Viva Brighton Issue #45 November 2016

䌀䤀吀夀䈀伀伀䬀匀倀刀䔀匀䔀一吀匀㨀

vivabrighton 

Issue 45. November 2016 

EDITORIAL 

............................................................................. 

Is shopping addiction a real thing? This issue, 

dedicated as it is to all things shopping, gave rise to 

a debate on the subject in the Viva office. I think it 

is, but our deputy editor, Steve, harrumphed at the 

idea. A quick search throws up the term ‘oniomania’, 

describing ‘the compulsion to spend money, 

regardless of need or financial means’. One suspects 

that Brighton is to oniomaniacs what Las Vegas is 

to compulsive gamblers. Irresistible. 

I’m not sure I’m quite a card-carrying oniomaniac yet, but it’s true that I need very 

little encouragement to go shopping. I blame growing up in this city, where your 

every material desire is laid out in carefully curated displays by independent traders 

who have elevated shopkeeping to an art form. If we are, as the saying goes, a nation 

of shopkeepers, then isn’t it my patriotic duty? 

That, then, is the theme of this issue: retail as a creative trade, a serious craft, and 

perhaps even an art. Something which, in a city that does it so well, is well worth 

thinking about, writing about, and of course, doing. In moderation, though, please. 

THE TEAM 

..................... 

EDITOR: Lizzie Lower lizzie@vivamagazines.com 

DEPUTY EDITOR: Steve Ramsey steve@vivamagazines.com 

WRITER/ACTING ART DIRECTOR: Rebecca Cunningham rebecca@vivamagazines.com 

PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE: Adam Bronkhorst, mail@adambronkhorst.com 

ADVERTISING: Anya Zervudachi anya@vivamagazines.com, Hilary Maguire hilary@vivamagazines.com, 

Nick Metcalf nickmetcalf@vivamagazines.com 

CONTRIBUTORS: Alex Leith, Alexandra Loske, Amy Holtz, Andrew Darling, Ben Bailey, Cara Courage, 

Chloë King, Di Coke, JJ Waller, Jay Collins, Joda, Joe Decie, John Helmer, Julia Zaltzman, 

Lisa Devlin, Lizzie Enfield, Martin Skelton, Nione Meakin and Norman Baker 

Viva Brighton is based at Brighton Junction, 1A Isetta Square, BN1 4GQ 

For advertising enquiries call 07596 337 828. Other enquiries call 01273 810 259 

Every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our content. We cannot be held responsible for any omissions, errors or alterations.

CONTENTS 

............................... 

Bits and bobs. 

8-25. The lowdown on our cover, and 

how to ‘blip’ it. Plus Joe Decie on niche 

shopping in North Laine, an ernest 

magazine recommendation, and a toilet 

graffito so good that it’s worth mentioning 

in Contents. 

45 

Photography. 

27-31. Hip young cameraslinger Ian 

Dickson, on photographing the original 

punk scene. 

My Brighton. 

32-33. Cricket-loving ex-RAF man Bert 

Williams MBE, best known for uncovering 

Brighton’s wealth of black history, 

and spreading the word about it. 

27 

Columns. 

35-39. Amy Holtz’s problem is Minnesota 

Nice, John Helmer’s is unruly hair, and 

Lizzie Enfield’s is a ‘spate’ of breakfastfood-related 

crimes. 

32 

On this month. 

41-55. A ‘professional loser’ in Antarctica, 

17th-century medicine, Paddy Ashdown, 

witches, beatboxing, Ladybird books for 

adults, and more. 

....5 ....

CONTENTS (CONT) 

............................... 

Art, design and making. 

56-69. Lisa Holdcroft tells us about 

documenting, with her sketchpad, the 

construction of the i360. Plus a high-end 

lingerie designer, a fun-but-dull-todescribe 

craft lesson, and our new localart-scene 

round-up. 

80 

The way we work. 

71-75. It’s easy to forget how visually 

interesting corner-shops are: Adam 

Bronkhorst’s portraits this month are a 

reminder. 

Food and drink. 

77-85. We boldly order from a restaurant 

menu we can’t understand, wade 

into the chorizo-paella debate, try some 

algorithm-tailored coffee, and learn three 

intricate tapas recipes. 

88 

56 

Features. 

86-97. We discover how a chance incident 

led to the founding of GAK, what 

the Open Market was like in the days of 

rationing, and the importance of watercooler 

conflict resolution. Plus the 

stories of three iconic Brighton shops, 

past (Hanningtons), present (Snoopers 

Paradise) and future (John Lewis). 

Inside Left. 

98. British Home Stores’ Western Road 

branch, in happier times. 

....6 ....

Christmas 

at Middle Farm 

Aromatic English-grown Christmas 

trees, locally-made hedgerow 

wreaths. Original gift ideas and 

delightful decorations. 

Middle Farm, Firle, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 6LJ 

Christmas order line 01323 811411 

info@middlefarm.com www.middlefarm.com

THIS MONTH’S COVER ART 

.................................................. 

....8 ....

SHERLOCK STUDIO 

.......................................... 

This month, the image you see on the front of 

your Viva is only one element of our cover. If 

you’ve used the augmented-reality app Blippar 

before, you’ll have recognised the ‘blip me’ logo 

and you’ll probably already have blipped away to 

discover our trail of exclusive special offers, from 

12 hand-picked independent retailers across the 

city. If not, turn to pg 10 to find out more. 

The interactive cover was the idea of Sherlock 

Studio, a retail and graphic design agency based 

in North Laine. Managing Director Tony Lock 

explains: “The beauty of it is that, in a world 

in which we’re seeing multinational companies 

gaining a greater share of retail, while the smaller 

shops are closing down, we’re using cuttingedge 

digital technology to drive business to our 

independent retailers. It’s a case study of how 

both traditional and modern retailing can co-exist 

peacefully and positively.” 

The cover design was a collaborative effort, as is 

often the way at Sherlock. “Nothing ever stays 

on one person’s desk,” Tony says, “so our work 

benefits from the input of multiple creative 

minds. At the same time, the studio’s signature 

style is inside everyone’s heads - which is a great 

point to reach in the studio. In the case of this 

cover, we were inspired by 60s character design 

and revived that flat, cut-out style, reminiscent 

of 60s illustration. It was exciting for the studio 

to work with Blippar technology and combine it 

with traditional illustration - it’s something we’ll 

inevitably see more of in future.” 

One of the projects they’ve recently completed is 

a ‘barista lab’ for Korean brand Lusso, comprising 

a café space, a roastery, retail areas and its 

own ‘theatre’ for training and demonstrations. 

“Retail isn’t just about selling people goods anymore, 

it’s about creating a customer experience. 

People can smell the coffee roasting when they 

walk in, they can see the beans, they can sit and 

relax and drink a cup - it’s a sensory experience. 

“We work with a lot of national retailers, and 

they want to know what trends are emerging on a 

local level. Being based in Brighton is a real selling 

point for us because we’re next to the small, 

grassroots businesses which are setting the trends 

in retail. Coffee shops are a really good reflection 

of that; we’ll often benchmark what’s happening 

in business by what’s going on in coffee shops. 

“As well as our retail projects, we have a growing 

list of children’s educational and literacy charities 

that we work with. Those sorts of projects, 

especially local ones, are really important for us, 

as we don’t think you can exist in North Laine 

without embracing the community around you.” 

Sherlock recently designed a pop-up creative 

space for Brighton & Hove charity Little Green 

Pig. “We usually get a lot of creative freedom on 

those projects, which keeps things interesting for 

our design team - nobody wants to work on the 

same thing day in, day out.” 

Rebecca Cunningham 

sherlockstudio.co.uk 

....9 ....

BLIPS AND BOBS 

............................... 

BLIP OUR COVER FOR READER OFFERS 

We’ve teamed up with 12 fab independent Brighton 

shops to offer Viva readers some exclusive deals, including 

discounts, limited edition Viva tote bags… 

and free beer. In effect, we’ve created a ‘trail’ of 

some of our favourite retailers in town for you, our 

readers, to follow; all you have to do to get started 

is learn how to blip. And that’s easy. 

Blip? Blippar is a state-of-the-art bit of technowizardry, 

a ‘virtual discovery’ browser, using your 

smartphone’s camera to ‘recognise’ an image. It’s 

a bit like QR codes, but Blippar 

can recognise any image - in 

this case, the cover of the magazine. Download the app, blip that image, and a 

window opens on your screen, detailing exactly what’s on offer, and your Viva 

code to show at the till. 

Follow the three easy steps below, then, to be able to get onto the trail, which 

incorporates these shops, carefully selected by Viva: Bison Beer (7 East 

Street), Brass Monkeys (109 Portland Road), Butlers Wine Cellar (247 

Queens Park Road and 88 St George’s Road), Homage (34a Bath Street), 

Julian Stephens Goldsmith (37 Gloucester Road), Kemptown Bookshop 

(91 St George’s Road), Magazine Brighton (22 Trafalgar Street), 

Mister Smith (23 New Road), Specky Wren (1-2 Marshals Row), Wick 

Candle Boutique (120 Portland Road), Wigwam (140 Preston Drove) 

and Workshop (13a Prince Albert Street). 

What are you waiting for? Get blipping, and hit the streets! 

Go to vivamagazines.com for more details and the terms and conditions. 

Download the Blippar 

app. It’s free, and available 

for Android, Windows or 

iPhone. Find it in your 

app store or on Google 

Play. 

Open the app and hold 

your phone up to the 

front cover to ‘blip’ it. 

Fill the screen with the 

cover and hold it still for a 

few seconds. 

The ‘blip’ will automatically 

launch, 

showing you the full list 

of offers available from 

independent retailers 

across the city. 

....10....

BITS AND BOBS 

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CHARITY BOX #8: RISE 

Rise supports anyone who’s affected 

by domestic abuse in 

Brighton and Hove, with refuge 

accommodation, counselling, and 

financial advice. We have specialised 

teams working with families 

and children, and LGBT people. 

Our helpline receives over 4,000 calls per year; the 

overwhelming majority are from women, followed by 

LGBT people. That number is increasing hugely - it’s 

gone up by 47% in a six-month period - and although 

we can’t say for certain why, we hope part of the reason 

is that people are getting more confident that if they 

report something, they will be listened to and believed. 

We’ve been asked to pilot a new scheme in Brighton 

called ‘Ask Me’, led by Women’s Aid. We’re looking 

for Community Champions to come forward: a 

hairdresser, a tattoo artist or somebody who works with 

a housing association… anybody who’s 

involved in the local community. We’ll 

provide training on recognising signs 

of domestic abuse, how to ask questions 

safely and appropriately, and how to 

signpost victims of abuse to our services. 

We need to change the conversation 

around domestic abuse, and get rid of this idea that 

it’s a private affair. If we knew someone was being bullied, 

we’d speak out. Many survivors say people around 

them knew what was going on, and their silence made 

things worse. If you suspect a friend or family member 

may be in an abusive relationship you can find advice 

on our website. Rebecca Cunningham spoke to Naomi Bos 

RISE is hosting a series of events marking ‘16 Days to 

End Violence Against Women and Girls’ from the 25th. 

@riseuk / riseuk.org.uk. If you’ve been affected by domestic 

abuse call RISE freephone 0300 3239985. 

ToppingTiesMysteriousMasks 

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Fountain 

UniqueUmbrellasSexyScarves 

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95 St Georges Road,BN2 1EE 

www.barbarylane.co.uk 

Find us on facebook! 

Illustration by 

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Download the curing perfect app and discover a world of imperfection. 

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BITS AND BOBS 

............................... 

JJ WALLER’S BRIGHTON 

“Stepping away from the identikit shopping experience of Churchill Square you can buy 

just about anything,” says JJ Waller. “Despite all the swanky choice, my picture for this 

edition ironically captures the delights of Poundworld in London Road.” We’re not sure 

whether this cardboard cut-out is actually for sale; we suspect, or like to believe, that it’s 

part of a social experiment - will people be subconsciously influenced by a picture of a 

policeman, and spend less time loitering with intent? 

....13....

ASK THE 

LEGAL 

EXPERT 

How it works and how it can help you. 

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Legal advice on your terms 

Got a question about how the law applies to a 

situation or problem you’re having? 

We can help you with up to 45 minutes of 

one-to-one friendly advice and guidance, with 

the certainty of a fixed price. 

QualitySolicitors 

Howlett Clarke 

01273 838 674 info@howlettclarke.co.uk 

Offices in Brighton & Southwick 

BOOK NOW: VIVIENNE WESTWOOD 

Following the publication of Get a Life! - excerpts of her diaries since 2010 - Dame Vivienne Westwood will be in 

conversation with Caroline Lucas at the Dome on Friday 18th. Just what does a fashion designer, political activist, 

punk pioneer, global fashion icon and knickerless grandmother do all day? Expect stories about trips up the Amazon 

to beleaguered rainforest communities, visiting Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, and driving a tank 

to David Cameron’s Cotswolds home in a protest against fracking. ‘My diaries are about the things I care about,’ 

Westwood has said of her latest book. ‘Not just fashion but art and writing, human rights, climate change, freedom. 

I call the diaries Get a Life! as that’s how I feel: you’ve got to get involved, speak out and take action.’ 7.30pm, 

£13.50 from the Dome ticket office and City Books, 23 Western Rd. brightondome.org / city-books.co.uk 

....14....

BITS AND BOBS 

............................... 

DI COKE’S COMPETITION CORNER 

This month our competition prize is a £50 

voucher to spend at Posh Totty Designs, one 

of Brighton’s most popular jewellery and gift 

shops. The voucher can be spent in store, 

online or even on a PTD Makes craft class (see 

pg 69). For this month’s challenge we’d like 

you to take a photograph that represents your 

own sign of the zodiac. Feel free to be creative 

- you might prefer to draw or write your entry, 

and then take a photograph. Share your photo 

along with a caption on Instagram, using the 

#VivaBrightonComp hashtag. If you don’t have 

Instagram, email your entry to competitions@ 

vivamagazines.com before 30th November 

2016. The most creative and original photo 

will feature in the January issue. Terms and 

conditions can be found at vivabrighton.com/ 

competitions. 

Established in 2004, Posh Totty sell gold & silver jewellery, unique gifts and homeware, handmade by 

a team of designers in Brighton. Visit their flagship store (on Sydney Street) or try a craft class at PTD 

Makes (off Bond Street). poshtottydesigns.com, @PoshTottyDesigns 

COMPETITION WINNER 

In September I set readers a challenge to find as many 

languages as they could in our wordsearch grid. Several 

readers managed to find 18, and Tamar Daly was chosen at 

random to receive a free course from Cactus Languages. 

I also have an apology to make - an ‘i’ was omitted from 

Ukrainian - this was a genuine mistake rather than a cunning 

red herring! 

Di Coke is very probably the UK’s foremost ‘comper’, having won over 

£300,000-worth of prizes. For winning tips and creative competitions, 

check out her blog at superlucky.me and SuperLucky Secrets book. 

....15....

VALUATION DAY 

Jewellery and Antiques 

Tuesday 29 November 

10am to 4pm 

ENQUIRIES 

01273 220000 

hove@bonhams.com 

VENUE 

The Courtlands Hotel 

19-27 The Drive 

Hove BN3 3JE 

Bonhams specialists will be 

at The Courtlands Hotel, Hove to 

give free and confidential advice 

on items you may be considering 

selling at auction. 

A FANCY COLOURED DIAMOND 

AND DIAMOND CLUSTER RING 

Sold for £146,500 

bonhams.com/hove 

Prices shown include buyer’s premium. 

Details can be found at bonhams.com 

Steyning Grammar School 

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Year 9 (13 years old) and Year 12 (16 years old) Places Available for September 2017 

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other” Ofsted Outstanding Sept 2015 

raising standards 

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Voluntary Controlled 

For further details on the School, Sixth Form College, curriculum and prospectus, visit our website 

www.sgs.uk.net or call Suzie Plimmer, the Boarding Registrar, on +44 (0) 1903 817601 

twitter.com/sgsboarding 

facebook.com/ sgsboarding

JOE DECIE 

............................... 

....17....

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BITS AND BOBS 

............................... 

PUB: JW LENNON’S 

Painting by Jay Collins 

Check out old photos of Brighton and you can see 

that before the widening of Edward Street in the 

sixties, it was much more like its neighbour St James 

Street: narrow, and lined with shops and pubs. James 

Gray, the photo archivist, recorded that earlier in 

the 20th century ‘one in every three buildings in 

Edward Street was a beerhouse’. Now there are just 

two, The Jury’s Out and, a bit further up the hill, 

JW Lennon’s. 

The latter pub was so named in August 2010, when 

it was taken over by Drink In Brighton, and given an 

Irish-American make-over, with sawdusty wooden 

floors and a jumble of Victorian-era decorations, including 

a rowing boat on one of the walls. They had 

open-mic nights and live bands and huge hotdogs 

and attracted a lively crowd of twenty-somethings. 

But not enough, presumably, as they sold the operation 

on in November 2010 ‘to a bloke called Phil’. 

