;)’


SURF 'N' TURF BRUNCH<br />

JOIN US ON SATURDAYS FOR A BRAND NEW COAL<br />

ROASTED MEAT AND SEAFOOD BRUNCH<br />

WWW.COALSHED-RESTAURANT.CO.UK


FOOD<br />

.............................<br />

Neighbourhood<br />

Food to feel good about<br />

It’s easy being a vegetarian<br />

in <strong>Brighton</strong>. Our<br />

restaurant scene has<br />

been at the vanguard<br />

of meat-free dining for<br />

decades, so it’s no real<br />

surprise that there’s<br />

a growing number of<br />

shops and eateries that<br />

are putting the ethics of<br />

the supply chain high up<br />

the menu.<br />

Neighbourhood is one<br />

of them. Occupying that<br />

sweet spot on the corner of Kensington Place<br />

and Gloucester Road, their mission is a simple<br />

one: to be organic, plant-based and ethical. As<br />

well as sourcing their ingredients as locally as<br />

possible (most of their veg comes from Ashurst<br />

Organics at Plumpton), they make a point of<br />

purchasing their broadband and power from<br />

ethical suppliers and their staff are paid the<br />

living wage at least.<br />

I meet my friend Frances there on a sunny<br />

Friday morning, taking a table on their comfortable<br />

and colourful deck. The menu offers<br />

four options for all day breakfast and a further<br />

four lunch dishes, along with daily specials.<br />

They all sound good to me, but I go for the<br />

Neighbourhood Brunch (£9), with kombucha<br />

to drink (brewed in <strong>Brighton</strong>, of course, by<br />

the crowd-funded social enterprise, Old Tree<br />

Brewery). Frances chooses the smashed avocado<br />

on sourdough toast with spice beet hummus and<br />

beet aioli (£8), and a glass of freshly squeezed<br />

orange juice.<br />

My colourful plate soon arrives: sourdough<br />

toast topped with roasted field mushrooms, a<br />

lightly cooked plum tomato, a mix of seasonal<br />

greens, and home-baked<br />

beans. It’s meant to come<br />

with scrambled tohu but<br />

they are waiting on fresh<br />

supplies, so I happily<br />

accept the offer of some<br />

avocado instead. If I’m<br />

honest, I thought tohu was<br />

a typo, but it turns out to<br />

be a soy-free alternative to<br />

tofu made from chickpeas.<br />

Originally a Burmese<br />

recipe, it’s now made here<br />

in <strong>Brighton</strong> by a Burmese<br />

émigré, and I’ll be back to try it.<br />

The brunch is fresh and delicious. The greens<br />

– a mix of curly kale, savoy cabbage, pak choi<br />

and peas – are vivid and simply cooked, allowing<br />

the quality of the ingredients to shine. But<br />

the home-baked beans are the best bit for me<br />

– plump butter beans in a fresh tomato sauce<br />

spiked with smoked paprika – putting me in<br />

mind of sun-baked summer holidays in Greece.<br />

It could easily become my new favourite breakfast<br />

place, and, judging by the fast-filling deck,<br />

I’m not alone in my thinking.<br />

That said, I know there will be some for whom it<br />

all sounds too worthy. But, before you roll your<br />

eyes, just think about it for a second. Reasonably<br />

priced, tasty, plant-based food, sourced as far as<br />

possible from within the community. A business<br />

who pays their staff fair wages, with sustainability<br />

at the heart of their thinking? What’s not to<br />

like about that? Sounds like the kind of world I’d<br />

like to live in. I’m pleased that Neighbourhood<br />

is in my neighbourhood.<br />

Lizzie Lower<br />

95 Gloucester Road<br />

9am-5pm Mon-Fri, Vegan tapas 6-10pm Fri-Sat<br />

....77....


RECIPE<br />

.............................<br />

Photo by Alex Leith<br />

....78....


RECIPE<br />

.............................<br />

Baked mackerel in a bed of vegetables<br />

Emma Dunwell from The Mermaid fishmongers<br />

in Rottingdean on a nourishing – and colourful<br />

– meal to feed the family<br />

Me and my husband Ben have got a good<br />

thing going: he catches the fish, from his<br />

boat off Newhaven harbour, and I sell them<br />

at the shop we opened on Rottingdean<br />

High Street last October. That’s if I don’t<br />

cook them up for the family. We’ve got six<br />

kids and we eat fish every day. We never<br />

get sick of it.<br />

It’s mackerel season until October, and it’s<br />

been a good one so far. Ben goes out every<br />

day, if it’s calm enough, in our ten-metre<br />

trawler, Emma Louise. It’s our third boat –<br />

he’s been fishing for 20 years now. Because<br />

Newhaven is so tidal, he either goes out<br />

for eight hours, or 18 hours. He catches all<br />

sorts, from cuttlefish to cod. I go out with<br />

him when I can, I love it. You’re so free, out<br />

there, miles from anywhere.<br />

These mackerel were swimming in the sea<br />

yesterday. You’ve got to eat them fresh.<br />

They are pelagic, which means they swim<br />

far and wide hunting food. They need a<br />

ready source of energy which is why their<br />

flesh is so oily. This oil is rich in omega 3<br />

fatty acids, which are very good for you.<br />

All I’ve done to the mackerel is gut them,<br />

taken the heads and tails off, and put four<br />

deep slits in the flesh, on either side.<br />

I believe in eating sustainable, seasonal,<br />

locally sourced food. I get all my vegetables<br />

from Deveson, the greengrocers down the<br />

road, who have the same values. The only<br />

fish we buy in is some of our seafood. For<br />

this I go to Billingsgate Market.<br />

You eat with your eyes, as well as your<br />

mouth, so I like to make things colourful.<br />

So the bed for the fish is made up of a<br />

range of vegetables, all rough-chopped:<br />

yellow courgettes (green ones aren’t as<br />

pretty); shallots, which are sweeter than<br />

onions and don’t make you cry; heritage<br />

tomatoes, in different colours; flatleaf<br />

parsley, from our garden; red pepper; a<br />

couple of chillies to give it some zing, and<br />

smoked garlic, which smells just great. And<br />

some baby carrots, whole, with their green<br />

bits still on, for the visual effect. I don’t<br />

believe in peeling or scrubbing these.<br />

The vegetables are artfully laid out in a big<br />

oven-proof dish, with the fish laid on top.<br />

I smear these with a mix of extra-virgin<br />

olive oil and fish spice mix, both of which<br />

I source from local businesses and sell in<br />

the shop. The Mesto oil is pressed by a<br />

Hove woman who has her own olive grove<br />

in Crete.<br />

Then you just put it in the oven for half<br />

an hour, but you could equally cook it on<br />

a fire pit if you’ve got one in your garden.<br />

Nothing could be simpler: this dish I’ve<br />

made up for the photo will feed our whole<br />

family this evening, and we’ll all love every<br />

mouthful. As told to Alex Leith<br />

The Mermaid, 100 High Street, Rottingdean<br />

....79....


