Viva Brighton Issue #79 September 2019
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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 />
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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 />
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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 />
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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....
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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 />
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14 SEPTEMBER <strong>2019</strong> - 19 JANUARY 2020<br />
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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 />
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...............................<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....
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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....
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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....
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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 ;)’
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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 />
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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 />
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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....
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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 />
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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 />
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The RIBA’s Sarah Miller, who is coordinating<br />
Hove Design Day for RIBA Sussex notes<br />
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@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....
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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....
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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....
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Lara Havord, <strong>Brighton</strong><br />
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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....
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