I pop in one late Friday lunchtime, and am told 

by the Irish barman they don’t do food; he serves 

me the cheapest pint of Kronenbourg I’ve had in 

Brighton for several years (£3.50) and I go and sit 

down with it, checking out the décor (unchanged 

since its DIB days, boat and all) and the clientele 

(a couple of old guys reading the paper, a cheerful 

chap watching the cricket and a young trio chatting 

earnestly about the differences between San Francisco 

and Brighton). One of them is brought a pint 

of Guinness by said barman, who tells her, proudly, 

that ‘it’s been poured as it ought to be poured’. I 

realise I’ve blundered, and make a mental note to try 

the porter next time. 

A sign on the wall tells me the bit of the pub I’m 

sitting in used to be a greengrocer’s; the original 

pub (which was called the Leconfield Arms until 

2010) used to be split in two, with a public bar and 

a lounge. It’s hard to imagine this: both must have 

been tiny. The far windows must date back to that 

period, as ‘private bar’ is written into the elegant 

lead-panelled window panes. The pub is first listed 

in 1867, named after the then Lord Lieutenant of 

Sussex, George Wyndham, Baron of Leconfield, 

owner of Petworth House. The little pub would 

have been a far cry from the stately mansion: 

Edward Street was on the edge of the first Brighton 

area to be slum cleared, as early as 1898. Alex Leith 

....19....

BITS AND BOBS 

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SECRETS OF THE ROYAL PAVILION: 

THE FASHIONABLE STEYNE, C.1797 

© Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove 

This small watercolour and gouache painting 

from c.1797 in the collection of the Royal Pavilion 

and Brighton Museums is by the amateur 

artist James Bennett (not to be confused with 

the Victorian oil painter of the same name), who 

created a number of simple but evocative images 

of Brighton between the 1790s and the 1810s. 

Most of them focus on the seafront, but in this 

one the artist ventures a little bit inland, its main 

intention being to capture the east front of the 

Marine Pavilion, as it was then known. It is not 

a hugely accomplished painting, and leaves a lot 

to be desired when it comes to perspective and 

architectural accuracy, but it paints a vivid picture 

of Brighton in its heyday as a seaside resort. 

The Pavilion as we see it here, viewed from the 

east side of the Steine looking west, is still more 

or less the architect Henry Holland’s building, 

created for the Prince of Wales in 1787. It has 

bow-fronted wings, a circular central room with 

a shallow dome (which still forms the roof of the 

Saloon but is now topped with John Nash’s large 

central onion-shaped dome, added in 1818) and 

a neo-classical colonnade. By the mid-1790s, 

....20....

BITS AND BOBS 

............................... 

plans were being made for considerable changes 

and additions to the building, for example two 

conservatories, placed at either end of the building 

at c.45-degree angles, but these were not put 

in place until 1801. Instead, we can see a number 

of structures and ornaments that would later be 

obscured or demolished. Adorning the top of 

the colonnade, for example, are seven neo-classical 

coade stone figures. These were removed 

sometime between 1801 and 1804, despite 

the Pavilion largely retaining its neo-classical 

exterior until 1817. Immediately to the left and 

the right of the building low red-brick structures 

are visible. These were curved walls, essentially 

blocking the view of the original kitchen area 

to the north of building, and the house of Louis 

Weltje, the Clerk of the Prince of Wales’ kitchen 

(and much more), to the south. 

Behind Weltje’s house (the one with the small 

shuttered windows) we can see the top of the 

Countess of Huntingdon’s church, first built in 

1761, later rebuilt, and eventually demolished 

in 1972. In the distance, high on a hill, is St 

Nicholas of Myra, the parish church. At a right 

angle to Weltje’s house, behind dense planting, 

is the original stable block, which would later 

be replaced by the grand Royal Stables on the 

north-west side of the estate (now the Dome). In 

the foreground on the right, pushing their way 

into picture, are the ‘blue-and-buff’ Georgian 

townhouses on the Steine, which still survive. 

Apart from recognisable buildings and structures, 

this charming picture provides a glimpse into the 

two worlds that formed Brighton in the late 18th 

century: that of fashionable society and royalty 

and that of the long-standing fishing industry. 

There are well-dressed women parading the 

Steine, joined by smart men on horseback. A 

brightly-coloured horse-drawn carriage is pulling 

up by the ‘blue-and-buffs’, and a movable royal 

sentry box is placed by the low fence enclosure 

of the eastern Pavilion lawns. Yet we also get a 

sense of the messiness of Brighton, with a dog 

running around on a non-manicured lawn, and 

fishermen’s nets casually thrown over the Steine 

fencing, perhaps discarded, perhaps hung there 

to be dried. Two worlds colliding? They seem to 

be merging here quite harmoniously. 

Alexandra Loske, Curator, Royal Pavilion Archives 

This and many other lesser known and unusual 

images of the Royal Pavilion Estate will be shown 

in a new display titled ‘Visions of the Royal Pavilion 

Estate’ at the Prints & Drawings Gallery in 

Brighton Museum, 14th March to 3rd Sept 2017. 

Over the next few months Alexandra will focus on 

more highlights from the display in this column. 

brightonmuseums.org.uk 

....21....

23 New Road 

Brighton 

BN1 1UF 

01273 605574 

sales@mistersmith.co.uk 

www.mistersmith.co.uk 

Croft Road 

Crowborough 

TN6 1DR 

01892 664152 

info@mistersmith.co.uk

BITS AND BOBS 

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MAGAZINE OF THE MONTH: ERNEST 

I like shopping. I like choosing 

things for people (including me), 

looking at how stuff is marketed 

and sold, experiencing the many 

different kinds of service, and 

watching other people shop. 

Let me qualify that. I can’t stand 

anything that’s remotely like Oxford 

Street in London after 11am 

most mornings, wherever that 

place is. So perhaps I should say I 

like shopping when I can make it 

relatively calm. 

Which is probably why we always wanted to be in 

Trafalgar Street. One minute from the station, full 

of independent shops and close to hundreds more, 

but mostly calm and relaxed... except when huge 

lorries try to break the window of coffee@33 as 

they turn into the street. 

It suits us. I’m not sure we think of ourselves as 

a ‘shopping’ destination; more a place to come to 

for a reward when the shopping is done. A large 

proportion of our mags are designed to be lingered 

over, slowly and calmly over time. 

ernest is a great example. It’s a 

pocket-sized magazine about slow 

adventures, slow food and slow 

workmanship. It’s for the slightly 

eccentric and curious, or, as they 

say, ‘people who like a craft gin 

cocktail and people who like 

to whittle.’ It’s one of our very 

best sellers. In the current issue, 

themed around time, travel and 

solar exploration, you can read 

about Vancouver Island, cryonics, 

the origins of the vindaloo, how to 

make a herbal first-aid kit, the fisherman’s smock, a 

futurist cookbook, bothying and much more. 

And here’s the shopping link. One of the ways 

ernest helps the people it admires is to build 

directories of people who sell lovely, lovely things. 

If - and I doubt this somehow - Brighton can’t fulfil 

your seasonal shopping needs this year, ernest can 

help. I’ve already spotted a beautiful egg cup, an 

ash trivet and a lovely vase. Now, who can I gift 

them to? 

Martin Skelton, MagazineBrighton 

TOILET GRAFFITO #22 

Our toilet-graffiti correspondent can see the writing 

on the wall. Or rather the lack of it. If publicans keep 

up their campaign of tiling pub toilets, graffiti is going 

to go the way of the Betamax, and our correspondent’s 

livelihood with it. 

In fact, we couldn’t have said it better that the subversive 

genius who came up with this groutfiti: ‘can’t live 

if living is with grout you’. 

More power to you, whoever you are. We see what 

you did there, and we salute you. 

Last month’s answer: Fortune of War 

....23....

BITS AND BOBS 

............................... 

SPREAD THE WORD 

Here we are, living dangerously, with Ines Calouri 

at the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica. Considered, 

volcanically speaking, to be in the first flush 

of youth, it was inactive for hundreds of years until 

1968, when it unexpectedly erupted, laying waste to 

the small town of Tabacón. There have been no further 

rumblings since December 2010, but still, it’s 

not somewhere we’d want to linger. 

And that’s us again, with Dave and Clare Hughes, 

from Preston Park, and a cowboy, in Fort Worth. 

They took VB 43 on a recent three-week tour from 

Austin, Texas, via Route 66 through Oklahoma and 

up to Kansas City, then on to Chicago. A real highlight, 

for them, 

was all the music. 

From live country 

at the Continental 

Club, to 

the Oklahoma 

Jazz Hall of 

Fame, and Ravi 

Coltrane playing 

a tribute at 

Chicago’s Jazz 

Showcase on 

what would have 

been his father 

John’s 90th birthday. 

Every road trip deserves a great soundtrack. 

Don’t forget to take us on your trips, and send your 

pics to hello@vivamagazines.com 

ON THE BUSES #19 

DAME ANITA RODDICK (Route 12) 

In the mid-70s, 

Anita and Gordon 

Roddick were running 

a health food 

restaurant in Littlehampton. 

They 

had two young children. 

Inexplicably, 

Gordon thought it 

would be a good time to try to fulfil his ambition 

of riding a horse from Buenos Aires to New 

York, which would take at least a year, maybe 

two. Anita needed a way of earning money during 

this time; she decided to open an ethicaland-natural 

cosmetics shop, which she called 

The Body Shop, on Kensington Gardens. 

To take on such a project, and make it such a success, 

one would have to be a ‘pathological optimist’. 

One would have to somehow combine an 

opinionated, free-thinking hippy mentality with 

a strong work ethic and sound business brain, 

plus enough charisma and PR-savviness to attract 

loads of free publicity. And, luckily enough, 

it appears she had all those qualities. 

‘Roddick concocted the early products in her 

kitchen, gave them exotic names, sold them in 

recycled urine sample bottles (initially to save 

money), and painted the interior of her shop 

dark green to hide the damp patches and mould,’ 

notes the Dictionary of National Biography. As this 

shoestringy venture grew to become a multinational 

company worth hundreds of millions, 

Roddick kept up her radical, opinionated-outsider 

stance. 

Her business style, she suggested in one interview, 

involved ‘saying very simple things, 

like why not? Why should I leave my values at 

home? Why can’t I campaign for human rights? 

I do that normally, so why the hell can’t I bring 

it in to work?’ 

Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com 

....25....

眀漀爀搀猀㬀椀洀愀最攀猀㬀猀琀椀洀甀氀愀琀椀漀渀㬀搀攀氀椀最栀琀㬀搀攀猀椀最渀㬀 

猀洀攀氀氀㬀瀀愀瀀攀爀㬀瀀愀猀猀椀漀渀㬀猀栀愀爀椀渀最 ☠ 愀渀搀猀氀漀眀 

琀栀攀眀漀爀氀搀漀昀最爀攀愀琀椀渀搀椀攀洀愀最猀椀猀栀攀爀攀椀渀䈀爀椀最栀琀漀渀 ⸀ 

㈀㈀吀爀愀昀愀氀最愀爀匀琀爀攀攀琀 

洀愀最愀稀椀渀攀戀爀椀最栀琀漀渀 ⸀ 挀漀洀 

䀀洀愀最戀爀椀最栀琀漀渀 

洀愀最愀稀椀渀攀戀爀椀最栀琀漀渀

PHOTOGRAPHY 

.......................................... 

Ian Dickson 

Punk’s not dead, just middle aged 

Ian Dickson gave up photographing 

bands about ten 

years ago, when he came to 

the conclusion that, after 

nearly 40 years in the business, 

he had “lost his muse”. 

He then entered “phase 

two” of his career: documenting 

and marketing his 

photos. “I make much more 

from my archive than I 

made taking it,” he says, and 

cites the eye-watering price 

he gets for an original print of one of his photos 

of, say, The Clash in 1977, when it sells in a Los 

Angeles gallery. 

The idea that his photos of punks have become 

considered ‘fine art’ makes him smile, and he 

winces at the way he treated his negatives back in 

the days when he would rush back from a sweaty 

concert to his dark-room off Regent Street to 

develop and print his photos in time to deliver 

them to the printers by 4am. Ian worked as a 

stringer for the NME - then selling 270,000 copies 

a week - between 1972 and 1974, then got a job on 

rival weekly Sounds. It was there he bumped into 

the punk movement, with which he has ever since 

been associated. “It was ‘lucky’ really: a case of 

being in the right place at the time,” he says, doing 

finger-gesture inverted commas around ‘lucky’ to 

show that there was a bit more to it than that. 

He reckons punk as a significant musical movement 

was all over by 1980 (“once Thatcherism got 

going and Adam Ant took over”) but its ethos - of 

rebelling against the establishment and not being 

afraid to do everything on 

your own terms - is still 

with us. He’s full of great 

nuggets about the bands 

and what they stood for. “A 

lot of the punk-rock bands 

stepped off the pub-rock 

scene stage, then stepped 

straight back on again with 

shocking hair and different 

clothes,” he says. He often 

found that photographing 

the audience was as 

rewarding as photographing the bands: many of 

the punters were in a punk band themselves. 

I speak to Ian in his Brighton house - he moved 

here in 1999 having been recommended to do so 

by his mate Brian James, of The Damned - and 

the black-and-white prints which adorn his living 

room and hall remind you that the punk explosion 

was just one of many different styles of music he 

covered: subjects include BB King, and Ray Davies 

of the Kinks. “I was the official tour photographer 

for Roxy Music in the 70s,” he says, “and for 

Frankie Goes to Hollywood ten years later.” 

But it is for his still-immediate punk-related photos 

that he will always be best remembered, hence 

the timely exhibition of a selection of his prints 

- alongside others by the NME’s Kevin Cummins 

- at Brighton Museum this winter. Punk, definitely 

not dead, is turning forty: here are some intimate 

images from its infancy. Alex Leith 

Photo-punk - 40 images from the birth of punk by 

Ian Dickson and Kevin Cummins. Brighton Museum 

& Art Gallery, 22nd Nov - 5th Mar 2017 

....27....

PHOTOGRAPHY 

............................... 

X-Ray Spex, 1977 The Clash, 1977 

....28....

PHOTOGRAPHY 

............................... 

The Sex Pistols, 1976 

....29....

PHOTOGRAPHY 

............................... 

Shane MacGowan, 1977 

....30....

PHOTOGRAPHY 

............................... 

Siouxsie and the Banshees, 1977 

....31....

Photo by Adam Bronkhorst, adambronkhorst.com 

....32....

INTERVIEW 

.......................................... 

MYbrighton: Bert Williams MBE 

Brighton Black History man 

Do you live in Brighton? I do, I do. I’ve been 

living in Brighton since 1967. I live in the same 

house with the same wife and the same two kids. 

My connection with Brighton started when my 

two sisters were recruited from Jamaica in the 

50s. They were some of the first black nurses at 

Brighton General Hospital. They came over in 

1955 and 1957 as 18-year-old girls, straight from 

the country. They loved it. It was freedom. I came 

over when I was 16 but had to wait until I was 

seventeen and a half to join the Royal Air Force. 

When did you first come to Brighton? I first 

visited my sisters on the 31st of August 1960, 

and Brighton was all colour. They took me to 

Preston Park and it was one of the most beautiful 

parks I’ve seen. Then we went to see the Royal 

Pavilion, which I was blown away by. Then we 

went to the Palace Pier and that was a knock out. 

I just couldn’t understand how they could build it 

on the sea. 

How did you get involved with Black History 

Month? When I retired from the NHS, I 

started doing voluntary work with a group called 

Mosaic, which is a black and mixed parenting 

group with around 2,000 members. You’ve got to 

remember that the BME people in Brighton are 

quite isolated. They don’t live down one street, 

so really the only way they see each other is if 

they go to a meeting or a function. I asked the 

children, “If we had an office, what would you 

like to see?” and this little kiddie, he said “I’d like 

to see more about my culture and heritage”. But 

the only thing I could tell them is what I know, 

about Jamaica, and I felt really bad so I asked the 

library if they had any black history and I was 

quite disappointed really. They said ‘there’s no 

need really in Brighton because there’s not a lot 

of BME people in Brighton. This was in 1992 but 

when I started looking I found loads of it and I 

couldn’t believe it... There’s so much stuff. The 

more you look... 

Where’s your favourite place in the city? 

Oh man, when I have visitors, I like to show off 

Brighton. I love the Downs and the Chattri is a 

touching place. I love the seafront, but you take 

it all for granted and only appreciate it when 

visitors come. When children come down from 

London I take them down the beach by the King 

Alfred; down there the beach belongs to them… 

What’s your local? When I played cricket I used 

to be in the Ladies Mile pub all the time. Playing 

darts on a Sunday morning. When you play 

cricket you end up in a lot of pubs and private 

clubs. I played for Brighton Hospital. Oh man, 

we had a good side. Couldn’t beat St Francis 

Hospital, in Haywards Heath, mind you. Because 

they were a psychiatric unit and employed a lot 

of men from Sri Lanka, India or the Caribbean. 

A lot of the male nurses came from Barbados and 

they were always good at cricket. Better than us 

really. We’d go and poach them. 