FOOD<br />

.............................<br />

Al Forno<br />

Freshly fired<br />

If you’re looking for a quick meal while on the Kemp Town side of the<br />

beach, then independent pizza restaurant Al Forno is a good takeaway or<br />

dine-in option.<br />

The extensive drinks menu includes a range of Spritzes (we choose Aperol<br />

(£6.50) but there is also Limoncello, Grappa, Frangelico, etc.), beer,<br />

cider and a wide ranging selection of wines. The dough is made fresh<br />

each morning, then proved for 24 hours, resulting in a soft, fluffy base.<br />

All pizzas are 12” and cooked in the large, fiery oven. There are a lot to<br />

choose from: eleven vegetarian, nine meat, and six vegan options, plus ‘create your own’ for only £10.<br />

We choose Meat Madness (£11.95), with an abundance of cured wild boar salami from Sardinia,<br />

pepperoni, cured lamb prosciutto, chorizo, mushroom, red onions and fresh oregano. Often on meaty<br />

pizzas the flavours can blur into one, but here they are distinct, such as rich, highly cured prosciutto<br />

next to tangy salami. It’s delicious (and the leftovers taste great the next day too).<br />

The pizza is certainly big enough to fill most stomachs, but we try the desserts anyway. The chocolate<br />

fudge cake is gooey and deeply chocolatey, and I recommend a scoop of the high quality, moreish<br />

vanilla ice cream (£3.50). Fatema’s strawberry & vanilla cheesecake goes down well: a crumbly base<br />

and much-appreciated real strawberries on top (£3.50). Joe Fuller<br />

78 St James’s Street, alfornopizza.co.uk<br />

FESTIVE PACKAGES<br />

AT RENDEZVOUS<br />

SHARER PARTIES<br />

Available at £35 per person and includes: Drink on Arrival,<br />

Three-Course Festive Dinner and Live Entertainment.<br />

FESTIVE DINING<br />

Wine and dine your family and friends in our Waterside Restaurant.<br />

Lunch service every Saturday and Sunday from 1pm with dinner service from<br />

6pm every night. Dining options start from as little as £16.50 per person.<br />

NEW YEAR’S EVE PACKAGE<br />

Available at £45 per person and includes: Three-Course Dinner,<br />

Glass of Fizz at Midnight, Ibiza Club Tribute and DJ.<br />

The Rendezvous <strong>Brighton</strong> casino is the perfect place<br />

for shared parties this festive season.<br />

Call in today 01273 605602 or email infobrighton@caesars.co.uk<br />

for more information or to book.<br />

01273 605602 infobrighton@rendezvouscasino.com rendezvouscasino.com/brighton<br />

Rendezvous Casino <strong>Brighton</strong>, <strong>Brighton</strong> Marina Village BN2 5UT rendezvousbrighton Rendezvousbton rendezvous_brighton_casino<br />

Over 18s Only | Challenge 21 Policy in Operation | Know When To Stop Before You Start, visit begambleaware.org | drinkaware.co.uk | Rendezvous Casino is a part of Caesars Entertainment UK Limited


FOOD<br />

.............................<br />

A-news bouche<br />

The Gin To My Tonic Festival gives you<br />

the chance to try over 100 different gins from<br />

across the UK and beyond. A £13.50 ticket<br />

comes with goodies – including a stainless<br />

steel straw, gin copa glass, gin explorer<br />

guide, tote bag, pen – and a token system<br />

will operate: £5 for a 35ml gin, garnish and<br />

appropriate mixer.<br />

Hilton Hotel, 28 Sep,<br />

1pm-5pm or 6.30pm-<br />

10.30pm.<br />

EXPERIENCE<br />

THE SEASONS<br />

Apple Day <strong>Brighton</strong> at Stanmer Park is<br />

a ‘village fair-style day out for all ages’,<br />

featuring tours of the orchards, live music,<br />

dance and storytelling. Arranged by <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

Permaculture Trust, you can try locally<br />

produced cider and fruit juice, and find out<br />

more about their scrumping<br />

project, where up to 40 tons<br />

of unwanted fruit are turned<br />

into juices, jams, chutneys<br />

and preserves. 22 Sep, 11am-<br />

5pm, free entry.<br />

FOR A SUMPTUOUS HELPING<br />

OF FOODIE DELIGHTS THIS<br />

AUTUMN AND WINTER TRY<br />

THE HORSHAM DISTRICT.<br />

The region has a fantastic reputation<br />

for food and drink and a long list of<br />

businesses providing a wide range<br />

of tasty delights.<br />

Discover an experience extravaganza at<br />

The Garden Café in St Ann’s Wells Gardens<br />

will host a Sicilian Street Food Pop Up<br />

restaurant, where you can try authentic ‘Cibo<br />

di Strada’. A selection of hot and cold tasters<br />

will be served, followed by traditional dessert.<br />

6 Sep, 7.30pm-10.30pm, £20 for<br />

food only, £30 inc. wine.<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong> Vegan Festival<br />

returns to the Hilton Hotel,<br />

with over 80 stalls including<br />

food caterers, clothing, gifts<br />

and more. £5 on the door.<br />

28th Sep, 10.30am-4.30pm.<br />

www.horshamlocalproduce.co.uk<br />

and download the experience guide<br />

from the end of August. Alternatively,<br />

pick up or download a copy of the Taste<br />

West Sussex Magazine from the end of<br />

<strong>September</strong> at www.westsussex.gov.uk/<br />

campaigns/taste-west-sussex.<br />

....81....