When did you last swim in the sea? Listen, I 

went to Jamaica and didn’t even go in the sea. I 

did roll my trousers up but I wouldn’t go in. It’s 

definitely too cold. No, I’m a country person, not 

a seaside person. Brighton is a beautiful place, it 

is and it’s got such a history. I’ve had a good time 

in Sussex. It’s beautiful. Interview by Lizzie Lower 

....33....

䌀唀刀刀䔀一吀䰀夀䄀嘀䄀䤀䰀䄀䈀䰀䔀䄀吀 

䴀刀䘀䄀䌀䔀䠀䄀䤀刀䄀一䐀䴀䄀䬀䔀唀倀 

匀䄀䰀伀一䄀吀匀䔀嘀䔀一䐀䤀䄀䰀匀 

䌀漀洀攀愀渀搀最攀琀挀爀攀愀琀椀瘀攀眀椀琀栀 

甀猀愀琀漀渀攀漀昀漀甀爀挀爀愀昀琀 

眀漀爀欀猀栀漀瀀猀琀栀椀猀眀椀渀琀攀爀 ℀ 伀甀爀 

猀洀愀氀氀愀渀搀昀爀椀攀渀搀氀礀挀氀愀猀猀攀猀眀椀氀氀 

昀攀愀琀甀爀攀猀攀愀猀漀渀愀氀洀愀欀椀渀最 

愀栀攀愀搀漀昀䌀栀爀椀猀琀洀愀猀 Ⰰ 昀爀漀洀 

洀愀挀爀愀洀瀀氀愀渀琀栀漀氀搀攀爀猀琀漀 

瀀漀洀 ⴀ 瀀漀洀眀爀攀愀琀栀猀 ⸀ 夀漀甀挀愀渀 

攀瘀攀渀最椀昀琀猀漀洀攀漀渀攀愀挀氀愀猀猀 

眀椀琀栀漀甀爀䴀愀欀攀猀瘀漀甀挀栀攀爀猀 Ⰰ 愀渀 

椀搀攀愀氀䌀栀爀椀猀琀洀愀猀瀀爀攀猀猀椀攀昀漀爀 

挀爀愀昀琀氀漀瘀攀爀猀 ⸀ 䠀攀愀搀漀瘀攀爀琀漀漀甀爀 

眀攀戀猀椀琀攀昀漀爀洀漀爀攀椀渀昀漀爀洀愀琀椀漀渀 

愀渀搀栀漀眀琀漀戀漀漀欀 ⸀ 䐀椀搀眀攀 

洀攀渀琀椀漀渀琀栀攀昀椀稀稀 ☀ 挀愀欀攀漀爀 

戀爀椀渀最礀漀甀爀漀眀渀㼀

COLUMN 

........................................... 

Amy Holtz 

The truth is, I’m a Minnesotan 

“No. I want FUL milk. FUL.” 

There’s a collective shift in the 

queue. The man behind me 

clears his throat, which sounds 

- and I could be imagining this 

- a bit like, “Grrrrr.” 

“The milk is there. On that 

little stand.” The barista turns 

her back with an air of finality. 

There’s a tiff brewing at the 

coffee shop. Apparently not 

everyone likes their milk sans 

saturated fats, which is fine. But this is the second 

time the full-milk seeker has returned to the till, 

and now her face is on the turn. 

I think that’s what’s happening anyway. I’ve been 

staring in intervals at a painting on the wall of a 

naked purple woman for sale for the very reasonable 

price of £40, and the Victoria sponge in the 

glass case in front of me. Both are speaking to me 

in sexy voices. The cake sounds like Mel Giedroyc, 

I realise, slightly disappointed at my subconscious’ 

lack of imagination. 

But now, the New Zealander in the coffee shop is 

staring at me. For support. This realisation sends a 

tremor of panic through me. This is partially due to 

a condition I have called ‘Minnesota Nice’, which, 

I’ve mentioned, crops up now and again. It means 

that when someone hands me a steak, even though 

I ordered the fish, I smile weakly and pretend I’m 

delighted. It means that when a shop person is 

unhelpful, or downright rude, I think, illogically, 

‘Perhaps they just need a hug’. It’s not even genetic, 

so I don’t know how I got it; my dad is notorious 

for going around drive-throughs twice (frequently 

to my utter teenage mortification) 

to demand a top-up 

of the Diet Coke some poor, 

minimum-waged soul had 

failed to fill to his exacting 

requirements. 

My shoulders lift unconvincingly 

in reply. I go to 

this coffee shop just to avoid 

this kind of confrontation - 

the confrontation of choice. 

Asking for milk that’s not 

already provided, is, with my condition, the psychological 

version of poking a bear in the eye with a 

flaming stick. It just isn’t worth it. 

A growl sounds behind me again. The woman is 

leaning over the counter now, after a sharp look 

in my direction. ‘Thet over there is lite. Not ful.’ 

There’s an ‘idiot’ lingering in her breath. 

But since I know what it’s like - someone deliberately 

misinterpreting your unregal vowel 

pronunciation, I suck it up. My voice comes out in a 

squeak. “I think she wants whole milk.” 

“Hole milk?” The barista’s nose wrinkles momentarily 

before, blessedly, her face clears. “Oh, 

WHOLE milk.” She wrenches the lid off the cup 

and sloshes a cow’s morning’s work into the remaining 

space before crushing the lid back on with her 

palm. She looks at both of us expectantly. 

“Thanks?” I say, even though I haven’t actually 

bought anything yet. My condition is in full flare 

today. I smile at the lady in front of me, with her 

time-intensive coffee, making a mental note to 

track down some sort of anti-nice pill that might 

sort me out. 

....35....

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Cosmetic Skin Care, Health & Wellbeing 

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Holistic Health Clinic, 53 Beaconsfield Rd, BN1 4QH 

─ 挀愀猀栀洀攀爀攀樀甀洀瀀攀爀猀愀渀搀 

挀愀爀搀椀最愀渀猀昀漀爀眀漀洀攀渀愀渀搀洀攀渀 

䘀爀攀攀倀 ☀ 倀眀椀琀栀挀漀搀攀㨀嘀䤀嘀䄀㘀 

洀椀猀琀礀挀愀猀栀洀攀爀攀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀簀㈀㜀アパート㐀㠀㜀

COLUMN 

........................................... 

Lizzie Enfield 

Notes from North Village 


The eggs, they said, had been traced to one 

particular shop. They were, this being the North 

Village, organic and fairly traded with added Vitamin 

D and spirulina, which obviously helped trace 

them to the particular shop. 

The bread, too, was easily identified, which says a 

great deal about the area, its shops and the type of 

crime here. 

To say there’s been a ‘spate’ of incidents wouldn’t 

be right because, much as I like to call a spate 

a spate, I don’t think two counts and, to date, 

there have only been two. But that’s enough to 

get people talking and wondering what exactly is 

going on… 

In the first, a house was ‘egged’. Probably kids, 

people thought, a little annoying but no harm 

done, though the day was hot and the combination 

of eggs, sun and windowpanes meant some of them 

fried onto the windows and were difficult to get off. 

But that would probably have been that, were 

it not for the fact that two days later one of the 

neighbours spotted something on the back of his 

open-top mid-life-crisis car - I say this although 

he’s getting on a bit, so really more of a later-life 

crisis, but nevertheless his pride and joy and whatever 

it was needed closer inspection. 

“It looks like a leaf,” I said but, on the closer inspection, 

it turned out to be half a slice of bread. 

“Probably dropped by a seagull,” I said, but on 

closer inspection still, there was practically a whole 

loaf of bread, torn into pieces and strewn all over 

the leather upholstery of the pride and joy. 

I stuck with my seagull theory until the owner bent 

down and retrieved a whole loaf from the footwell 

by the pedals. 

“You think a seagull dropped that?” he asked. 

“Flour Pot Bakery organic gluten-free seeded,” 

said his daughter, recognising the loaf and its 

provenance at once. 

“Maybe kids,” I abandoned the seagull theory and 

was about leave him to ‘de-bread’ the car when a 

new theory occurred. 

“Perhaps it’s part of some kind of continuing art 

installation?” 

“Er?” 

“There’s a bit of a breakfast theme going on. First 

eggs, then bread, maybe in a couple of days there 

will be rashers of bacon draped artfully over a bush 

in someone’s front garden, like the spaghetti trees 

on Blue Peter, or baked beans arranged in mosaiclike 

images on the pavement…” 

“I think you were probably closer with seagulls,” he 

says. “And you were miles off with that.” 

“Or maybe a marketing campaign,” I persist. “Because 

all the ingredients come from ‘the village.’ 

Some sort of ‘shop local’ art installation…” 

“You’re a writer, right?” he says. 

“Right,” I say, sensing he thinks this might be a 

case of overactive imagination. 

He may be right but still, I’m looking out for Barfield’s 

organic sausages. Fruit from Fiveways Fruits 

used in some imaginative way. 

More imaginative than simply thrown against 

windows or scattered on car seats, I hope. 

....37....

Brighton Steiner School 

Roedean Road, BN2 5RA 

OPEN EVENING 

Thursday 17 th November 6pm to 7.30pm 

“An alternative to mainstream education for pupils aged 3 to 16 years” 

Information and bookings: 01273 386300 

E: enquires@brightonsteinerschool.org.uk 

W: brightonsteinerschool.org.uk 

Registered Charity No: 802036

COLUMN 

........................................... 

John Helmer 

Rug realignment 


“Do you think I need a haircut?” 

Normally my wife’s answer to this question would 

be a tactful ‘maybe’, or - ‘it looks quite good at the 

moment’… But today her response snaps back fast 

and low over the net. 

“Yes.” 

For a second I wonder whether it’s the steroids. 

Kate is in a country called Chemotherapy, a kind 

of moral Colombia where heavy drug use and 

looming existential threat paint things in harsher 

colours; where patience for merely first world 

problems is quite understandably limited. 

One glance in the mirror, however, tells me that 

the bluntness in her tone has nothing to do with 

drugs. Things have got out of hand. Without noticing, 

I’ve somehow strayed beyond the precincts 

of ‘creative’ hair into homeless-person territory. 

When I don my cycling helmet in the mornings, 

I recall, greying strands are starting to poke out 

horizontally, like roof-aerial wires. 

“I’ll call Nathan,” I say. 

“You could try, but… Nathan has dislocated 

his elbow: I saw it on Instagram.” 

“Dislocated isn’t broken, though, is it? Some 

people can dislocate limbs at will. That’s 

how Harry Houdini did his tricks.” 

“Nathan’s a hairdresser, not an escapologist.” 

Nathan’s salon, it turns out, knows less 

than Instagram. “I’m sorry, we have no 

idea when he’ll be back in action. Try 

again next week.” 

“You could go somewhere else,” suggests 

Kate, gently pointing out that there are in 

fact six hairdressing establishments within 

a couple of minutes of us at Fiveways. 

“Six!” 

“Count them.” 

We go for a walk. “There’s that one over there 

with the big windows …” 

“That’s a hairdresser’s? I thought it was a nail bar.” 

“—And Alan’s Gents’ Hairdressers.” 

I survey a faded shopfront lettered in the typeface 

time forgot. “—Is that the one near the smelly 

drains?” 

We turn into Preston Drove. “Streakers.” 

“I don’t need streaks.” 

“Val Cussell?” 

“It looks a bit gender-specific?” 

“Well what about Solution barbers, over there - or 

LJ’s: they do men? And they don’t have smelly 

drains.” 

The thing is, I explain, Nathan doesn’t just cut 

hair. He’s an artist. He does interesting things. 

“…He lived in a cabin in the woods for six months 

like Henry Thoreau… We have interesting 

conversations, Kate. With Nathan I don’t have to 

pretend to be interested in football, or feel bad 

about not having tattoos…” 

“Look… let’s think about it over coffee.” 

“OK but where? We’re spoilt for choice here 

aren’t we: North Village, Tilt, The Deli, The Old 

Bakehouse, Flour Pot Bakery, Hop & Vine..? It’s 

all hairdressers and coffee shops round here. Can’t 

get a wet-fish shop, but…” 

I run fingers through my unruly rug, holding it 

back against the chill wind that wants to blow it in 

my eyes. It seems to be lengthening by the minute. 

Why can’t Nathan be well? The unfairness of life. 

Turning, I notice an amused expression on the 

beautiful face under the headscarf. “At least you’ve 

got hair.” 

....39....

TOM ODELL 

Fri 4 Nov 

THE STYLISTICS 

Fri 18 Nov 

Chrismas 

Book now for your festive season 

DEACON BLUE 

Sun 20 Nov 

BILLY CONNOLLY 

Mon 21 - Wed 23 Nov 

Sat 3 Dec 

Sat 3 Dec 

Sun 4 Dec 

Sat 10 Dec 

Etsy Christmas Market 

Christmas Open Day 

Brighton Philharmonic 

Orchestra: The Best of 

British Film Scores 

Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus 

box office 0844 847 1515 * 

www.brightoncentre.co.uk 

*calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge 

Sun 11 Dec 

Fri 16 – 

Tue 20 Dec 

Brighton Festival Chorus 

Christmas Concert 

A Winter’s Trail 

Sunday 13 November — The Latest Music Bar 

Anaïs Mitchell 

+ Jarlath Henderson 

Tuesday 15 November — Rialto 

Matthew and Me 

+ support 

Tuesday 6 December — The Marwood 

Laura J Martin 

+ support 

Saturday 21 January — All Saints Centre, Lewes 

Lewes Pscyhedelic 

Festival 2017 

Tue 20 Dec 

Mon 26 – 

Fri 30 Dec 

Sun 1 – 

Mon 2 Jan 

The Big Christmas 

Singalong 

Catch Me! (Attrape Moi) 

Alice in Wonderland 

Friday 18 November — The Haunt 

Joan As Police 

Woman & Benjamin 

Lazar Davis 

+ Fil Bo River 

Monday 21 November — Concorde 2 

Julia Holter 

+ Circuit des Yeux 

+ Charlie No. 4 (DJ) 

Saturday 3 December — St. George’s Church 

Low: A Christmas 

Performance 

Thursday 16 February — The Marwood 

Marry Waterson 

& David A. Jaycock 

+ support 

Monday 27 February — The Greys 

Jim Causley 

+ support 

Friday 3 March — Concorde 2 

The Handsome 

Family + Courtney 

Marie Andrews 

01273 709709 

brightondome.org 

Resident Music (Brighton) 

Music’s Not Dead* (Bexhill) 

Union Music Store* (Lewes) 

Pebbles Music* (Eastbourne) 

The Vinyl Frontier* (Eastbourne) 

Wow and Flutter* (Hastings) 

Venue if applicable 

*depending on show 

Songkick.com 

dice.fm 

seetickets.com 

ticketweb.co.uk 

Images: Catch Me! 

Age restrictions may apply. 

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LOCAL MUSICIANS 

.......................................... 

Ben Bailey rounds up the Brighton music scene 

THE WYTCHES 

Fri 4, Concorde2, 7pm, £10 

Puncturing the pressure 

of expectations that had 

been building since their 

wildly successful 2014 

debut, The Wytches put 

out an EP earlier this year that was recorded in a 

garage and released on cassette. Did this mean that 

album number two - arriving a few months later in 

September - was able to stand on its own merits? 

Well, yes and no. Kristian Bell’s anguished vocal 

howls and surf guitar lines are no longer the focus, 

and they’ve got a keyboard player onboard, but 

the new material hasn’t shifted gear quite enough 

to offset the angsty image that the band always 

claimed was misleading. For some, this will be a 

relief. Though most of The Wytches have now 

relocated back to Peterborough, there’s bound to be 

a riotous homecoming vibe to the Brighton leg of 

their UK tour. 

NORMANTON STREET 

Fri 11, Concorde2, 11pm, £8 

A lot of local bands seem 

to disappear when their 

music finds an audience 

elsewhere, but despite having 

upcoming dates in Paris 

and New York, Normanton Street are keen to keep 

their roots grounded in their adopted hometown 

of Brighton. This one-off club gig sees the soulful 

and stylish quartet inviting their likeminded musical 

friends to join them on stage for a late-night party. 

Donuts, the DJs responsible for the ever-popular 

Tuesday hip-hop night at the Green Door Store, 

are on the bill alongside Tru Thoughts’ J-Felix - a 

singer, musician and DJ whose contribution reflects 

the funk and soul side of Normanton Street’s fusion 

of styles. 

KUDU BLUE 

Thurs 17, Hope & Ruin, 8pm, £5 

Having landed 

support slots with 

Hiatus Kaiyote and 

Bipolar Sunshine, 

local five-piece Kudu 

Blue are now benefitting 

from some decent airplay on national radio. 

Their laidback and soulful electronica echoes 

both 90s trip hop and the garage sounds that came 

afterwards, which is probably part of the reason for 

the band’s success. Another factor is that they’re 

slick with it, too. Formerly of Brighton indie band 

Forestears, the primary school friends at the core 

of the group made a name for themselves as remixers 

before their current project started in earnest 

a few years ago. That background is evident in 

the shades of different styles present in the band’s 

songwriting and the subtle layering that goes into 

their recordings. 

SEALINGS 

Fri 25, Green Door Store, 7pm, £4 

Few bands have much success when describing 

their own music, but Sealings’ album-blurb 

reference to ‘misery offset by melody’ would seem 

pretty apt if the phrase itself didn’t have such a 

nice ring to it. There’s nothing nice about the 

music made by this anonymous Brighton trio 

- after all, the album in question is called I’m A 

Bastard. The stark drum machines and eerie synths 

might tempt a casual listener to peg them as some 

kind of industrial band, but it’d be closer to the 

mark to think of Sealings as wayward art rockers 

intent on out-noising My Bloody Valentine and/or 

Jesus and Mary Chain. The only thing that stops it 

getting too dark is the fact the aural clatter makes 

it impossible to work out what the sinister singer 

is on about. 

....41....

CLASSICAL 

..................................... 

Medicine and Mortality 

Satoko Doi-Luck from Ensemble Molière 

How would you 

describe French 

Baroque music? It’s 

beautiful, exquisite, 

sometimes calm, 

sensual, sensitive, sentimental, 

passionate, 

colourful and deep. 

The ‘Medicine and 

Mortality’ piece that 

you are performing 

at this year’s 

Brighton Early Music 

Festival has narration 

- how does that work? We placed the pieces 

of music in a narrative flow, and have narration 

between the works to bring the whole story and 

the music together as one. 

Do you find narration helps the audience to 

engage with a story? Definitely. We believe it 

enables us to draw the audience into the world of 

the story as well as the music and sound. Hopefully 

we transform the venue into a scene from 

17th-century Paris in winter. 

How did the story of it being a day in a 17thcentury 

French hospital come about? The 

programme evolved from Marin Marais’ unique 

Le tableau de l’opération de la taille; the combination 

of spoken text, virtuosic playing and overarching 

drama is incredibly exciting and served to inspire 

the ensemble. Each player went on to find pieces 

that excited them and engaged with the theme. 

Together the ensemble worked these pieces into 

a tale of a Parisian gentleman in a hospital. The 

incorporation of an original script has been a new 

challenge for the ensemble and we have thoroughly 

enjoyed writing, re-writing and tweaking 

the tale of this fellow. 

Explain how music can be ‘medically themed’. 

Music can be themed in various ways - descriptive, 

theatrical, and imaginative. 

This piece 

of Marais’ describes 

the actual operation 

of a bladder-stone 

removal without 

anaesthetic. Marais 

wrote a short description 

of each scene 

on top of the music 

score, for example, 

“Knotting the silk 

restrains for arms 

and legs”, “Then the 

stone is drawn”, and “Blood flows”. We will also 

perform the theatrical and imaginative Deadly Place 

and Sleep by the great composer Jean-Philippe 

Rameau. 

Do you compose your own music? Personally, 

yes, but not for Ensemble Molière. However, I 

arrange a lot for the ensemble which enables us 

to play a wider repertoire and helps us to create 

narrative programmes. Having studied composition 

helps a lot. 

Do all five instruments and musicians have 

equal roles? The five instruments are equally 

important in different roles. We can all take the 

lead, and different roles include melody line, inner 

harmony, counterpoint, obbligato, continuo, and 

numerous others, depending on the piece in question. 

For baroque music, however, harmony is one 

of most important elements. 

If you didn’t play the harpsichord, what instrument 

would you play? I love all period instruments, 

but I especially like the sound of the viola 

da gamba; to me it’s so close to the human voice - 

it once made me cry within five seconds as the way 

it was played was so touching. Julia Zaltzman 

Friends’ Meeting House, Sat 5th, 1pm, £12/£10 

bremf.org.uk 

Photo by Harry Roth 

....42....

JAZZ 

..................................... 

Charles Mingus 

Andy Pickett on the angry jazz genius 

Photo by Tom Marcello 

You might have heard stories 

about Charles Mingus. 

Chasing a fellow musician 

across the stage with an axe; 

sitting on stage watching a 

portable TV in protest at 

an inattentive audience; the 

23-women-in-one-night 

thing; the breakdown and 

temporary withdrawal from 

music; the multiple marriages; 

the fallings-out with 

bandmates, etc. 

But ‘jazz’s angry man’ 

was also a hugely talented 

bandleader and composer. 

His work somehow blends 

the feeling of avant-garde 

chaos with a joyous catchiness. 

It’s brilliant. And when I interview Andy 

Pickett, from the Mingus Underground Octet, he 

seems to be steering me, rightly, away from the 

dramatic-life-story stuff, and towards discussion 

of the music itself. 

“It’s very easy music to like,” Andy says. “Not 

easy to play, but it’s easy to like. You’ve got these 

different influences, the rootsiness of the gospel 

music, the church music, the sophistication of Ellington 

and his classical background, the bebop, 

the hard bop… There’s vaudeville elements as 

well, I think, with some of it. 

“It’s very political music. I think in a way it’s a 

reflection of who he was as a person. He’s not 

easy to categorise, he’s a very troubled, complex 

person, and I think the music reflects that. It’s 

easy to get into, and yet there’s very complex elements, 

very angry elements as well. 

“It was radical in the sense that he was doing stuff 

that nobody else was doing. Although he was very 

much in the tradition as well. For me, there’s a lot 

of stuff that’s in common with 

Duke Ellington’s music. 

“But he was very much 

ploughing his own path. You 

look at the music scene as 

it is today, one of the things 

perhaps you could trace back 

to Mingus is the idea, the collective 

side of improvisation. 

There was a time when a lot 

of jazz followed the same format, 

where you have a theme, 

then the musicians take solos, 

and then you play the theme 

out. Now there seems to be a 

lot more arranged music, with 

much more of a collective 

dimension to it. 

“You know, it is on record 

that he was very difficult to work with. There’s 

lots of incidents of him falling out with musicians, 

to the point where he’s become physically 

violent. There’s a famous incident of him busting 

[trombonist] Jimmy Knepper’s teeth, and throwing 

cymbals and that sort of stuff. But at the same 

time, the music was so great and so exciting, 

musicians wanted to work with him, despite that 

reputation. 

“Let’s not forget that, as well as being a composer 

and bandleader, he was a phenomenal bass player, 

with an energy and drive in his playing which is 

very much part of the music as well. So I’m sure, 

once you started playing, you’d just be being 

caught up with that energy, that collective thing. 

It must have been very exciting.” 

Steve Ramsey 

The Mingus Underground Octet were formed in 

2014 to perform the music of Charles Mingus. 

They play the Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham, 

Wed 16th, 8pm, £10. mingusunderground.co.uk 

....43....

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TALK 

..................................... 

Antarctica 

‘A continent synonymous with losers and failure’ 

A former Artist in 

Residence for the British 

Antarctic Society, 

Chris Dobrowolski is 

an expert on thermal 

underwear and snow. 

Here he talks to Viva 

about making art in a 

blank white space. 

What were you 

thinking, asking to 

be sent to the most 

inhospitable place on earth? I was doing a workshop 

with this bloke, called ‘Re-evaluating Success’. 

He’d say, ‘This is Chris, everyone. Chris is going 

to be the case study - because, as well as being an 

artist, he’s also - more importantly - a failure’. I 

was essentially paying the rent on my bedsit being 

a professional failure when I saw the residency 

advertised. There’s Captain Scott’s disastrous attempt 

to get to the South Pole, Shackleton failing 

to cross the Antarctic, and it’ll be an environmental 

disaster when it all melts. It’s an entire continent 

synonymous with losers and failure - and I thought, 

‘I’m your man!’ 

It’s hard not to think of Antarctica as a big 

white expanse. Does your artwork attempt to 

frame that space and make it knowable? Part 

of the project was building a sledge out of golden 

picture frames and taking it on a journey. I also took 

loads of ‘pretend Antarctic things’ - rubber whales, 

plastic penguins, toy sledges - kitsch things like that. 

Then I’d photograph them in the Antarctic so when 

they came back they’d be ‘real’ pretend Antarctic 

objects. I’m not trying to recreate a real thing; I’m 

making another ‘real’ 

thing - an artsy way of 

putting it! 

The show leads up to a 

place I was trying to get 

to called Sky Blu. It’s a 

base that’s only open in 

the Antarctic summer, 

because there’s a naturally 

occurring hard-surface 

runway. Everything about 

it - geographically and 

culturally - is nothing. It’s the nothingness of it that 

I find fascinating. There’s something called a lowcontrast 

day - the sky’s white and you can’t see any 

of the lumps in the snow or the horizon; everyone’s 

walking around on this blank white sheet of paper. 

Why do you think we are fascinated by the Antarctic? 

The Antarctic is like the moon in the sense 

that it’s difficult to get to; getting there has a way of 

authenticating the most banal of objects. A lot of it 

is a play on that old-fashioned notion of exploration; 

one of the things I dwell on in the show is 

the [late-1950s] Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic 

Crossing - they called it the ‘last heroic age’ in 

expeditions. We just don’t do that anymore. 

What’s it like to relive Antarctica with an audience? 

I love the attention. When I first did the 

show, everyone who turned up was in their late 50s 

or early 60s. One explained, ‘This was our moon 

landing. When it happened, all of us were of that 

age where it captured our imaginations.’ Brighton’s 

different though, I’m expecting a much broader 

selection of people. Amy Holtz 

Antarctica, Brighton Dome, Tues 15th, 7.30pm, £10 

....45....

FILM 

.................................... 

Cinecity 

Gimme Danger... and a three-hour German comedy 

The much-loved Brighton film festival Cinecity returns 

for its 14th year this month. Co-director Tim 

Brown shares some of this year’s highlights… 

This year’s theme is ‘adventures in world cinema’, 

which is what we have been championing for 

the last few years. In this year, of all years, it seems 

even more important to be exploring and absorbing 

other cultures. 

There’s such a broad range of countries represented 

this year - Afghanistan, Nepal, Japan, Singapore, 

Brazil, Cape Verde, Albania, Romania, Egypt, 

South Korea, Iran. And most of the films come 

garlanded with awards from other international 

festivals - it’s the cream of the international crop. 

This is an area of cinema that needs a bit of 

nurturing and support. There is so much good 

foreign-language stuff being produced, but there is 

a lack of screen space for it, which means it can be 

hard for these films to find an audience. Fortunately, 

we know there is an audience for them in Brighton. 

We like to focus on films that are inherently 

cinematic - in other words, works that can only 

be properly appreciated on the big screen. We also 

place an emphasis on first features and debuts, which 

can be a challenge when it comes to marketing. 

What we’re often saying is, ‘this is a film by a director 

you’ve never heard of and featuring a cast you 

don’t recognise, but trust us - it’s worth watching.’ 

There’s a lot of talk these days about ‘event cinema’, 

and in some cases Cinecity is a pure form of 

that. This is probably the only chance UK audiences 

will have to see certain films, for example, The Wolf 

and the Sheep (pictured), which doesn’t have a UK 

distributor. It’s a fantastic film set in a rural Afghan 

community where the children are the masters of 

the village. It’s made by 27-year-old Shahrbanoo 

Sadat, who’s the first female feature director to come 

from Afghanistan. 

Then there’s Limite, one of our archive screenings, 

which is a really beautiful and fascinating film 

made in 1931 by Mexican director Mario Peixoto 

when he was just 21. It turned out to be the only 

film he ever made. It was lost for decades until a 

recent restoration, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever 

seen - hallucinatory, evocative and intense. 

I wouldn’t say I had a favourite genre, although I 

really enjoy watching documentaries at the moment. 

Gimme Danger, the Jim Jarmusch documentary 

we’re showing on Iggy and the Stooges, is especially 

great, and is exactly what you want a music documentary 

to be. 

The film I’d recommend everyone sees is a 

three-hour German comedy called Toni Erdmann 

that we’re keeping for our closing night. I 

know it doesn’t sound appealing, but I promise you 

it’s fantastic. It was a massive hit in Cannes, and in 

fact got the highest critical rating any film has ever 

had there. This is a great chance to see what lots of 

people are saying will be the film of next year. 

As told to Nione Meakin 

CineCity, various locations in Brighton & Hove, 11th– 

27th. cine-city.co.uk 

....46....

MUSIC 

..................................... 

Captain Sensible 

On that Damned anniversary tour 

The Damned - Captain Sensible live at the Royal Albert Hall © Dod Morrison 2016 

How will you be celebrating 

The Damned’s 40th anniversary? 

By spreading our own peculiar 

brand of joy and happiness - with 

a 21-date UK tour. As it’s the 40th 

anniversary of its release, we’ll 

be performing Damned Damned 

Damned (the UK’s first ever punk 

album) at Brighton Dome in its 

entirety. After which I’d imagine 

we’ll all need a swift drink, so an 

intermission would seem in order. 

Followed by the best of the rest, 

ie, the other 39 years. 

Do you ever play your solo hits with the band? 

That’s a bit controversial… I’d understand if my 

colleagues were miffed when I did the solo thing, 

but as an ex bog cleaner I wasn’t going to tell the 

bloke from A&M to stick the contract up his arse. 

No, I signed up and had a few fabulous years as Britain’s 

most unlikely pop star. The problem is, Happy 

Talk was such a monster that people don’t bother 

checking out my self-penned songs, some of which 

were really quite good, in an offbeat way. 

Do you think people have misunderstood the 

humour of the band? The fact that we are not a 

pretentious bunch of po-faced arrogant pillocks is a 

positive, I’d have thought. I’ll let you into a Sensible 

secret though - the period immediately prior to 

punk rock were the years of glam rock - and that’s 

the sort of band I imagined I’d be playing in while 

practicing guitar at home. Which might explain my 

dress sense. 

Did you ever think you’d still be doing this 40 

years later? I thought punk would only last a few 

weeks then I’d be back down the dole office, tail between 

legs. That’s where the wacky 

stage-names came from. Strummer, 

Rotten, Sensible - you couldn’t sign 

on if you’d had your name in the 

music papers. 

Why do you think the band has 

lasted so long? Because there’s 

enough people in the world with 

the good taste to want to see us perform. 

It’s been a privilege to twang a 

guitar for a living all these years. We 

started out at a time when workingclass 

kids rarely went abroad; we 

were a bunch of sparsely educated 

oiks travelling the world, and it taught me a lot. One 

thing I’ve learned is over the last few decades is that 

our railways have gone from the best to the worst 

in the world. They’re now an absolute disgrace that 

only re-nationalisation can solve. 

Do you have any future plans beyond the tour? 

We don’t release a lot of records, the last being in 

2008, but we’re writing material for a newie which 

will have a distinct psych/freakbeat edge to it. 

How does it feel to be in the position that all 

those older bands were in when you started? 

Fair point. But I’d hope we haven’t become the boring 

farts who inspired us to pick up guitars in the 

first place. We play with some great young bands 

- you see them perform and think, ‘can’t wait to 

hear the album’. Then when you get it, everything 

is compressed and autotuned to hell with these insidious 

Pro Tools plugins everyone is using. Go very 

easy on that stuff, is my advice for young musicians 

reading this. Interview by Ben Bailey 

Brighton Dome, Thurs 24th, 7pm, £27 

officialdamned.com 

....47....

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WITCHCRAFT 

.................................... 

Witchfest 

‘Everything from Harry Potter to Aleister Crowley’ 

As Witchfest prepares to make 

its debut here, organiser Merlyn 

Hern talks to Viva about spells, 

shamanism and socialising. 

A modern witch is someone 

who is in tune with nature, 

believes in the possibility of 

both a god and a goddess 

and, obviously, believes in the 

power of magic. Witches do 

cast spells, but most witches 

voluntarily follow the Wiccan 

Rede, a code that says you can 

do whatever you like providing 

you don’t harm anything. 

Generally spells relate to health problems, lack 

of money - the small things. It’s about need rather 

than greed. Witches sometimes do work together 

to influence much larger events though. There’s a 

story that we worked to prevent Hitler invading the 

UK back in the Second World War. I wasn’t around 

then and can’t verify the story, but certainly it’s 

widely believed in witchcraft circles. 

I started my path in witchcraft in Brighton. 

My original coven was in Kemptown. Historically 

the city has always had strong connections with 

witchcraft, most famously [notorious occultist] 

Aleister Crowley, and of course Doreen Valiente 

[the Brighton woman described as ‘the mother of 

modern witchcraft’]. Activity had been quiet for 

a few years, but it’s starting to kick off again here, 

with various local groups starting up. Unfortunately, 

I can’t tell you about them. 

The bad stuff you hear about witches is largely 

fiction. Wiccans are the sort of people who support 

Greenpeace, anti-fracking campaigns and animal 

welfare charities. 

There’s nothing in the world quite like Witchfest. 

It’s a mixture of education - we get really good 

quality talks and workshops; entertainment - live 

bands, dancers and DJs; and a strong social aspect, 

where we actively encourage 

people to talk to each other. 

We describe the event as 

‘everything from Harry Potter 

to Aleister Crowley’. At 

one end you have wand-making 

workshops, and at the other 

you have talks on shamanism, 

Western magical traditions and 

Chaos Magic. 

We usually attract around 

3,000 people, predominantly 

from the UK but also from 

Australia, New Zealand, South 

America, South Africa, Canada and the USA. 

This is our first year in Brighton. We were in 

Croydon for 15 years, but then the venue we used 

shut down and the Doreen Valiente Foundation 

recommended we try the Brighton Centre instead. 