Photos by Rebecca Cunningham<br />

LOCAL MAKER<br />

.............................<br />

The Little Shoemaker<br />

Art & soles<br />

Kevin Rowley moved down to <strong>Brighton</strong> from<br />

Doncaster to pursue his dream of becoming<br />

an artist. But after graduating with a degree in<br />

Fine Art, and going on to finish a postgrad in<br />

London, he found himself unable to leave his<br />

part-time job at a shoemaker’s in Marylebone.<br />

“I needed to work while I was studying, London<br />

being what it is,” he says, “so I took the job<br />

with the idea of staying there for three months.<br />

But I stayed 16 years…” Even after he’d found<br />

a teaching job in the <strong>Brighton</strong> University art<br />

department, and moved back down here to live,<br />

he carried on commuting several days a week.<br />

“I thought that moving to <strong>Brighton</strong> would force<br />

me to quit the job in the shoemaker’s, but I liked<br />

what I was doing so much that I kept it on for a<br />

few years more – and lost about five grand a year<br />

getting there!”<br />

Eventually it became clear that shoe-making<br />

wasn’t just going to be an interim job for Kevin.<br />

“I think the irony is, I spent so many years trying<br />

to get away from what I eventually ended up<br />

doing that I realised what I was doing was what<br />

I liked doing. I stopped making art about five<br />

years ago, simply because I realised the shoes are<br />

kind of the art I’m making now. If you’d looked<br />

at my work in the gallery in London and you<br />

look at my shoes, you could see they were done<br />

....82....


LOCAL MAKER<br />

.............................<br />

by the same person.”<br />

He bought a little shop in Lewes, tucked away<br />

off the High Street, and has been based there<br />

for the past few years. “We knew Lewes quite<br />

well,” he says. “We got married there years<br />

ago, so when this shop came up it seemed like<br />

the best thing for us. It almost felt like coming<br />

home.”<br />

The first shoes he ever made sit on the<br />

windowsill: a tiny pair of faded suede sandals<br />

that look like they’ve seen plenty of adventures.<br />

“I made them about eight years ago for our<br />

daughter. Now she’s this big,” he says, pointing<br />

to a much bigger pair on the counter, waiting<br />

to be soled. “When I first started, I was only<br />

making up to child’s size four but now my<br />

eldest is a grown-up size two, so as our kids<br />

have grown, so has our shoe range. Now I keep<br />

getting asked, why don’t I make sandals for<br />

adults? So we’re experimenting at the minute<br />

with trying to make some larger ones. In theory,<br />

this time next year we may have launched a<br />

grown-up range.”<br />

So it might not have been the career path he<br />

expected, but did Kevin’s creative roots set<br />

him up for a successful career in shoe-making?<br />

“Working as an artist taught me problem<br />

solving,” he says, “and it’s all about feeling your<br />

way and trying to figure out the best way of<br />

doing something. It’s like anything – you’ve got<br />

to kiss a few frogs first. And I’ve made some ugly<br />

shoes. But that’s the way you learn: by making<br />

mistakes.” Rebecca Cunningham<br />

The Little Shoemaker is based in Courtyard<br />

Shoe Repairs, North Court, Lewes BN7 2AR<br />

thelittleshoemaker.com<br />

....83....