Brighton City Council is very sympathetic to our 

cause, which saved us the usual uphill struggle of 

having to explain that no, we’re not Satanists. 

Anyone with an open mind is welcome to attend 

Witchfest, and people do. Some of our staff are 

not in any way Wiccan, pagan or anything like that 

- some are even Christian. 

Witches are still one of the most persecuted 

groups on the planet. A lot of people don’t know 

what we actually do and they don’t care - they just 

don’t like us. It has got better - there are legal protections 

now, especially in the workplace - but you 

do get fanatics, so we have to be careful. 

I think it’s Brighton itself that attracts witches. 

It’s a very tolerant city. A lot of people know it as the 

gay capital of the UK; in most towns that couldn’t 

and wouldn’t have happened. But Brighton is quite 

relaxed and open-minded - which we witches also 

like! It’s good to feel welcome. To an extent we’re 

part of Brighton’s history. 

As told to Nione Meakin 

Brighton Centre, 25th & 26th. witchfest.net 

....49....

MUSIC 

..................................... 

Julia Jacklin 

Singing the questions 

Julia Jacklin’s artful 

debut, Don’t Let the 

Kids Win, has been 

released to excited 

chatter about the 

indie-country second 

coming. The Australian 

singer-songwriter 

is in the UK touring 

her lingering, poetic 

album this month. 

You’ve mentioned 

that you wrote a lot 

of ‘bad songs’ and 

played a lot of ‘bad gigs’ to get to this point 

- was that necessary to get to where you are 

today? Absolutely. I think it’s all part of it. Being 

embarrassed on stage is essential. Because if you 

can push through that then the rest is a lot easier. 

And your first song is never going to be good, 

unless you’re some kind of child prodigy. So you 

gotta write a lot of cringeworthy stuff before you 

write something that actually moves people. I’m 

just trying to play good shows and write better 

songs and just focus on the music. I’m surrounded 

by incredible female singer-songwriters right now. 

Don’t Let the Kids Win seems to be about 

losing things - faith, youth, friends - growing 

out of ideas and clothes. What direction do 

you think your next album will go in? Have 

you got a head full of ideas? Yeah, I have quite a 

few. I recorded this album a year ago, so it’s been a 

while. I think it’ll still be a record full of questions 

and not many answers. Questions are a lot easier 

to sing! I think the instrumentation will be a bit 

different. Maybe a bit louder. 

Do you ever worry 

this next stage of 

life, adulthood, will 

be less rich in the 

kind of discovery 

that characterises 

our formative years? 

Yeah, of course, but 

I think it’ll be rich in 

very different ways. It’s 

become less and less 

about jaunting around 

the world all starry 

eyed and more about 

focusing on your personal relationships and not 

being an asshole. 

You directed the video for Leadlight, which is 

rife with the angsty symbols of youth - from 

the gymnasium to tube socks. Is it important 

for you to set the tone of your videos? It seems 

the most natural thing for me to do really. I wrote 

the songs, so the visuals come to me quite easily. 

I know what I want them to look like, what feel 

they should have. I’m trying to continue doing the 

videos, but it’s hard to when you’re always on tour! 

Looking forward to heading home this month? 

Yeah, I’ll be keen to go home, for sure. But I’m 

enjoying touring right now. I waited a long time 

to do this, so I’m trying to be present and enjoy 

it while it lasts. England has definitely given me 

a stronger response than I was expecting! It’ll be 

interesting to see what the home crowd will be like 

when I tour the record later in November. 

Interview by Amy Holtz 

The Haunt, Thurs 3rd, 7pm, £10 

juliajacklin.com 

....50....

MUSIC 

.................................... 

Beardyman 

‘Weaponised telepathy’ 

Having celebrated the 

10th anniversary of the 

legendary Brighton night 

Battlejam earlier this year, 

Beardyman is doing a 

hometown show at The 

Old Market this month, 

giving his improvised 

musical mash-up a whole 

new twist. A world-class 

beatboxer and multiinstrumentalist 

in his own 

right, he’s also assembled 

a group of top freestylers 

and musicians - billed as 

The Dream Team - to turn 

the audience’s crazy suggestions 

into off-the-cuff 

songs backed by a full band. 

How is this Beardyman 

show different from previous ones? The last 

time I came to The Old Market I made two 

new albums over a couple of nights. This time 

I’m bringing a band consisting of some of the 

UK’s greatest improvisers, and we’ll be doing 

something inspired by the same desire to create 

new music in the moment. The last shows were 

framed as comedy, these are more focused on 

music for music’s sake, and the music is markedly 

better than anything I could do on my own. 

What is The Dream Team and who’s involved? 

It’s currently myself, Bellatrix on bass 

and beatbox, Dizraeli on vocals, LeeN on MC 

duties, who also has a next level effects set-up, 

JFB on the decks, and Rob Lewis on the cello and 

FX. They’re some of the best freestylers on the 

planet. It’s a blank slate with weaponised telepathy, 

we create worlds within worlds together with 

infinite possibilities. 

Will you be using your 

self-built live looping 

machine, aka the 

Beardytron 5000? Are 

you any closer to making 

it available commercially? 

Yes and no. 

Why did you decide to 

start using live musicians 

when you can do 

it all with your mouth? 

Because I can’t. A mouth is 

not a band. 

Are there certain sounds 

that you’ve not yet been 

able to mimic vocally? 

Loads... show me a kid who 

can do a convincing piano 

and I’ll eat my microphone. 

Who would win in a 

showdown between you and a lyrebird? The 

lyrebird... those things are insane. 

What other plans or projects have you got in 

the works? I’m working hard on this right now, 

but I’ve also started an as-yet-unnamed trio with 

LeeN and Serocee which will be seeing the light 

of day soon. 

Are there certain audience suggestions that 

come up time and time again? There are 

always shit ones... and yes, we pass over them. 

What’s the best song title your audience 

has ever come up with? Have you ever been 

tempted to steal their ideas? The best one I 

had was: “I think one of my dads might be gay”. I 

don’t steal their ideas, I interpret them. You can’t 

steal an idea, it’s all in the execution. 

Interview by Ben Bailey 

Beardyman performs with The Dream Team at 

The Old Market, Wed 16th, 7.30pm, £16.50 

....51....

BOOKS 

.................................... 

....52....

BOOKS 

.................................... 

Ladybird Books for Grown-ups 

Satirical recycling 

Photo of Jason and Joel by Idil Sukan 

“I love watching 

people reading our 

books in the bookshop, 

and laughing” says 

Joel Morris, half of the 

team responsible for 

the Ladybird Books for 

Grown-ups series, down 

the phone. “It’s the 

nearest I’ll ever get to 

performing in front of 

an audience.” 

As a day job, Joel (above right) writes comedy for 

TV with his working partner Jason Hazeley. “It 

kind of dries up in the summer, so we always write 

a book together. We really wanted to write a Ladybird 

book, but we realised that new artwork of the 

quality expected would, nowadays, be too expensive 

- they really used to use top-grade artists from 

the ad agencies. So we thought we’d put modernday 

captions on top of the old pictures, and that 

there’d be a lot of humour in that. We realised 

there was a factory producing reprinted Ladybirds, 

which offered the means of production.” 

Ladybird loved the idea, and made the pair official 

Ladybird writers, giving them access to 

over 13,000 images from their archive. “Whenever 

anyone else has done a similar thing on the 

internet, they have always written new text to an 

entire book,” he continues. “We decided to create 

completely new books by using images from many 

different Ladybirds, and mixing them together.” 

The resulting books, gently parodying modern 

life, have titles like The Hipster, The Hangover, The 

People Next Door and The Ladybird Book of Red Tape. 

They have been a huge success, a fixture at the top 

of the best-selling non-fiction lists. 

One reason for this is the way they have managed 

to capture the ‘voice’ 

of Ladybird, and 

reapply it to modern 

issues. “It is the voice 

of certainty,” says Joel. 

“There are no grey 

areas. ‘Richard III was 

a bad king’, that sort 

of thing. There’s a lot 

of use of the present 

tense; it’s all in the 

here and now.” Another, 

it must be said, is that they are bloody funny. 

Ladybird send me a few books to read before my 

interview with Joel, and I embarrass myself on the 

train, snorting out loud; I’m particularly tickled by 

a cat called ‘Ottolenghi’. 

Joel and Jason have an interesting modus operandi. 

Each of them works on a different book until they 

can’t think of anything else to write, then they 

swap over. “It works for us in comedy writing, 

and it works just as well with these books.” Each 

book takes about three weeks to write: they have 

to source the pictures and research the subject 

thoroughly before the writing process begins. 

The books are aimed at people who read the 

original Ladybirds, which is a surprisingly broad 

segment of the population: “kids would read the 

books their parents had when they were kids.” 

They even work on a foreign audience. “New Yorkers, 

for example, who’ve never seen an original 

Ladybird book, still get the joke that these are 

images for kids’ books and the captions have been 

changed to suit an adult audience.” 

Alex Leith 

Joel and Jason will be talking at the Lewes Speakers 

Festival, Sat 26th, 5-6.15pm, All Saints Centre. 

lewesspeakersfestival.com 

....53....

搀攀洀漀猀眀漀爀欀猀栀漀瀀猀琀爀愀椀渀椀渀最挀漀渀猀甀氀琀愀渀挀礀挀愀琀攀爀椀渀最 

匀椀渀挀攀㈀眀攀 ᤠ 瘀攀栀攀氀瀀攀搀 

琀栀漀甀猀愀渀搀猀漀昀瀀攀漀瀀氀攀琀漀 

椀洀瀀爀漀瘀攀琀栀攀椀爀挀漀漀欀攀爀礀愀渀搀 

渀甀琀爀椀琀椀漀渀猀欀椀氀氀猀 ⸀ 

唀瀀挀漀洀椀渀最攀瘀攀渀琀猀椀渀挀氀甀搀攀㨀 

䜀甀樀愀爀愀琀椀吀栀愀氀椀 ⠀ 㤀琀栀一漀瘀 ⤀ 

䔀砀瀀氀漀爀攀琀栀攀甀渀椀焀甀攀愀渀搀 

搀攀氀攀挀琀愀戀氀攀挀甀椀猀椀渀攀漀昀䤀渀搀椀愀 ᤠ 猀 

眀攀猀琀攀爀渀洀漀猀琀猀琀愀琀攀 

䘀攀猀琀椀瘀攀䈀愀欀椀渀最 ⠀アパート爀搀䐀攀挀 ⤀ 

䰀攀愀爀渀琀漀洀愀欀攀昀攀猀琀椀瘀攀戀爀攀愀搀猀 

昀爀漀洀琀栀爀攀攀琀爀愀搀椀琀椀漀渀猀 

䤀琀愀氀椀愀渀䈀爀攀愀搀猀 ⠀ 㐀琀栀䨀愀渀 ⤀ 

䰀攀愀爀渀琀漀戀愀欀攀䤀琀愀氀椀愀渀戀爀攀愀搀猀 

昀爀漀洀琀栀爀攀攀爀攀最椀漀渀猀 

眀眀眀 ⸀ 挀漀洀洀甀渀椀琀礀挀栀攀昀 ⸀ 漀爀最 ⸀ 甀欀 

䜀椀昀琀瘀漀甀挀栀攀爀猀渀漀眀愀瘀愀椀氀愀戀氀攀 ℀

BOOKS 

.................................... 

Paddy Ashdown 

Norman Baker interviews his former boss 

Paddy Ashdown may be best 

known for his role as one-time 

leader of the Lib Dems, but like 

the best politicians, he has a hinterland 

far away from politics. 

For Paddy this included a career 

as a foreign office diplomat, 

time with MI6 and as a member 

of the Special Boat Squad. 

He is also a prolific author and 

this is his ninth book, and third 

about the Second World War. 

Game Of Spies is the riveting 

true story of a lethal triangle involving 

a British spy, a Gestapo 

officer, and a leader in the 

French Resistance, in wartime 

occupied Bordeaux. 

What makes this book groundbreaking is that 

he has been able to access the archives both of 

the British secret agent Roger Landes, and the 

Gestapo counter-espionage officer charged with 

finding him, Friedrich Dohse. His partner on the 

book (‘collaborator’ is perhaps best avoided here), 

Sylvie Young, a French woman, has added to the 

mix by unearthing many hitherto unexamined 

French files of the period. 

Paddy tells me he regards Friedrich Dohse as the 

book’s most interesting character, not least because 

his memoir is the only known one written 

by a Gestapo officer. His intelligent approach was 

markedly different from his Gestapo colleagues 

in other ways too. He eschewed violence and torture, 

and his preferred method of interrogation 

was to invite his prisoners to dinner. It was an 

approach that brought some success, notably in 

‘turning’ the third key player in this story, Andre 

Grandclement. 

It’s clear that Paddy warmed to this swashbuckling 

tale, no doubt as he 

warmed to his own SBS adventures. 

Notwithstanding the 

horrors it describes along the 

way, the book reveals a touch 

of wistful nostalgia for a time 

when people faced hard, cold 

edges, and were, as he put it to 

me, not “protected by cotton 

wool as they are today”. 

The narrative rolls on apace, 

without sacrificing depth and 

insight along the way. On the 

contrary, Paddy builds a picture 

of the characters, and indeed 

the nations to which they 

belong, which is much more 

thoughtful and nuanced than the 2D cartoon 

versions we are sometimes presented with. He 

delights in “breaking lazily received notions”. 

Is the book just an historical tale, albeit a fascinating 

and meticulously researched one, I ask 

Paddy, or can it inform the world today? 

“Those who forget history are condemned 

to repeat it,” he answers, without a pause for 

thought. And he clearly feels rueful, perhaps 

even ashamed, that the Britain that offered so 

many of its young men and women to free other 

countries in Europe is now the country with the 

most curmudgeonly attitude to those Europeans 

outside its borders. 

More ominous still, he sees in the disorientation 

of people and the distrust of politicians and those 

in power a parallel between the 1930s and now. 

So a good read, and maybe an important one, too. 

As may be his next book, about the internal German 

resistance to Hitler. Norman Baker 

Meet the Author: An Evening with Paddy Ashdown, 

Royal Pavilion Music Room, 17th, 6.30pm, £15.50 

....55....

ART 

.................................... 

....56....

ART 

.................................... 

Focus on: i360 

by Lisa Holdcroft 

150 drawings... and counting 

I started drawing last May - at that point the site 

was just a big square hole in the ground. I had been 

speaking to somebody about how big the i360 was 

going to be for the city - it’ll be a piece of Brighton’s 

history - so I knew I wanted to do something. 

I would go down there on my bike and sketch and 

take photos, then go back home and draw. I wanted 

to show the construction from the point of view of 

a spectator, rather than being a part of it. 

I posted one of my drawings on the i360 Facebook 

page and I got a response from David and 

Julia [the architects]. When they were putting in 

the ‘cans’, as they call them, each one was slightly 

different and they had to go together in a particular 

sequence. They gave me some of the architectural 

drawings and said, ‘you might want to take a look 

at these’. After a while I became a real trainspottertype 

geek. I read all the information on the i360 

website, and I had a contact there who I could speak 

to if I had any questions. 

Each item in the narrative has its own character 

and colour. It’s like building a visual language: 

this is how the sand is drawn, every time, and this 

is how the cans are drawn, every time. Using a limited 

range of colours sort of leads your eye through 

what’s going on. The good thing about drawing the 

i360 is that you can look at it from lots of different 

angles, and you only have the sea as a backdrop. 

The most exciting bit for me was when they 

were building the jacking tower - the square 

frame which housed the jacks. At the bottom the 

tower was lifted up, so that the next can could be 

stacked underneath. Then, on the top level, the 

aluminium coating went on to protect it from the 

wind. It was the first time this system had been tried 

anywhere in the world. 

I’ve done over 150 drawings so far. When I actually 

went on the i360 when it opened I was a bit 

overwhelmed, because I’d spent so long drawing it. 

I am going to draw it from the inside eventually; I 

want to finish the series with the views from the top 

- that is the point of the whole thing! 

As told to Rebecca Cunningham 

lisaholdcroft.com 

....57....

ART & ABOUT 

.................................... 

Art & About: In town this month... 

Described as one of Britain’s most powerful 

figurative painters, Graham Dean 

boldly uses watercolour on an epic 

scale; building up layers of paint and 

collage with his ‘reverse archaeology’ 

technique, to create life-size depictions 

of the human body that can be years 

in the making. Cameron Contemporary’s 

new exhibition, featuring works 

from all four decades of his career (so 

far), is Dean’s first solo exhibition in his 

home town for 20 years. It runs till the 

7th. [cameroncontemporaryart.com] 

‘Swimmer’ by Graham Dean 

‘Mermaids’ by Ruth Mulvie 

Joyland is at Gallery 40 until Saturday 5th. It showcases 

a series of landscapes by Ruth Mulvie, which she has described 

as “places I want to go to but have never been”. 