ADVERTORIAL<br />

“From the<br />

‘knowledge’ to<br />

THE Knowledge”<br />

Natural health resolved<br />

my health issues<br />

By David Kirby, Naturopathic Nutrition Student,<br />

College of Naturopathic Medicine<br />

Thought I would share with you why I’m studying<br />

at CNM. I grew up as a young boy from South East<br />

London only ever wanting to be a London black cab<br />

driver. At 32 I embarked on the ‘knowledge’ that<br />

took 3 years. I will always remember day one, I was<br />

told to find a college and learn up to 15,000 streets<br />

and over 12,000 buildings. I was now starting to<br />

realise what stress and bad health was. I had no<br />

time for exercise, was constantly sitting, having up<br />

to 8 coffees a day to keep me awake, poor diet<br />

and no sleep. On my last exams, I’ll never forget, I<br />

achieved a very high score, an A and broke down in<br />

tears, it meant so much to me.<br />

The stress of looking after a young family, working<br />

long hours and intense studying, took a serious toll<br />

on my health. I saw several consultants and was<br />

prescribed various medications, unsuccessfully.<br />

I then saw a naturopath (who was trained and<br />

now lectures at CNM) who treated me in a totally<br />

different way, looking at my body as a whole.<br />

Between the naturopath and an endocrinologist<br />

with natural medicine background, I was able to<br />

resolve my issue, which was histamine, genetic and<br />

panic-attack related.<br />

David Kirby, Naturopathic Nutrition Student, CNM<br />

(College of Naturopathic Medicine)<br />

Then one morning a lady hailed my cab and,<br />

whilst driving her to her destination, she told<br />

me her story, how her life had changed so<br />

much by joining CNM. Over the next 2 weeks<br />

I picked up two more CNM students, became<br />

increasingly interested and excited and felt<br />

I was being guided in a certain direction. I<br />

decided I am still young enough to retrain and<br />

have so much to give, and pay back to natural<br />

medicine and sick people the way in which it<br />

helped me. I have now enrolled at CNM to<br />

become a nutritionist, naturopath.<br />

Over 11 years ago when I was out studying the<br />

knowledge, finding those 12,000 buildings,<br />

CNM Percy Circus was one of those buildings.<br />

I still remember thinking, “Wonder what they<br />

do there”.<br />

CNM has a 20-year track record training successful<br />

practitioners in natural therapies, in class and online.<br />

Colleges across the UK and Ireland.<br />

Visit naturopathy-uk.com or call 01342 410 505


FEATURE<br />

.............................<br />

Equality FC<br />

Levelling the playing field<br />

Photo by James Boyes<br />

“People said we were nuts,”<br />

says Lewes FC co-director<br />

Karen Dobres, of the club’s<br />

landmark decision to pay<br />

its female players the same<br />

as the men. The community-owned<br />

football club<br />

was – and remains – the<br />

only one in the world to<br />

have introduced equal pay<br />

for both sexes. One of the<br />

biggest arguments against<br />

it is that women’s football<br />

doesn’t attract the crowds that men’s football<br />

does, isn’t broadcast as often and therefore isn’t<br />

as lucrative – so it doesn’t make sense to pour the<br />

same funds into it.<br />

But attitudes are changing, as July’s Women’s<br />

World Cup – when 11.7m viewers tuned in to<br />

watch England play the USA – proved. And<br />

since launching Equality FC at Lewes in 2017<br />

Dobres says the average attendance figures for<br />

women’s games have jumped from 120 to 576<br />

in two seasons. Last December’s match against<br />

Manchester United women’s team attracted some<br />

2,000 people. That’s partly because they are good<br />

– one of the reasons for raising the salaries of the<br />

women’s team is their place in the FA Women’s<br />

Championship (equivalent to the Championship<br />

in men’s football). Its men’s team is non-league.<br />

“But we know a lot of the men and women now<br />

attending games and buying ownerships in the<br />

club are doing it in solidarity with the cause,” says<br />

Dobres, who joined the club as a volunteer to<br />

support Equality FC.<br />

“I was brought up in the 70s when football was<br />

male-dominated and associated with hooligans<br />

and louts. I always assumed the atmosphere at<br />

a match would be quite<br />

threatening and I just<br />

never felt it was a place for<br />

me. Then I went to see the<br />

women’s team play and I<br />

was blown away. When you<br />

watch women play football<br />

professionally you’re<br />

watching them undo decades<br />

of stereotyping. When<br />

I heard the club was going<br />

to be the first in the world<br />

to pay their women the<br />

same as their men, I had to get involved.”<br />

Levelling pay is just one element of the Equality<br />

FC campaign, however; the club is also investing<br />

resources into marketing and training, and into<br />

raising the next generation of players through its<br />

girls’ academies at Newman College, <strong>Brighton</strong>,<br />

and Plumpton College. Dobres often does school<br />

visits with one of their female players to show<br />

pupils what is possible.<br />

But fixing football’s gender imbalance isn’t going<br />

to happen overnight, she says: “Even some of the<br />

players who come to us don’t feel they deserve to<br />

be paid the same as men. Their passion for the<br />

game keeps them going but they automatically<br />

feel, when the funding is taken away from one of<br />

the women’s teams they have played for, that’s just<br />

what happens.” But she is proud Lewes FC at least<br />

has taken a step in the right direction. “Now we<br />

need to build on it. We need sponsors to invest in<br />

our team, we need people to become owners, we<br />

need to build on the great attendances at matches.<br />

We’ve already made history, now we want to<br />

change things in a lasting way.” Nione Meakin<br />

Support Lewes FC by becoming an owner from £40<br />

a year. See lewesfc.com for details.<br />

....85....


WE TRY<br />

.............................<br />

Wind farm and wildlife cruise<br />

with the <strong>Brighton</strong> Dolphin Project<br />

I have a love/hate relationship with the<br />

Rampion wind farm. I love that it is using<br />

the wind to generate renewable energy for<br />

hundreds of thousands of homes (enough for<br />

around half the homes in Sussex), but I don’t<br />

love how its 116 turbines and blinking red lights<br />

punctuate the horizon day and night. But the<br />

more I learn about it, the more it fascinates me;<br />

so I’ve signed up for a wind farm boat tour with<br />

the <strong>Brighton</strong> Dolphin Project.<br />

The <strong>Brighton</strong>-based World Cetacean<br />

Alliance (WCA) is the world’s largest marine<br />

conservation partnership and the <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

Dolphin Project (BDP) is its local initiative.<br />

The Sussex coastline is one of the most poorly<br />

studied cetacean habitats (that’s whales, dolphins<br />

and porpoises) in England and yet reported<br />

sightings are on the increase. Bottlenose,<br />

Common and White-beaked Dolphins and<br />

the rarer Harbour Porpoise all live in local<br />

waters. The BDP are studying these and other<br />

marine mammals all along the Sussex coast and<br />

working with local schools and communities to<br />

increase awareness about marine ecosystems.<br />

....86....


WE TRY<br />

.............................<br />

Their boat tours and wildlife walks are part of<br />

that initiative.<br />

I meet my ten fellow passengers one Sunday<br />

morning on the marina jetty and, after the<br />

regulation safety briefing, we’re soon heading<br />

out to sea. Our guides, Beth and Charlotte,<br />

are both studying for an MSc in Marine<br />

Environmental Management at the University<br />

of York and have joined the BDP for the<br />

summer whilst they carry out research.<br />

The conditions are not ideal – there’s an<br />

onshore wind and it’s almost too choppy to go<br />

– but we head out, pitching and rolling with the<br />

waves, making for the wind farm’s substation.<br />

It’s a bumpy ride but it’s glorious to be out on<br />

the water. Beth and Charlotte have plenty to<br />

tell us about the local marine wildlife, and we<br />

discuss the thorny issue of plastic pollution<br />

and the ethics of keeping cetaceans in captivity,<br />

as we go. I am of an age that I can remember<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong>’s own captive dolphins – Missie and<br />

Silver – who lived (now inconceivably) in<br />

the Victorian aquarium and performed in a<br />

subterranean pool. How our understanding of<br />

these intelligent creatures has changed. A great<br />

deal of the WCA’s work is about engaging the<br />

public and they were instrumental in Thomas<br />

Cook’s recent decision to stop selling tickets to<br />

captive dolphin shows.<br />

After 45 minutes we’re out at the substation and<br />

dwarfed by the huge turbines that turn, silently,<br />

overhead. As well as being a feat of engineering,<br />

I’m struck by just how graceful they are – the<br />

tip of the blades reaching 140 metres above the<br />

water’s surface.<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong> looks especially spectacular from out<br />

here, as does the coastline from Beachy Head<br />

to way in the west. After half an hour among<br />

the turbines, we head back to land, all the time<br />

scanning the blue-black surface for signs of<br />

dolphins. A family group was spotted by the<br />

substation very recently and Beth spotted three<br />

bottlenose dolphins just outside the marina the<br />

day before – but, if they are here, it’s too hard<br />

to distinguish their dorsal fins from the white<br />

horses of the waves.<br />

But I’m not disappointed. Quite the opposite.<br />

I feel happy and hopeful to know that they’re<br />

there. And that projects like Rampion and the<br />

BDP are working towards a more sustainable<br />

future – for them and for us.<br />

Lizzie Lower<br />

Windfarm and Wildlife Cruise £60<br />

Visit the <strong>Brighton</strong> Dolphin Project at their visitor<br />

centre at Studio 3, Lower Promenade,<br />

Madeira Drive (just below <strong>Brighton</strong> Palace Pier)<br />

and support their work by reporting your marine<br />

mammal sightings at brightondolphinproject.org<br />

Photo courtesy of the <strong>Brighton</strong> Dolphin Project<br />

....87....


ADVERTORIAL<br />

Use It or Lose It!<br />

Free Support to Help<br />

You Save the Planet<br />

Everyone is talking about climate change<br />

and reducing carbon footprints but it can be<br />

difficult to know where to start. That’s why<br />

we developed the Utilise Plus programme to<br />

support organisations who want to save both<br />

energy and money, no matter where they are on<br />

their sustainability journeys.<br />

“We want to spread the word that the EU<br />

funding that enables us to offer eligible<br />

organisations a quick, easy and free Energy<br />

Saving Review is running out. Participants<br />

will receive a tailored Energy Report that will<br />

include everything they need to know to help<br />

them to reduce their impact on the planet and<br />

save money too.” - Shelaine Siepel, Managing<br />

Director, Sustainable Business Partnership CIC.<br />

their energy bills by 27% on average.<br />

“I would encourage businesses to take<br />

advantage of the free Energy Saving Review<br />

provided by the Sustainable Business<br />

Partnership and explore what options are<br />

available – the results might be surprising!” -<br />

Marc Rickard, Finance Director, Park Cameras.<br />

These Reviews usually cost up to £1,000 so<br />

apply today and don’t miss out on this amazing<br />

offer – with Utilise Plus ending in <strong>September</strong><br />

<strong>2019</strong>, there’s no time to waste! Get in touch with<br />

the Sustainable Business Partnership CIC and<br />

see how an Energy Saving Review can help you.<br />

Visit: www.sustainablebusiness.org.uk<br />

Call: 01273 964239<br />

Email: info@sustainablebusiness.org.uk<br />

Tweet: @SustBusNetwork<br />

Utilise Plus has already supported hundreds of<br />

organisations and so far we’ve saved over 750<br />

tonnes of carbon emissions each year. That’s<br />

equivalent to taking 160 cars off the road for a<br />

whole year! What’s more, participants have cut


FEATURE<br />

.............................<br />

Ocean’s 8 <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

Environmental Octet<br />

It’s tempting to imagine that the members of<br />

Ocean’s 8 <strong>Brighton</strong> were brought together in a<br />

secret, underground bunker. In fact, the idea to<br />

form a crack team of some of <strong>Brighton</strong>’s most<br />

experienced environmentalists was hatched<br />

at last year’s Plastic Action Base Camp. “Mel<br />

[Rees] from <strong>Brighton</strong> Green Centre had just<br />

seen the Hollywood film and when she saw<br />

us on stage she immediately said, ‘Oh my<br />

God, it’s Ocean’s 8 but with plastic instead of<br />

diamonds,’” explains marine conservationist<br />

Atlanta Cook.<br />

Before long, they had teamed up with<br />

photographer Alex Bamford who shot a<br />

campaign photo of the eight women in the<br />

style of their film counterparts. In addition<br />

to Cook, whose campaigning began back in<br />

1991 when she founded the <strong>Brighton</strong> arm of<br />

Surfers Against Sewage, and Rees, who set<br />

up <strong>Brighton</strong> Green Centre in 2006, there is<br />

waste prevention activist Cat Fletcher; circular<br />

economy specialist Claire Potter; eco artist<br />

Chloe Hanks who created the Dirty Beach<br />

installation with fellow Ocean’s 8 member Lou<br />

McCurdy; Clare Osborn, host of the Clare Talks<br />

Rubbish environmental podcast; Amy Gibson<br />

who founded the Pier2Pier beach clean and<br />

Mala Nathan, whose work includes launching<br />

Refill <strong>Brighton</strong> to reduce single-use plastic<br />

water bottles.<br />

“So often, something becomes a hot topic –<br />

plastic pollution is one example – and we’ll have<br />

been working on it for years. We set up Ocean’s<br />

8 as a collaborative, cooperative consultancy<br />

partnership to showcase the years of experience<br />

and expertise within the group. It’s hard for<br />

environmentalists to get publicity – we don’t<br />

have marketing and advertising budgets – so<br />

we rely on campaigns. We hoped that the eight<br />

of us joining forces would give us that extra<br />

strength.”<br />

Cook is thrilled by the success of Ocean’s 8’s<br />

first ‘heist’, when they worked with <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

Pride to organise a silent disco beach clean<br />

of the seafront following August’s festivities.<br />

“Pride often gets bad press about the rubbish<br />

generated, but you see tonnes of litter on<br />

the beach after any Bank Holiday weekend<br />

in <strong>Brighton</strong>. We wanted to give them some<br />

support.” Around 800 people turned up to take<br />

part. “Over two tonnes of rubbish was collected,<br />

cleaned, sorted, recycled where possible or sent<br />

to Newhaven for incineration. There was a<br />

great atmosphere – passersby were hanging over<br />

the balustrades and clapping us.”<br />

Now the group have their sights set on changing<br />

our habits around single-use plastic cups. Singleuse<br />

plastics are a major issue says Cook, who has<br />

received information that fish sellers in <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

and Hove are starting to find plastic in the<br />

animals’ guts. “We’re trying to convince seafront<br />

traders to take up ‘<strong>Brighton</strong> cups’ – reusable solid<br />

plastic cups that can be recycled through the<br />

TerraCycle scheme, not branded to any venue<br />

and able to be returned to any venue. We know<br />

for sure that <strong>Brighton</strong> Dome and venues around<br />

Pavilion Gardens and New Road are interested<br />

but it’s about getting all the details right.” Watch<br />

this space… Nione Meakin<br />

oceans8brighton.online<br />

Photo by Alex Bamford<br />

....89....


ADVERTORIAL<br />

Turn dreams into reality<br />

Find the right architect for your home<br />

Do you know any architects? If you live in<br />

<strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove, you probably do. Slightly<br />