Her part-real, part-fictional landscapes are reimagined 

in Kodachrome shades of candyfloss pink, cerulean blue 

and phthalo turquoise. Down the road, Brighton sculptor 

Eve Shepherd has a solo show at Corridor Gallery 

from the 4th. Blood & Bone is an exhibition of her delicate 

porcelain works that explore, we’re told, ‘fragility 

and fortitude through feminine archetypes of maiden, 

mother and crone’. [corridorgallery.co.uk] 

From the 18th to the 20th, the city hosts 

Colour Out of Space, the 7th edition of the 

International Festival of Experimental 

Sound and Art. As part of the expanded 

programme, Constant Linear Velocity is at 

Phoenix from the 12th. This exhibition of 

sculptural sound works by Stephen Cornford 

ponders what the future holds for 

now-obsolete audio-storage devices. Accompanying 

activities include an intriguing 

build-your-own-musical-instrument workshop 

with Phantom Chips, which, from the 

description, sounds like a mix of electronic 

engineering, art and general daftness. 

[phoenixbrighton.org] 

Soft circuits workshop with Phantom Chips 

....59....

伀爀椀最椀渀愀氀愀爀琀愀琀愀 û 漀爀搀愀戀氀攀瀀爀椀挀攀猀 ⸀ 

一䔀圀䌀伀䰀䰀䔀䌀吀䤀伀一匀 ℀ 

嘀椀猀椀琀漀甀爀最愀氀氀攀爀礀漀爀漀甀爀漀渀氀椀渀攀猀琀漀爀攀 

愀爀琀㔀最愀氀氀攀爀礀猀栀漀瀀 ⸀ 挀漀洀 

圀䔀圀伀刀䬀圀䤀吀䠀 

㔀䈀愀爀琀栀漀氀漀洀攀眀猀 Ⰰ 䈀一䠀䜀 ∠ ㈀㜀アパート㜀㜀㐀㈀㈀㈀ 

椀渀昀漀䀀愀爀琀㔀最愀氀氀攀爀礀 ⸀ 挀漀洀 

PickingFigs.com is a brand new online shop 

selling fine illustrated gifts and greetings. 

To celebrate the launch we’re giving 

15% off everything 

with the code VIVAFIGS 

Artists 

& Makers 


Our flagship product: 

Personalised Illustrated Children’s Name Prints 

Festive gifts & treats 

Follow us everywhere for more info and offers 

@PickingFigs 

PICKINGFIGS.COM 

Lewes Town Hall (Fisher Street) 

Saturday 3 rd December 

10am - 5pm 

www.facebook.com/artistsandmakerslewes

ART & ABOUT 

.................................... 

Lost and Foundry at The Stanley Road Store (AOH) 

Unlimited has Party Animals - an exhibition of prints by 

local illustrator extraordinaire Dan Walters - in store from 

the 10th. The 2016 Christmas Artists Open Houses festival 

starts on Saturday 26th, with another chance to buy direct 

from artists and makers in their houses and studios all 

around Brighton, Lewes and Ditchling too. [aoh.org.uk] If 

you prefer your artists all in one place, Art Junky, the collision 

of artistic talent and jumble-sale culture, is at Brighton 

Open Market on the 26th. [phoenixbrighton.org] And, just 

in case you’ve missed them, the trail of Snowdogs by the 

Sea, continues until the 27th. Got a favourite? Make it your 

own at the auction on the 6th December. All proceeds go to 

the Martlets Hospice. [snowdogsbythesea.co.uk] 

...and out of town 

Towards Night continues at Towner in Eastbourne. 

This major exhibition, curated by Sussex 

artist Tom Hammick, juxtaposes works by 

artists as diverse as Turner, Doig, and Munch 

to explore the darkness and all it entails. Unmissable. 

Also at the gallery, One Day, Something 

Happens: Paintings of People, features figurative 

works by an equally impressive roll-call 

of names, including Sickert, Lucien Freud, 

Hockney and Rose Wylie. Both run until 

January 2017. 

‘Echo Lake’ by Peter Doig, 1998 

‘Pollination’ by Tadek Beutlich 

Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft follow their summer of print with an 

autumn of textiles. Tadek Beutlich: Beyond Craft examines the work of the 

late Polish-born artist, weaver and tapestry maker, who lived and worked 

in the village for some time. Working directly and spontaneously from his 

prints, rather than formal designs, his work challenged the usual definitions 

of craft. Concurrently, the museum celebrates the 100th anniversary of fellow 

villager Ethel Mairet’s definitive text A Book of Vegetable Dyes with a live 

research project, in which artists and craftspeople will use her recipes to create 

their own natural dyes. The results will be on display over the course of 

the exhibition. Christmas at Nymans starts on the 26th with an exhibition 

of vintage Ladybird Books illustrations at Nymans, the National Trust house 

and gardens at Handcross, near Haywards Heath. [nationaltrust.org.uk] 

....61....

ART & ABOUT 

.................................... 

‘Pigeon Racing’ by Alistair Grant, 1962 

In Chichester, Pallant House Gallery shows The 

Mythic Method: Classicism in British Art 1920–1950. 

Curated by the gallery’s artistic director, Simon 

Martin, this is the first major exhibition to explore 

the subtle influence that classicism had on British 

artists living and working in an era of social 

and political change. Also at Pallant House, Prints 

for the Pub is the first public exhibition of a set of 

lithographs produced by Guinness in the mid-1950s 

to promote the first edition of the Guinness Book of 

Records. Designed to brighten bars and pubs, they 

were created by artists including Edward Ardizzone, 

Bernard Cheese and Barnett Freedman, each illustrating a record chosen from the book. Depicting 

supposedly working-class interests - darts, pigeon racing, football, etc - they capture the mid-century ideal of 

bringing art to the masses. [pallant.org.uk] 

‘Alphabet Letter C’ by Peter Blake, 2007 

At Jerwood Gallery, in Hastings, Century: 100 Modern 

British Artists showcases a vibrant mix of paintings, sculpture 

and works on paper. 

Expect key pieces 

by Tristram Hillier, 

William Roberts, John 

Armstrong and Barbara 

Hepworth. Until 

January 2017. [jerwoodgallery.org] 

Best get to 

Bexhill and the De La 

Warr Pavilion if you 

haven’t yet seen the Alphabets, Letters & Numbers exhibit of three print 

series by Sir Peter Blake. It finishes on the 27th. [dlwp.com] 

‘Five am’ by Ernest Procter, 1920 

Finally, two calls for works: An open call for Artists in Residence for the 2017 edition of Diep-Haven Festival, 

the cultural trail of exhibitions and events between Normandy and East Sussex. Artists working in any 

media are asked to propose a project, on the theme of ‘work’, to be created in the context of Dieppe and/or 

Newhaven, including the ferry linking the two. Details at diephaven.org. The closing date is Dec 10th. And 

Pelham House, in Lewes, will hold its annual Open Art Exhibition of Sussex-based artists in January 2017. 

Email submissions to artcurator@pelhamhouse.com by 20th December [pelhamhouse.com] 

....63....

DESIGN 

.................................... 

Unlimited 

Design agency and accidental shop 

Graphic designers Sara and Patrick Morrissey 

launched Unlimited in 2008. They left their 

respective jobs lecturing at London College of 

Communication, and designing for top agency 

Why Not Associates, to set up their own independent 

design agency by the sea. The shop and 

gallery began two years later, when they began 

exhibiting theirs and friends’ work in front of 

their studio on weekends for fun. 

Unlimited were forerunners of the now ubiquitous 

fashion for pop-ups, but trendsetting wasn’t 

their intention. “I started adopting the name 

pop-up only because that’s what I started to realise 

people were saying it was,” says Sara. “It’s all 

happened organically, and as a reaction to our audience. 

I never intended to be here having a shop 

six years ago... I’m a designer, one half of a design 

team, but our love of great work by likeminded 

talent naturally pushed us in this direction.” 

Six years on, Unlimited has grown from representing 

just six designer-makers to over 80. They 

recently invited Rob Lowe of Supermundane, a 

real celeb in the illustration field, to paint their 

shop front and create a huge number of prints 

for display. “Lots of the time, I’m spurring people 

on,” says Sara, whose background as a lecturer informs 

her ability to draft good creative briefs - the 

backbone of design collaboration. “Supermundane 

said he’s not actually done this much work at one 

point altogether for an exhibition… I crack the 

whip because I love being involved in the generation 

of new work for us to show.” 

Now the shop has a monthly programme of 

events and exhibitions, Sara and colleague Esther 

....64....

DESIGN 

.................................... 

Cox devote much of their time to it, while Patrick 

focuses on their studio output. The studio’s 

clients include an impressive number of cultural 

institutions, from the Royal Academy, for whom 

Patrick has worked since 1997’s Sensation, to the 

Jerwood Gallery, The Bartlett, and Folkestone 

Creative Foundation. 

Esther tells me it would be great to have somewhere 

in Brighton on the scale of the Design 

Museum in London, to really celebrate design 

the way people do in places like Denmark and 

Holland. “We have a fantastic local museum that 

has some really good stuff in it that’s not really 

shouted about,” Sara adds. “Brighton has a great 

art scene, it’s got a great craft scene, but I’d love 

it to have more of a design feel. We see what we 

do as a way towards this.” 

The feeling I get from Unlimited is that it’s 

just what Brighton loves. They represent some 

of our many outstanding designer-makers, like 

Daniel Walters, showing there this month, and 

big names from across the country. The recent 

closure of other indie galleries, however, show it’s 

tricky to maintain arty businesses on high rents. 

“A lot of people in Brighton are moving to places 

like Margate,” says Sara. “They’re becoming the 

creative hubs now. I don’t think Brighton can 

afford to rest on its laurels.” 

For the time being, however, it’s safe to say 

Unlimited are not short of ideas reflecting what 

famed typographer Gary Stranger wrote on their 

wall. “Good on the outside,” says Sara, “good on 

the inside.” Chloë King 

unlimitedshop.co.uk 

....65....

䄀戀攀愀甀琀椀昀甀氀戀漀甀琀椀焀甀攀愀渀搀眀漀爀欀猀瀀愀挀攀椀渀䈀爀椀最栀琀漀渀猀一漀爀琀栀䰀愀椀渀攀 Ⰰ 瀀爀漀搀甀挀椀渀最 

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圀攀愀氀猀漀爀甀渀爀攀最甀氀愀爀昀甀猀攀搀最氀愀猀猀眀漀爀欀猀栀漀瀀猀椀渀漀甀爀搀漀眀渀猀琀愀椀爀猀猀瀀愀挀攀 ⴀ 挀栀攀挀欀 

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眀眀眀 ⸀ 氀椀琀琀氀攀戀攀愀挀栀戀漀甀琀椀焀甀攀 ⸀ 挀漀洀

LOCAL MAKER 

........................................... 

Photos by Lizzie Lower 

Ayten Gasson 

Handmade lingerie 

I’ve always loved colour and pattern, so I 

studied print textiles at Central St Martins. But I 

really learned how to sew from my mum. She was 

a sample maker for the Arcadia Group, and I grew 

up turning out the belt loops and cutting the size 

labels for pocket money. She always had beautiful 

lingerie - elegant teddies, half-slips and petticoats 

- and I wanted to recreate them. 

I set up the label ten years ago, after graduating. 

I mistakenly thought it would be easy to find 

a job in the industry, but so much of the production 

had moved overseas. When I revisited the 

Archway factories I’d been to as a child, they’d all 

been turned into luxury flats. 

I source everything I can from within the UK. 

I buy my ribbons from Berisfords and my lace 

from the Cluny Lace Company and, because I 

only make a few pieces at a time, I can work with 

vintage Liberty silks and 60s cotton Leavers lace. 

I’ve even found some ‘peace silk’ - the silkworms 

are fed on mulberry leaves in Hertfordshire. 

That’s about as ethical as it gets when sourcing 

silk. There’s an assumption that ethical clothes 

will look boring, but I want them to be beautiful 

and sexy. 

It’s always been a dream of mine to have my 

own shop, but it’s the making that I love the 

most, so I had the counter specially made to accommodate 

my sewing machine. We opened at 

Seven Dials in May, and it’s been a great choice 

of location: quiet enough that I can sew, and still 

part of a great community of independent traders. 

I make all the pieces in store, often whilst 

talking to my customers; it’s like an open studio. 

I’ll make a few pieces in each style, but I can 

adapt them, or make to order, if a customer has 

a specific request. I can also personalise a special 

gift or a bridal garter from my collection of buttons 

and charms. It’s a very personal experience, 

buying lingerie. As told to Lizzie Lower 

32a Bath Street, 01273 749 258 

aytengasson.com 

....67....

㤀䔀愀猀琀匀琀爀攀攀琀 

䈀爀椀最栀琀漀渀 

漀昀昀攀爀攀渀搀猀 

一漀瘀アパート琀栀 ℀ 

䘀䤀一䐀夀伀唀刀倀䔀刀䘀䔀䌀吀䜀䤀䘀吀匀 ⴀ 焀甀漀琀攀 ᠠ 瘀椀瘀愀漀昀昀攀爀 ᤠ 椀渀猀琀漀爀攀 ℀

WE TRY... 

........................................... 

Macramé workshop 

Knot the best read, but fun to do 

First, a disclaimer. Some things in life are so much 

more fun to do than they are to read about (in 

the same way that going on your own holiday is 

immeasurably more fun than looking at somebody 

else’s holiday photos). This is certainly true of the 

macramé-plant-hanger workshop I recently got to 

try out and, whilst I’m duty bound to attempt an 

explanation, I guarantee that you’ll have a lot more 

fun if you just put down this magazine and book 

yourself onto the next workshop. Every time you see 

an asterisk, I want you to remember that. 

Yes, I’d coveted those macramé plant hangers that 

you see in the hipster hotels of Instagram-land. But 

I’d also been aware that any attempt to teach myself 

to make one would end in temper-tears. So I was 

keen to be shown, by textiles graduate and macramé 

master Harriet Brooks from Posh Totty. 

First, she prepared the metres and metres of chunky 

cotton cord that I’d need. I lost track of exactly how 

much, but it was something like 32 metres cut into 

eight equal lengths. I spent the next two hours lost 

in deep concentration, oblivious to the incidental 

things happening around me that might have made 

this a more interesting read. What I was very aware 

of was the cord, which I fiddled about with in something 

like the following order: 

1. Fold your eight lengths in half, creating 16 equal 

strands and, leaving room for a hanging loop, wrap 

another length of cord tightly around all stands. 

Perform the sort of cunning knot that is the preserve 

of fishermen and boy scouts.* 

2. Tie at least three ‘foundation knots’, overlaying 

four strands at a time in a ‘window’ formation with 

the help of your thumb.* 

3. Separate the 16 cords into groups of four.* 

4. Taking one group of four, separate the outer two 

strands and apply a copper bead to the central two.* 

5. Bring the outer left cord across the front of the 

two central cords, below the copper bead, and take 

the outer right cord up, through and under.* 

6. Tighten the knot and repeat 36 times, allowing 

the knots to twist.* 

7. Repeat steps 4-6 for the other three sets of four 

cords until you have four twisted ‘ropes’.* 

8. Separate the outer two cords of each twisted rope 

and tie, at a plant-pot-holding sort of interval to the 

outer two cords of the adjacent twisted rope in a 

‘square knot’ by completing one knot as above, and 

one knot the reverse of the above.* 

9. Apply a copper bead and complete another square 

knot, as above. Repeat for all remaining strands.* 

10. Gather all the lengths together and bind around 

with another length of cord, performing the same 

mystical knot in step 1.* 

11. Taaa daaaah! Stand back and marvel at your 

creation. 

See, I told you. Definitely more fun to do than to 

read. So, if you’ve got designs on making your own, 

ring Harriet immediately. There are cakes, too. LL 

1 Bond Street Cottages, 01273 621311 

poshtottydesigns.com 


....69....

Barfields Butchers 

Free range naturally reared meat 

Order Xmas meat online 

Free delivery in 

Brighton & Hove 

Free range bronze turkeys, geese, ducks, capons & chickens 

35-day aged 100% grass-fed beef from native breeds 

Rare breed pork from Sussex & Southdown lamb 

www.barfieldsbutchers.co.uk 

Or come and visit us at our Fiveways shop 

11 Kings Parade, Ditchling Road, Brighton, BN1 6JT 01273 503349

THE WAY WE WORK 

This month, Adam Bronkhorst nipped out to five local corner 

shops, to photograph the shopkeepers working the late shift. 

We asked each of them: what did you spend your pocket money on? 

adambronkhorst.com | 07879 401 333 

Mo Shah, Preston Foods 

“I used to save it, mostly, but when I did I spent it on Omega games.”


Chowdhury Abul Hasan, The Lodge Stores 

“Chocolate, always! I used to like the ones that come in all different flavours in the packet.”


Mahbub Alam, Hi Life Food Market 

“I don’t remember!”


Rossy Hassan, Happy Planet 

“Sweets, probably.”


Milu Islam, Smart Local Market 

“I always liked dark chocolate - 70%.”

FOOD 

........................................... 

The Great British Charcuterie Co. 

The perfect place for pedant-provoking paella 

The morning I went out shopping for ingredients for the paella I’d planned to 

cook, I heard on the news that Spanish chefs were up in arms about Jamie Oliver 

using chorizo in his paella recipe. They thought this was sacrilege, because it’s 

not the done thing over there. 