harassed people who have beautiful images<br />

of their projects on Instagram. But have you<br />

ever thought about how an architect could<br />

make your daily life and surroundings run more<br />

smoothly and sustainably?<br />

Your opportunity to meet a range of local<br />

architects to talk about ideas for your home<br />

or other space will be the Hove Design Day<br />

on Saturday 19 October. The Royal Institute of<br />

British Architects (RIBA) Sussex Branch will host<br />

the Design Day in Cornerstone Community<br />

Centre from 10.30am to 3pm. “Hove Design<br />

Day is the chance to bring along photos and<br />

sketch plans, find an architect you like the<br />

look of and get talking” says Paul Zara, Branch<br />

Chair. It’s a drop-in event, with no obligation<br />

to follow through with any of the 12 or so RIBA<br />

members who will each be ready to discuss<br />

your home design dilemmas.<br />

As Paul explains: “Architects are professional<br />

problem solvers. We’re trained to listen, then<br />

move forward the possibilities from there. So<br />

come along with some thoughts – and an open<br />

mind as well”. Architects’ roles are changing,<br />

with many taking increasing roles in community<br />

engagement. Although some practices still<br />

work in specialist areas such as building<br />

conservation or sustainability, boundaries are<br />

increasingly blurred. The RIBA, which declared<br />

a climate emergency earlier in the summer,<br />

is pushing for regulatory standards for new<br />

buildings and refurbishments to deliver net<br />

zero carbon by 2030 – including through<br />

training and support for all its members.<br />

The RIBA’s Sarah Miller, who is coordinating<br />

Hove Design Day for RIBA Sussex notes<br />

that, whilst there will always be a place for<br />

inspirational ‘Grand Designs’, it’s the smaller<br />

building projects that add up to pleasant<br />

communities and satisfying living for most of<br />

us. “Even the tiniest home can be re-ordered<br />

to save energy and make the best use of<br />

the space that you have. Architects apply<br />

objective, creative thinking to come up with<br />

ideas that will stretch your budget just that<br />

little bit further.”<br />

@RIBASouthEast


INTERVIEW<br />

.............................<br />

Justin Francis<br />

CEO and co-founder of Responsible Travel<br />

In 2002 <strong>Brighton</strong>-based Responsible<br />

Travel was one of the<br />

first travel companies to offer<br />

carbon offsetting to customers<br />

– where people pay to support<br />

an initiative that ‘cancels out’<br />

the carbon footprint of their<br />

trip (such as donations to tree<br />

planting, wind farms or community<br />

projects). Ten years ago,<br />

Responsible Travel became the<br />

first to stop offering offsets. CEO and co-founder<br />

Justin Francis tells us why.<br />

Why did your stance on carbon offsetting<br />

change? We felt offsets had become a dangerous<br />

distraction. They sum up all that is wrong with<br />

our approach to tourism and the climate crisis –<br />

they perpetuate the idea that the crisis does not<br />

prevent unlimited growth. They shift the moral<br />

responsibility for carbon reduction to someone<br />

else – something we absolutely do not want to<br />

encourage.<br />

Are carbon offsetting projects mere greenwashing?<br />

Even the very best schemes do not<br />

work. A 2017 study of offsets set up by the<br />

European Commission found that 85 percent of<br />

offset projects under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean<br />

Development Mechanism (CDM) had failed to<br />

reduce emissions. Even for the schemes that do<br />

work, we would like to see airlines and travel<br />

companies move away from offsetting, as this<br />

incorrectly offers a ‘guilt-free’ excuse to fly. We<br />

believe the industry needs to move to a carbon<br />

reduction strategy.<br />

What do you believe about the future of<br />

flying? Unfair tax breaks on aviation need to end.<br />

We support a Green Flying Duty to end the £6.6<br />

billion a year the aviation industry currently receives<br />

in tax breaks. The increase<br />

in price will reduce the demand<br />

for flying in the short term and<br />

the extra revenue raised should<br />

be ring-fenced for research and<br />

development for low carbon<br />

alternatives.<br />

What are some quick wins for<br />

reducing the carbon footprint<br />

of a holiday – rather than<br />

avoiding travel altogether? Decisions<br />

you make while on your holiday have a real<br />

impact. Where you stay and where you choose to<br />

eat have a significant effect on the emissions you<br />

generate. Look for accommodation using renewable<br />

energy where possible, buy local food, avoid<br />

domestic flights and take public transport.<br />

Responsible Travel offers holidays that seek to<br />

reduce CO2 impacts and support community<br />

development. Any examples? We know people<br />

will still want to travel, and indeed, travel can do<br />

a great deal of good. One example is an amazing<br />

company we work with in Mauritius. Their trips<br />

ensure that, once you are on the island, your<br />

carbon footprint will be as low as possible. They<br />

work closely with local people running eco-lodges<br />

and camp sites, and all their excursions around<br />

the island are non-motorised – for example, sea<br />

kayaking, horse riding and electric bikes.<br />

How do you research your CO2-conscious<br />

itineraries? Do you measure their impact? It<br />

involves continuous evaluation of options and alternatives.<br />

Measuring the impact is difficult, given<br />

how much two people’s behaviours can differ, even<br />

on the same trip, but we have a low carbon guide<br />

to help customers with these decisions.<br />

Rose Dykins<br />

responsibletravel.com<br />

....91....


01273 317403<br />

07879 573040<br />

info@plumberlewes.co.uk<br />

www.plumberlewes.co.uk<br />

Bathroom renovation | Boiler installation,<br />

service and repair | Small plumbing works<br />

1 Valence Rd, Lewes<br />

FIRST<br />

SESSION<br />

FREE!<br />

Asthma Eczema Bronchiolitis Acne Wheezing Coughs<br />

COPD Ear Infection Snoring Bronchiectasis Emphysema<br />

Tonsilitis Psoriasis Bronchitis Sinusitis Flu Hay Fever<br />

brighton@saltspace.co.uk<br />

www.saltspace.co.uk<br />

Tel: 01273 973843<br />

372-374 Portland Road, Hove BN3 5SD


FEATURE<br />

.............................<br />

DIYgogo<br />

The virtual skip<br />

Alexander Thomson<br />

had his idea for<br />

DIYgogo when he<br />

spent a year cycling<br />

to China. “I cycled<br />

through Kazakhstan”,<br />

he told me, “and it<br />

lent me so much perspective.<br />

The people<br />

had nothing, but had<br />

so much more than we<br />

do in our Western madness. Everything was so<br />

much more cherished.”<br />

When he got back to the UK, he says, he was<br />

“overwhelmed by the contrast”. And he decided<br />

to set up an enterprise with social purpose – to<br />

contribute some small difference.<br />

This was the birth of DIYgogo, a website<br />

designed to put people in touch with each other<br />

easily, so they can recycle, and access, unwanted,<br />

free building materials.<br />

“I work on a building site,” Alex says, “and the<br />

level of waste is stupendous. So, here’s the idea in<br />

a nutshell: you walk past a skip, and in it are a pile<br />

of bricks, or a bath, and you think that’s just what<br />

I need. Well, DIYgogo is like that virtual skip.”<br />

He’s been beavering away on his project – a notfor-profit<br />

social enterprise – for a couple of years<br />

now. The website had been live for four months<br />

when we spoke.<br />

So, how’s it going, I asked.<br />

One major challenge, Alex reports, is changing<br />

the mindset of building companies – whom he<br />

desperately wants to get onboard. “They all say<br />

it’s a fantastic idea, very needed,” he says. “But<br />

it’s hard to change the nature of the way people<br />

do business: they’re just not minded that way.”<br />

He’ll keep trying and, in the meantime, the site<br />

is live and available to anyone anywhere across<br />

the UK. Whether you’ve building materials to<br />

shift, or you’re looking<br />

to pick some up,<br />

log on and see what’s<br />

happening round<br />

here. The company<br />

has been concentrating<br />

recently on<br />

generating interest<br />

across the South East,<br />

especially in Lewes<br />

and <strong>Brighton</strong>.<br />

DIYgogo bills itself as an enterprise with both<br />

environmental and social objectives. Environmentally,<br />

it hopes to contribute to a more<br />

sustainable future. Socially, it wants to help the<br />

less fortunate members of our society. “We want<br />

to do this,” Alex tells me, “not just by enabling<br />

access to free materials, but we’d also like, over<br />

time, to grow to provide building-work training<br />

for young people. These skills have been lost.<br />

For so long, we’ve relied in this country on<br />

Eastern Europeans. Now we’re losing that<br />

work force – the pay’s not much better, so it’s<br />

no longer worth people’s while and, of course,<br />

Brexit’s looming. We’d like to help young people<br />

learn the skills they need to end up in employment<br />

in the building trade.”<br />

Currently, working on the project are Alex<br />

and a part-time partner, who does the marketing,<br />

mainly through social media. “We’re also<br />

looking to develop an app,” says Alex. “It’s what<br />

people are asking for today – an app that’s easier<br />

and quicker to use than going through a few<br />

steps on a website.”<br />

It’s the world we live in, we agree, shaking our<br />

heads.<br />

But if it helps enable good ideas, and new ways<br />

of working – like DIYgogo – well, maybe that’s<br />

not all bad… Charlotte Gann<br />

diygogo.co.uk<br />

....93....


Did you like<br />

what you read<br />

on page 85?<br />

JOIN THE CLUB:<br />

www.lewesfc.com/owners


FEATURE<br />

.............................<br />

Podo<br />

The perils of barefoot farming<br />

When Gail Davey first<br />

came across the disfiguring<br />

and dehumanising<br />

foot condition podoconiosis<br />

15 years ago, she<br />

knew she was in a position<br />

to help.<br />

She was working in<br />

Ethiopia as an epidemiologist,<br />

and was visiting a<br />

makeshift clinic where a<br />

withdrawn and unhappy teenage girl had been<br />

brought by her uncle.<br />

The week before, the girl had tried to kill herself<br />

because she realised that the swelling that<br />

had begun in her feet would not only lead to<br />

pain and disability, it would also mar her chances<br />

of education and marriage, and could even<br />

result in her being ostracised by her community.<br />

“It was such a sad story,” says Gail. “Any human<br />

being wants to help the person suffering in<br />

front of them. I couldn’t stay to look after her,<br />

but realised I could bring research skills to bear<br />

on the problem.”<br />

Gail learned that the condition, called podo<br />

for short, was likely to be caused by an irritant<br />

in red clay soils – prevalent at high altitude in<br />

humid climates – that affected barefoot farm<br />

workers, notably causing lymph problems in the<br />

lower limbs. But misconceptions about its cause<br />

had led to beliefs that it was infectious, or even<br />

that it could be ‘a curse from God’.<br />

Now Gail and her colleagues at the <strong>Brighton</strong> &<br />

Sussex Medical School’s Centre for Global Health<br />

Research are at the forefront of a strategy to eliminate<br />

the disease that’s endemic in Ethiopia and<br />

affects a worldwide population of four million.<br />

They have tested approaches to treatment and<br />

prevention, and trained<br />

more than 500 health<br />

workers in regions where<br />

podo is most common.<br />

They are also looking to<br />

identify the genetic link<br />

to the disease (as it affects<br />

some families more than<br />

others), and are testing<br />

local plant extracts to see<br />

if they would be suitable<br />

as topical treatments.<br />

“The most important part was to give communities<br />

the biomedical explanation to help them<br />

understand that it was not infectious,” says Gail.<br />

“We knew that the problem was with the soil,<br />

and that we had to create a barrier between it<br />

and the skin. So we encouraged simple hygiene<br />

practices, such as foot washing, and then bandaging<br />

to reduce the swelling.”<br />

In 2011 podo was identified by the World<br />

Health Organisation as a Neglected Tropical<br />

Disease, which led to support for the condition<br />

from the Ethiopian Ministry of Health. Gail set<br />

up a charity, Footwork, and created a partnership<br />

with a footwear manufacturer to distribute<br />

free shoes to children in affected communities.<br />

So far, more than 150,000 patients have been<br />

treated. With funding from the Wellcome<br />

Trust, Gail and her team are also now mapping<br />

the disease across other countries, including<br />

Rwanda and Cameroon, and plan to support<br />

clinics set up in those countries too.<br />

Her ultimate goal is to eliminate the disease in<br />

her lifetime. “It’s outrageous that anyone should<br />

be suffering from a condition that’s preventable<br />

with footwear and access to water,” she says.<br />

Jaqui Bealing<br />

....95....


my vet<br />

listens<br />

“I told my vet, that Queenie<br />

my cat was very anxious in the<br />

surgery. Now she’s given plenty of<br />

time to investigate the room and<br />

settle before they examine her.”<br />

Lara Havord, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

coastwayvets.co.uk<br />

If you are interested in<br />

a monthly delivery round<br />

please get in touch at<br />

distribution@vivamagazines.com


WILDLIFE<br />

.............................<br />

COMMON ANIMAL TRACKS<br />

FOX<br />

DOG BADGER CAT ROE DEER<br />

(Vulpes vulpes) (Canis familiaris watson) (Meles meles) (Felis catus) (Capreolus capreolus)<br />