I thought I’d stand up for libertarian cookery values then, and make a pilgrimage 

to the Great British Charcuterie, in the Marina, to get some British chorizo: this 

smart new store, which has just opened in that mini shopping plaza behind Asda, only sell British-made meats, 

cheeses and wines, and they stock a paprika-infused sausage from North Chailey. 

It’s my first visit, and it’s great fun browsing their shiny new shelves and trying out cocktail-stick tasters of their 

various products, including Highland Wagyu biltong, Hampshire-made Camembert-style cheese, and Charcoal 

Cheddar. Charcoal Cheddar! Apparently a little bit of burnt wood is good for your belly. 

Inevitably I leave with much more than just the chorizo: I buy a black-rinded ball of said black cheese (£5.20), 

some seaweed-and-cider salami (made in Cornwall, £4 per 100g) and a bottle of red wine, made in Plumpton 

(£9.95). I’ve never carried a more exotic bagful of British wares. 

And the paella? I fry the chorizo in oil (with some chicken thighs), and it does exactly what the Spanish version 

does: oozes out some lovely spicy fat for the rice to soak up later, while maintaining enough taste in its body to 

keep as part of the mix. A hit, then: and ya-boo-sucks to Spanish-food pedants. Alex Leith 

Photo by Alex Leith 

ENGLISH’S OF BRIGHTON 

Restaurant & Oyster Bar 

SAY ‘VIVA ENGLISH’S!’ 

TO YOUR WAITER 

WHEN YOU NEXT VISIT OUR RESTAURANT 

AND GET A FREE GLASS OF PROSECCO! 

FREE 

GLASS OF 

PROSECCO 

NEW AUTUMN MENU 

OFFER AVAILABLE UNTIL DEC 1ST 

englishs.co.uk 

29-31 East Street, Brighton, 

East Sussex, BN1 1HL

Food & Drink directory 

ADVERTORIAL 

The Better Half 

The Better Half pub has put 

the heart and soul back into 

one of the oldest public houses 

in the city, just off Hove 

seafront. There’s a superb 

wine and spirits list and some great ales and ciders 

on offer, as well as a hearty and wholesome menu 

to enjoy, making the best of local ingredients. The 

Better Half is relaxed, friendly and easy-going, 

making all feel welcome and comfortable when 

you visit. 

1 Hove Place, Hove, 01273 737869, thebetterhalfpub.co.uk 

The Set Café 

The café is situated next 

to the The Set restaurant 

and offers laid-back 

snacks and small plates 

in a relaxed atmosphere. 

Eating off tables made from the old West Pier and 

overlooking Regency Square and the sea makes it 

an ideal place to have a quick lunch or night out 

with friends. Cocktails and craft beers are on hand 

as well as a wine list shared with the restaurant. 

33 Regency Square, 01273 855572, thesetrestaurant.com 

Terre à Terre 

Dark, cold nights ahead, 

huddle together and enjoy 

smoky autumnal dishes, 

rich cheesy soufflé, tasty 

toasty potato rosti, big chocolate plates, afternoon 

tea and delicate little sweets. Where better 

to deliver this than Terre à Terre - proudly 

named as a runner up for the Observer Food 

Monthly Awards 2016 - Best Restaurant and 

Best Ethical Restaurant. With our new head chef 

Judith in position, expect some treats ahead! 

71 East Street, 01273 729051, terreaterre.co.uk 

Edendum 

We’re proud to present 

our new Autumn / Winter 

menu, completely 

home-made as always. Edendum is a slice of Italy 

transported to Brighton, with authentic flavours, 

fragrances and freshly-cooked recipes that will 

give you a chance to discover some lesser known 

Italian dishes, a selection of fine Italian wines and 

a range of traditional products for sale. We are 

now taking bookings for Christmas parties with a 

special set menu, 100% Italian. 

69 East Street, 01273 733800, edendum.co.uk 

Caxton Arms 

Tucked away near the 

station, the Caxton Arms 

is an old-school Brighton 

pub. Serving modern 

British pub food seven days a week, this hidden 

gem has been recently refurbished. Whether 

you’re visiting for 2-4-1 wings and the quiz 

on Tuesdays or a Sunday roast, you can always 

expect a warm welcome at this friendly, relaxed 

watering hole. 

36 North Gardens, 01273 387346 

The Westbourne 

The Westbourne is a rarity, a 

truly independent freehouse. 

The bar features an ever 

changing range of excellent 

craft beers and cask ales 

from exciting breweries, with 

proper cider showcased in the 

Cider Shack. There is a delicious gin menu, a 

covered, heated terrace and a serious Sunday 

roast offer all delivered by a friendly, passionate 

team. 

90 Portland Road, Hove, thewestbournehove.co.uk

吀栀攀䜀爀椀 ϻ 渀䤀渀渀 Ⰰ 䘀氀攀琀挀栀椀渀最 Ⰰ 䔀愀猀琀匀甀猀猀攀砀 Ⰰ 吀一㈀㈀アパート匀匀簀㠀㈀㔀㜀㈀㈀㠀㤀 

眀眀眀 ⸀ 琀栀攀最爀椀 ϻ 渀椀渀渀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀簀椀渀昀漀䀀琀栀攀最爀椀 ϻ 渀椀渀渀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀

FOOD REVIEW 

........................................... 

Abyssinia 

Eating the unknown 

There is a mysterious sign in 

the window of Abyssinia that 

reads ‘Injera for sale, £1.50’. 

There’s no further explanation 

and no clues about what 

to expect of this unassuming 

Ethiopian eatery on Baker 

Street, but I can’t wait to try the 

food. It must be the allure of 

the unknown. The sum total of 

my knowledge about Ethiopia 

is captured by the minimal 

decorations; a painted bamboo hanging depicts those 

incredible underground cruciform churches I’ve 

seen in documentaries, and Emperor Haile Selassie, 

he who reigned over the country for some 40 years, 

smiles down from a laminated poster. That’s it. That’s 

all I know about the place. 

The menu is two sides of laminated A4. On one side, 

under the headings ‘lamb’ and ‘beef’, are intriguingsounding 

dishes like kitfo and zilzil tibs. The other 

side is full of vegetarian choices with equally exotic 

names. Rebecca and I opt for the vegetarian selection 

(£13.00), a platter that allows us to try almost 

everything at once, and order two of them, with a 

side of azefa (£3.50) chosen purely for the name, 

which turns out to be a lentil salad. The waitress 

gives us the sort of sideways look reserved for those 

who over-order. 

First to the table is a huge round dish completely 

covered in a thick, spongey pancake, with extra rolls 

of the same on the side. This is Injera, the national 

dish of Ethiopia. Homework later tells me that the 

fermented sourdough batter is poured on to the 

cooking surface, capturing thousands of tiny bubbles 

in the flatbread. 

The waitress returns with a 

great many porcelain cups, 

tipping the contents of each on 

to the bread. Injera serves as 

both plate and cutlery. We each 

get a portion of ye-ater alicha 

(steamed peas with onions, garlic 

and ginger), ye-atkilt alicha 

(steamed vegetables with onions 

and spices), misir wot (split 

lentils in a spiced red-pepper 

sauce), defin misr alicha (mildly 

spiced whole green lentils steamed with onions and 

garlic) and shuro wot (roasted and powdered chickpeas 

simmered in berbere sauce). Further homework 

reveals that the berbere spice mixture includes chilli, 

garlic, ginger, basil, nigella, fenugreek and… korarima, 

rue, ajwain or radhuni (I know, me neither!) 

Unsure of the etiquette, but as soon as it seems polite, 

we tear into the injera, wrapping springy strips 

around morsels of each dish, the bubbles sucking up 

the sauce. Occasionally we dip into the side of azefa, 

which is dressed in hot mustard sauce. The whole experience 

is similar to eating a mezze or thali - where 

each dish is distinct but all work together. Some are 

mild, others hot, but together they are smoky, spicy 

and sour and unlike anything I’ve tasted before. 

Flavours as strange to my taste buds as the words are 

to my ears. 

Apparently tradition has it that the meal is over when 

all of the Injera is eaten and - despite our best efforts 

- that’s not something we quite manage. I leave 

with almost as many questions as I came in with, but 

knowing one more thing about Ethiopia: the food is 

completely delicious. Lizzie Lower 

29 Baker St, 01273 242901 

....79....

Photo by Lisa Devlin, cakefordinner.co.uk 

....80....

RECIPE 

.......................................... 

Three fish tapas 

These three little dishes - by John R, head chef at Señor Buddha - fuse the strong, 

contrasting flavours of East Asian and Spanish cuisine. Serves four. 

Bloody oyster shot 

Ingredients: 200ml tomato juice, 1tsp wasabi 

paste, 1tsp mirin, ½tsp soy sauce, juice of two 

limes, 1tsp caster sugar, celery salt, eight oysters, 

one lime to garnish. 

Recipe: Blend the first six ingredients together 

with a pinch of salt and pepper. Chill in the 

fridge for at least an hour. To serve, rim four shot 

glasses in celery salt and place two oysters in the 

bottom of each glass, then pour over the blended 

mixture. Garnish each with a wedge of lime. 

Chilli, ginger & gin-cured salmon 

Ingredients: 200g salmon, soy and chilli jam. 

For the curing mixture: 500g salt, 500g sugar, five 

fresh chillies (finely chopped), 100g ginger (finely 

chopped), five kaffir lime leaves (chopped), 100ml 

Brighton Gin. 

Recipe: Combine all of the ingredients for the 

curing mixture and cover the salmon. Leave for 

24 hours to cure. Remove the salmon from the 

mixture and rinse well with water. The salmon 

will keep for three days once cured, so if you’re 

making this in advance, cover the salmon in 

olive oil and wrap it in clingfilm. Thinly slice the 

salmon and arrange it on the plate (see photo). 

Serve with the soy chilli jam. 

Cod & crab cakes with papaya salad 

For the fish cakes: 200g cod fillet, 200g crab 

meat (use tinned if you can’t find fresh), one red 

chilli, one thumb of ginger (grated), two cloves of 

garlic (crushed), one lemongrass stalk (bruised), 

three spring onions, half a bunch of coriander. 

For the papaya salad: one unripe papaya (peeled 

and shredded), two fennel bulbs (outer part removed, 

thinly sliced), two or three chillies (thinly 

sliced), six spring onions (sliced at an angle), one 

clove of garlic (sliced), 3tsp chopped peanuts. 

For the dressing: 1½tbsp fish sauce, 1½tbsp palm 

sugar, 1½tbsp lime juice. 

Recipe: First make the fish cakes by blending the 

ingredients in a food processor, adding a pinch of 

salt and pepper. The mixture should be wet, but 

firm enough to hold its shape (if it’s too wet, add 

flour or breadcrumbs; if too dry, add more cod). 

Shape the mixture into eight cakes and leave in 

the fridge for an hour to firm up. 

To make the papaya salad, toss all of the ingredients 

together in a bowl. Mix the dressing 

ingredients together and pour over the salad. 

Leave for an hour before serving to allow the 

flavours to combine. 

Heat some seasoned oil in a pan and cook the 

fish cakes over a medium heat for three or four 

minutes on each side, or until both sides are 

golden and they are cooked through. Serve with 

a handful of the papaya salad and garnish with 

micro coriander. As told to Rebecca Cunningham 

....81....

HealtHy November 

Select your 

Sussex treats 

from our 

seasonal 

local farm 

produce. 

You order 

online and 

we deliver 

to your door. 

10% off 

your first 

order over 

£50. Quote 

‘VivaNov’ 

browse our sussex produce: 

www.fiNaNdfarm.co.uk

FOOD 

............................................................. 

Edible updates 

All the news that’s fit to eat 

Big news this month: Terre à Terre has a new head chef: Judith Lang. 

She lived in Japan for two years, and everyone’s excited to discover what 

she will bring to the table. Her predecessor, co-owner Amanda Powley, will carry on in an executive role. 

On the horizon for 2017: a Brighton-based venture for Michelin-starred chef Matt Gillan. You can get a taste 

of what’s to come at Lucky Beach throughout November and Decemeber, where he’s cooking an eightcourse 

menu. More earthy, but no less fun, you might prefer the Bevy’s Beer & Sausage Fest on Bonfire 

Night, on the 5th. Also on the pop-up front: try Wild Africa at The Tempest on the 10th, from Nigerianborn 

chef and journalist Lerato Umah-Shaylor. And the 17th is Beaujolais Nouveau Day, a good excuse to 

head over to Mange Tout or Hotel du Vin. 

Welcomes now due: to Libation on Victoria Grove and Holy Phok, a delicious new Vietnamese restaurant 

on Lansdowne Place. Cin Cin celebrate their long-awaited permanent residence on Vine St. The restaurant 

at Royal Pavilion Ice Rink returns and The Belle Vue at i360 has service in full swing. 

More newness: tapas and cocktails at Dandelion @1847 and a revamped kitchen at The Prestonville Arms. 

At Green Kitchen, buy-one-get-one-free burgers on Wednesday and 10% discount to Duke of Yorks members. 

Finally, good luck to Brighton Food and Drink Awards 2016 nominees (winners announced the 14th), 

and to Troll’s Pantry, Kitgum Kitchen, Forgotten Cuts, and Vudu Food, all contenders at the Sussex 

Food & Drink Awards. Chloë King 

Illustration by Chloë King

䨀伀䤀一唀匀伀一 ⸀㈀⸀ 㘀吀伀 

䌀䔀䰀䔀䈀刀䄀吀䔀伀唀刀 

匀吀 

䈀䤀刀吀䠀䐀䄀夀

COFFEE 

......................................... 

eightpointnine 

Blended to order 

“It’s the perfect amount 

of coffee you should 

use to make a single 

cup,” explains Jenny 

Spires. “Eight-pointnine 

grams.” I’ve asked 

about the name of the 

company, eightpointnine, 

whose office is in 

the same building as 

ours, and whose brown 

paper pouches of coffee 

I’ve been eyeing up 

in our shared kitchen 

for the last few months. 

Apparently it’s a personalised-coffee-subscription 

service: you go online, fill in a bit of info about your 

caffeine habit and preferences, and they’ll deliver a 

bag to your door weekly, fortnightly or monthly - 

or you can just order a one-off bag. I meet up with 

Jenny and Susannah to find out how it all works. 

“The company was started in 2011,” says Susannah, 

“by two friends who believed that coffee should be 

about what you like and not what someone tells you 

is the best bean. Our founders developed a coffeeflavour 

algorithm” - I’d hoped they would give 

away a bit more on its inner workings, but nobody’s 

spilling the beans - “resulting in a range of around 

220 different blends.” There are a few restrictions, 

like you can’t choose ‘fruity’ and ‘rich’, because the 

outcome is ‘not nice coffee’, but 220 blends is plenty 

of choice. 

Back in our office I have a play around with the 

online-ordering system. The interface is simple 

to use, but if, like me, you find it difficult enough 

to pick from the choice of coffees available in the 

shops, this decision-making process will take you 

some time. There are two sliding scales; the first 

prompts you to select your preferred flavour, ranging 

from ‘fruity’ to 

‘sweet’ to ‘spicy’, 

the second alters 

the ‘body and 

mouthfeel’, from 

‘light’ to ‘medium’ 

to ‘rich’. At the bottom 

of the screen, 

there’s a responsive 

flavour indicator, 

which suggests 

blending options 

based on flavours 

you already know 

you like - for example, 

apricot, milk chocolate or almond. 

We decide to go for two totally different blends, 

kindly given to us by our new favourite neighbours. 

They arrive in our post tray, each packed with a 

little information card. The first is named ‘Viva Va 

Va Voom’, and its card tells us that it’s made with 

59% Brazilian, 24% Kenyan, 15% Guatemalan and 

2% Costa Rican beans. The tasting notes describe 

it as a ‘sweet, light blend, ideally made as café com 

leite and served with shortbread.’ The second is a 

less complex combination of 71% Sumatran and 

29% Colombian coffee, which creates a ‘rich and 

spicy blend, ideal for drinking after dinner or on 

moody mornings.’ 

Although we didn’t completely follow the instructions 

(there’s no shortbread in the Viva office, and 

we don’t often stay past dinner time) both coffees 

were a welcome change from the norm. At £8.95 

a bag it’s a bit pricier than the sort you’d pick up in 

the supermarket, but it’s well worth the occasional 

splurge for that rich, freshly ground coffee aroma 

when you tear open the bag, and for the excuse to 

break out of your coffee rut. Rebecca Cunningham 

eightpointnine.com 

....85....