Animal Footprints<br />

I will not celebrate meaningless milestones<br />

Illustration by Mark Greco<br />

I’m scrambling through the woodland undergrowth,<br />

anxious, sweating and clutching a 2kg<br />

pouch of white powder and a spoon. I may look<br />

like some Colombian cocaine smuggler, but<br />

I’ve got the perfect excuse for the police: “I’m<br />

researching my 100th article for <strong>Viva</strong>.” Since<br />

2011 I’ve been sitting down each month to<br />

write these wildlife articles, but for this month’s<br />

‘footprints’ issue I needed to get out and do some<br />

investigating.<br />

When I was a kid, I bought loads of books with<br />

names like ‘the amateur naturalist’ (not to be<br />

confused with ‘the amateur naturist’, a mistake<br />

you only make once). Each book promised to<br />

make you a wildlife detective and was filled with<br />

tips on tracking mammals in the countryside.<br />

Most British mammals are nocturnal and, after<br />

centuries of persecution, all of them are understandably<br />

rather wary of humans. We hardly ever<br />

see them. Yet these invisible animals leave behind<br />

tantalising clues which let us know they really<br />

exist; droppings, nibbled nuts, pellets. But the<br />

biggest giveaway of all are their footprints.<br />

Primitive mammals (such as Hedgehogs, Stoats,<br />

Badgers and you) are plantigrades. We stroll<br />

about on the soles of our feet and have five toes.<br />

When we run – to escape the drug squad for<br />

example – we use our toes and the balls of our<br />

feet. For the mammals who spend a lot of time<br />

running and jumping this basic mammalian<br />

plantigrade foot has evolved and adapted over<br />

time. Some animals have lost a toe (Foxes, cats,<br />

dogs, hares) while the real gymnasts, such as deer,<br />

leap around on two toes, and horses race on just<br />

one toe enclosed in a hoof. Like Sherlock Holmes<br />

with a foot fetish, you can examine each footprint’s<br />

formula of toes, claws and pads to deduce<br />

just who has been sneaking around at night.<br />

My books told me that, once you find a footprint,<br />

the best way to capture it is to make a<br />

cast – which explains why I’m crouched here in<br />

the undergrowth excitedly mixing up plaster of<br />

Paris powder and pouring it into a footprint in<br />

the muddy woodland floor. I’ve always wanted to<br />

do this since I was a kid but, well, I guess life got<br />

in the way. Now, sat proudly on my desk, I have<br />

my first footprint cast: a Badger (with five toes,<br />

a wide pad and obvious claws). A souvenir of my<br />

100th <strong>Viva</strong>. And somewhere out there is a Badger<br />

completely unaware that what it has created<br />

has been enjoyed by somebody; inspired them to<br />

learn more about wildlife and do something to<br />

preserve it. Which now I think about it, is all I<br />

have hoped for from these past 100 articles too. I<br />

hope I’ve made an impression.<br />

Michael Blencowe, Sussex Wildlife Trust<br />

....97....


INSIDE LEFT: LANGDALE ROAD, HOVE, 1907<br />

..........................................................................................<br />

One of the most impressive ‘footprints’ left<br />

behind by the Victorians was the drainage system<br />

they put in place throughout <strong>Brighton</strong> and Hove,<br />

a wonder of contemporary engineering designed<br />

and constructed by Sir John Hawkshaw between<br />

1871 and 1874.<br />

This followed a report in 1849 by Edward Cresy,<br />

inspector for the General Board of Health, who<br />

discovered that of 186 streets in the town, only<br />

32 were fitted with sewers. Instead waste was<br />

deposited into thousands of cesspits dug into the<br />

ground, which didn’t require emptying, as the<br />

sewage disappeared through fissures in the chalk.<br />

After heavy rain, however, it would return to the<br />

surface, and into people’s homes: he wrote of ‘stable<br />

manure oozing through adjacent walls.’ Poo!<br />

Unsurprisingly, water-borne diseases like<br />

diphtheria were rife. Dr Nathaniel Blaker, who<br />

worked at the Queens Road Dispensary, wrote<br />

of one outbreak: ‘its virulence was doubtless increased<br />

by… the fact that where imperfect drains<br />

existed they were never or seldom flushed.’<br />

Hawkshaw built a 13 mile long, 8 foot diameter<br />

brick sewer, which intercepted all the old sewers,<br />

and made a combined discharge at an outfall well<br />

into the sea, off Telscombe Cliffs, five miles from<br />

the town centre. Not an ideal solution, but better<br />

than it all washing straight down onto <strong>Brighton</strong><br />

beach, so popular with tourists. The new system<br />

could deal with up to 15 million gallons of<br />

sewage a day.<br />

After 1874, the situation improved dramatically:<br />

an efficient drainage and sewage system was built<br />

alongside any new developments, using manual<br />

labour, as we can see from this picture from the<br />

James Gray archive, taken in Langdale Road,<br />

Hove, in 1907. The two white-collar foremen are<br />

posing for the picture while their workmen are<br />

busy digging a trench below.<br />

The Victorian system has stood the test of time:<br />

it wasn’t fully updated until the mid-90s, when<br />

the <strong>Brighton</strong> & Hove stormwater tunnel, then<br />

the largest of its type in Europe, was constructed<br />

under the city’s beach-front, using tunnelling<br />

machines akin to those used to dig the Channel<br />

Tunnel. Hawksworth’s tunnels are still in use<br />

today, however, as raw waste canals. A valuable<br />

‘footprint’ indeed.<br />

Alex Leith<br />

Many thanks to the Regency Society for letting us<br />

use this image from the James Gray Collection.<br />

regencysociety.org<br />

....98....


Located in the sought-after<br />

Seven Dials district 0.8 miles*<br />

from Hove & <strong>Brighton</strong> stations<br />

15min stroll to the beach<br />

A unique opportunity to buy<br />

a new home in hove.<br />

ONLY 5% DEPOSIT<br />

REQUIRED<br />

Actual photography of development.<br />

OWN A NEW<br />

HOME IN HOVE<br />

with Shared<br />

Ownership<br />

2 Bedrooms<br />

from £148,750 *<br />

Beautifully crafted apartments<br />

boasting stylish open plan<br />

interiors, a private balcony<br />

and roof terrace<br />

3 Bedrooms<br />

from £201,250 *<br />

BOOK YOUR VIEWING TODAY<br />

shosales.co.uk/artisan<br />

0300 030 1042<br />

Prices and details correct at time of going to print. *Based on a 35% share<br />

of the full market value with a 5% deposit. Rent & service charges apply.<br />

Subject to terms and conditions. Eligibility criteria applies.


Scan to download<br />

the Course Guide!<br />

Email: admissions@escg.ac.uk<br />

Visit: www.escg.ac.uk<br />

Tel: 030 300 39699<br />

E A S T B O U R N E | H A S T I N G S | L E W E S | N E W H A V E N

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!