圀椀琀栀漀瘀攀爀㈀䈀爀椀琀椀猀栀昀愀爀洀栀漀甀猀攀挀栀攀攀猀攀猀 Ⰰ 挀甀爀攀搀洀攀愀琀猀愀渀搀䔀渀最氀椀猀栀眀椀渀攀猀 

漀渀猀愀氀攀琀栀攀爀攀椀猀猀漀洀攀琀栀椀渀最昀漀爀攀瘀攀爀礀漀渀攀愀氀漀渀最眀椀琀栀愀栀甀最攀爀愀渀最攀漀昀 

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伀甀爀渀攀眀䴀䔀䔀吀吀䠀䔀倀刀伀䐀唀䌀䔀刀琀愀猀琀椀渀最攀瘀攀渀椀渀最猀 

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眀眀眀 ⸀ 琀栀攀最爀攀愀琀戀爀椀琀椀猀栀挀栀愀爀挀甀琀爀攀爀椀攀 ⸀ 挀漀 ⸀ 甀欀 

䄀䴀倀䰀䔀䘀刀䔀䔀倀䄀刀䬀䤀一䜀

TRADE SECRETS 

.......................................... 

Pat Mears 

Veteran Open Market grocer 

Dad set up the 

business in 1948. 

The place was 

absolutely buzzing 

in the early days. 

There were no 

supermarkets. Food 

was on ration, but 

you could bring apples 

back from Kent 

with small marks on 

them and you were 

allowed to sell them 

off ration. We’d 

sell 350 bushels a week. Someone gave my dad 

the nod that a boat was docking at Shoreham 

Harbour with refrigerator trouble and he went 

out there and bought seven tons of apricots. 

We manged to sell them in three days. We had 

a queue that went out the market and halfway 

down Baker Street. I joined full-time in 1957, 

when I left school aged 15. 

We had a wholesale stand, down at the 

wholesale market at Circus Street, that was 

our catering place. When that was knocked 

down we got another warehouse on Crowhurst 

Corner. My brother Cyril still runs the 

wholesale business, while I run the market side 

of things. 

This is the third market on this site. In 1962 

the second market opened and we missed the 

straight line of stalls in the first. I think this 

latest one would have been better if it was built 

the way we stallholders originally helped to 

design it, with the architect who did the Jubilee 

Library. He was a terrific bloke. 

We’re not the only long-serving stallholders 

here. Over the other side is David Ovett; 

he was in the old 

market, and we were 

boys together. The 

fishmonger next door 

was in the old market 

too, and the café and 

the pet stall. My first 

wife used to run it. 

I’ve been selling 

veg for 60 years, 

and we sell loads of 

things now that we 

wouldn’t have sold 

then. We wouldn’t 

have sold peppers or aubergines in those days. 

Simple things. No iceberg lettuce. I don’t think 

we had broccoli either. We sold cabbage, carrots, 

onions, potatoes and cauliflower back then. 

About 40 years ago, I got invited to go to Rungis, 

a massive market in France, and I spotted 

Lollo Rosso lettuce, so we were the first people 

to bring it to Brighton. A lot of stuff we sold 

then you don’t see now. Christmas time we’d 

have St. Michael pineapples, growing in a pot, 

and beautiful, huge black grapes from Belgium. 

You don’t see them now. 

We have stock from all over the world. Last 

week we had jack fruit from Malaysia. Practically 

all the ginger sold in this country comes 

from China. I’ve got two guys who go to a 

London market to buy it all for me. You’ve got 

to make it easier for yourself. 

In theory I’m retired but I still come here 

every day except Sunday. The market still 

feels the same. It’s still got the atmosphere and 

we’ve got great customers. We had one lady who 

was 101 and she’d still come in with her trolley. 

As told to Lizzie Lower 

....87....

MY SPACE 

........................................... 


....88....

MY SPACE 

........................................... 

Snoopers Paradise 

Cashier Chelsea Newton Mountney 

What’s your job? I work here as a cashier. It’s basically 

logging everything that’s sold, dealing with 

the public, making sure there’s no major mistakes 

with people’s accounts, making sure the shop’s 

open and shut on time, that everyone’s here when 

they should be, checking basic shop things. 

How do you keep track of what’s in here? It’s 

a very basic system that’s been the same for years 

and years and years: it’s totally analogue, everything 

is written down by description. Each section 

is known by number, so the item should (hopefully) 

say their stall number and the price. 

How many stalls are there? Between 80 and 100, 

though some stallholders have multiple cabinets 

and spaces, so it can vary. 

And how many staff? There’s only about eight 

regular staff, and most of them aren’t dealers - I’m 

not. I’m actually an actress and director and writer, 

so I work here part time. A lot of people that work 

here or have worked here are artists and musicians 

and creatives, because this place attracts a lot of 

customers like that too, so it’s a cool place to work 

for your pay-the-rent job, if that’s your thing. 

Does Snoopers attract more tourists or locals? 

It’s a massive mix of both, because it is a tourist 

destination for the fact that people think it’s weird, 

but there’s a huge number of regular dealers that 

come and buy off the dealers that are here, as well 

as locals who like to browse around. 

Do you know much about the things you sell? 

My subject specialist area was always fashion history, 

which was one of the things I was studying a 

lot when I was younger. A lot of people have areas 

they know way more about than others; there’s 

Patsy, who does a lot of costume jewellery and just 

has incredible general knowledge of everything. 

And also if you need anything fixed, she’ll probably 

know how to do it. Mark, who works here, he has 

an insane knowledge of records and bands. When 

I first started working here I felt so deeply uncool 

because everyone else knew so much about music 

and art and I just felt like I was so uncultured compared 

to everyone else. I mean, I’m a lot younger 

than anyone else, so that’s partly my excuse! But 

even people in here who have worked in antiques 

their whole life, you can’t know everything. I suppose 

that’s part of the attraction - there’s always 

going to be something that you haven’t seen. 

Is there anything here you wish you could take 

home? There have been so many clothes going in 

and out of this place that I’ve loved but not been 

able to afford! We sometimes get really stunning 

30s or 40s things that you don’t come across often, 

which I find the most attractive, because you’re 

probably not going to see something like that 

again. But I do get to touch them. RC 

....89....

CYCLING 

........................................... 

PeloBros 

Equipment and apparel for adventurers 

Ronan and Delphine Kennedy run PeloBros on Vine 

Street, a shop which does much more than just sell 

cool cycling gear. In fact, it defies categorisation… 

Delphine: When I met Ronan four years ago, 

we decided that happiness should be our first 

motivation. We got married in June and on our 

honeymoon in Portland, I decided to quit my wellpaid-but-stressful 

job in aviation to join him in this 

venture. We’ve been open since mid-August. 

Ronan: PeloBros is a shop which projects the 

spirit of what we love doing. We love cycling, we 

love camping, we love surfing, and we love beautiful 

and original design. We love doing things our 

own way. 

D: All the brands we sell are special and reflect 

our ethos. Pendleton, from Oregon, make blankets 

from 100% virgin wool. Passenger is a great company 

from the New Forest that do outwear… they 

plant a tree every time they sell an item. The designers 

at Mizu make cool-coloured steel bottles 

and wine glasses. I’m French and I’d drink wine out 

of one of those… it’s much better than using plastic 

stuff and throwing it away. 

R: We sell cycling gear from independent companies, 

so people can wear something a bit different 

on their bikes. FYXO is an Australian company 

who created cobbled streets in Melbourne in 

order to replicate the conditions in the Paris-Roubaix 

race. They do great cycling shirts in the colours 

of the French flag, called Roo-baix. 

D: One of my favourite items is this Polerstuff 

Napsack, an amazing sleeping bag you can wear. 

People are loving the colours! Floral, camo, burnt 

orange - in fact we only have one left… 

R: Cycling is right at the forefront of youth culture 

at the moment, and that’s reflected in the interesting 

design of cycling gear and paraphernalia. 

The Criterium races, held all over the world, exemplify 

that. These races are no-holds-barred, with 

fixed-gear bikes with no brakes doing 30k in 25 minutes; 

those involved like to look original. 

D: We’re starting up our own rides from the 

shop every week. Riders of any level can join. One 

was just a whizz to Shoreham and back, others have 

been longer. 

R: In the summer we’re going to hire a field from 

a farmer nearby and our customers who cycle out 

there from the shop can try out some of the camping 

gear we’re selling here. Biolite is a stove which 

boils water on just a few lit twigs, from which you 

can recharge your phone, light up your cooking or 

post what you’re up to on Instagram. 

D: We are excited to welcome a tattooist, barber 

and prosecco bar as neighbours in the next few 

weeks… it’s going to be a really happening street! 

R: We chose Brighton because we love Brighton, 

and this concept wouldn’t work in many places. East 

London, maybe. Bristol, definitely. Or out in the 

middle of nowhere, so people would have to cycle to 

it… As told to Alex Leith 

16 Vine Street / pelobros.cc 

Photos by Alex Leith 

....90....

HEALTH 

..................................................... 

GAK owner Gary Marshall 

Backing the Brighton Mindfulness Centre 

I moved to Brighton 

from Horsham in 

1989, me and my 

wife in a van with five 

binliners. I was in a 

ska band, The Hot 

Knives, and we were 

doing well - we headlined 

the Astoria in 

London twice, but the 

radio wouldn’t play us 

because of the name, 

so I worked as a hod 

carrier. ‘On the monkey’ 

they used to call it. Hardest job there was. 

Acid House was happening, so the ska revival 

became less likely. By 1992 I was thinking I had 

to do something. My wife Jan had a head shop in 

Kensington Arcade, in Kensington Gardens. It’s 

shops now, but back then there were units for £70 

a week. I realized there’s another way of making 

money without grafting your bollocks off. It 

started when I went to buy a guitar at a shop in 

Gardner Street. It was full of staff with miserable 

faces, and I said to the owner ‘Can you do me a 

deal?’ He didn’t even look up, just shook his head. 

If he’d said ‘Yeah’ and given me a few picks and 

leads, then there wouldn’t be a GAK. I thought ‘I 

can do a much better job’. 

There was a unit spare at the arcade, so I read 

up on buying guitars. First day, I had seven for 

sale - five were my own, and two I’d bought. And 

then a young guy came in and said he wanted a 

particular guitar that I didn’t have. I said I could 

get him it, and he said he had 20 guitars he wanted 

to do a part exchange on. That was it, I had stock. 

I’ve always had the attitude ‘Take it away and try 

it, and if you don’t like it just bring it back’. I’ve 

never ripped anyone 

off. We opened the 

North Street shop 

in 1995, and now we 

have a 30 million a 

year turnover and 85 

staff. 

In 2004, me, Jan 

and our three kids 

got caught in the 

tsunami on Phi Phi 

Island. The wave 

killed 3,000 people, 

and I thought the 

world was coming to an end. The family left on 

a rescue boat, but I stayed, and I thought they’d 

all drowned. We were reunited in Phuket, but 

something changed for me. I realized then that 

happiness doesn’t come from wealth. You forget, 

though. You drift back. You sell your soul to the 

devil in business. It takes over. About five years 

ago, though, I re-read Eckhart Tolle’s Power Of 

Now. The first five pages, I’m thinking ‘there’s two 

of me!’ 

Now I’m financing Brighton Mindfulness 

Centre, which has opened in part of the building 

in North Street, because like Tolle says, if we 

don’t become conscious then we’re not going to 

live in a conscious world. 

I used to wonder how I could justify the business, 

but I employ a lot of people and bring a lot 

of money to Brighton. I’m friends with the staff, 

and it feels embarrassing to be called ‘Boss’. I’ve 

overachieved, you know! 

As told to Andy Darling 

GAK, 76-82 North Road 

Brighton Mindfulness Centre, 66/67 North Road 

brightonmindfulnesscentre.com 

....91....

CityCycling 

Skills 

Everyday cycling 

for everyone! 

New to cycling? 

Keen to cycle again? 

Want to know 

how to fix your bike? 

Free cycle training and 

maintenance courses 

To find out more: 

www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/cycletraining 

east.central@brighton-hove.gov.uk 

01273 295456 

Funded by Department for Transport’s: Sustainable Travel Transition Year 

夀伀䜀䄀匀䠀䄀一吀䄀 

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HISTORY 

........................................... 

Hanningtons 

‘Fake white snow, tinny music and utter magic’ 

Photo by Gillian Burchell 

Over two hundred years 

since its launch, and 15 

since its closure, the 

department store Hanningtons 

still holds a firm 

place in many Brighton 

hearts. Not least those of 

eighties kids like myself, 

who warmly recall its experimental 

Santa’s Grotto. 

For Christmas one year, Hanningtons even put Santa 

on the moon, offering children rides in a skyrocket. 

“It felt so luxurious as a child, being escorted around 

the carpeted labyrinth of floors,” recalls Luisa Clarke, 

whose parents would take her there at Christmas. 

“The lift had a revolving snowscape which made you 

feel like you were heading to Lapland.” 

Another happy customer, Lucy Wilkes, recalls “a 

winter wonderland of fake white snow, tinny music 

and utter magic.” These warm recollections seem 

somewhat at odds with the creepy snow scenes, floral 

bedrooms, sleeping mannequins and staring dolls 

you’ll find frozen in the Hanningtons photos of 

Brighton Past. Hanningtons was, in fact, a pioneer of 

in-store displays depicting realistic scenes - the kind 

of creative marketing rarely seen outside of high-end 

London stores. 

Curiously enough, for many years Hanningtons 

also had real on-site bedrooms for live-in staff. The 

facilities and worker experience are said to have been 

good: a social club, library, annual outings, aboveaverage 

wages. There is another side, however. During 

the latter half of the 19th century, staff are said to 

have signed contracts that forbade former employees 

from working within ten miles of the company in the 

same line of business. 

And for Hanningtons, the same line of business was 

a pretty wide field. 

The department store 

began its life as a drapery, 

haberdashery and hosiery 

but grew extensively 

throughout the 19th 

century and beyond, to 

incorporate many departments 

in numerous 

locations: from costume 

to furniture, estate agent to undertaker. 

The enterprise began as a single unit at 3 North 

Street, founded by Smith Hannington in 1808. Hannington 

was a wool and linen draper to George IV, 

and he was issued a warrant from Queen Victoria to 

bring back goods from France to sell. An inheritance 

enabled him to expand the business and during 

the 1860s, his numerous North Street shops were 

architecturally unified into a single store. 

Hanningtons stayed in the family until shortly after 

Dorothy Hannington passed away in 1966. Even 

after it was sold on, it continued to be run to similar 

principles, which may have contributed to its downfall 

at the turn of the millennium. 

Highlights of its more recent past include the café, 

serving up simple classics like scrambled eggs; the 

Estée Lauder stand and, of course, the original 

hosiery. “I used to get my Wolford tights when I was 

18,” recalls Oriana Evans, “ready for raving with my 

hot pants on at the Zap”. When Hanningtons closed 

in 2001, the store had 70 departments and over 200 

staff. It was part of the community - I doubt there 

was a city resident that hadn’t, at some point, been 

in the lift. 

“The lift was magnificent,” recalls Wendy Bell, 

another former customer. “I used to pop in, just to 

experience it.” Chloë King 

....93....

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BRICKS AND MORTAR 

.............................................. 

John Lewis 

The future of North Street? 

Illustration of indicative design for John Lewis Brighton viewed from Dyke Road corner 

There has been 

chatter about John 

Lewis coming to the 

city for some years, 

and now with a planning 

application and 

public consultation 

underway, the North 

Street Clock Tower 

corner site is set for 

a transformation that 

will change the nature 

of the city-centre 

shopping experience. 

John Lewis will take the place of Boots, Krispy 

Kreme, First Choice, and all floors above them. 

The site will be remodelled with a new frontage, 

set back for better pedestrian flow. This will also 

enhance sightlines; it’ll be visible from the Station 

and seafront, along North Street, and from Western 

Road. It’s an important piece in Brighton & Hove 

City Council’s Gateway to the Sea project, improving 

pedestrian and cycle access around the Clock Tower 

junction. According to John Lewis, the new store 

will bring 250 jobs and £4 million additional spend 

for the city, and will benefit local charities through a 

community-engagement scheme. 

Importantly, John Lewis recognise that Brighton 

and Hove has a unique character, and state that their 

vision is to create a ‘world-class anchor store’ of 

‘bold and confident facades’ with ‘strong personality… 

responsive to local architecture’. They want 

to create an iconic architecture for the store and 

looking around the country, there is some precedent 

for this: take a look at their Leicester store, designed 

by Foreign Office Architects, which makes more 

of a feature of the 

architecture than the 

merchandise. 

Located as it is - adjacent 

to the blighted 

retail environment of 

Western Road and 

perhaps eclipsing 

that of Churchill 

Square - the store 

could transform the 

appearance of the city 

centre. Yet the initial 

designs for the Brighton store are lacking in ambition. 

The architectural concept takes its inspiration, 

somewhat obviously, from ‘the sun, the sea and the 

light’ to create a reflective façade, mirroring the city 

back to itself. It is, perhaps, somewhat tame for a city 

with an architectural cityscape punctuated by iconic 

buildings from all eras. 

The site has seen bold architectural statements 

before - the Boots store was a 1979 Modernist design 

by Derek Sharp - but the area has suffered from 

dilapidation, demolition and redevelopment into design 

anonymity. What’s to be lost then by designing a 

store that - rather than literally reflecting its past and 

present - sets the architectural agenda for the future? 

We are indeed a bold and confident city, so let’s see a 

design that moves the benchmark for our high street 

architecture up a bar, something that tells a story of 

modern Brighton and Hove and the city yet to come, 

a landmark building that symbolises the prospect and 

ambition of the city. Cara Courage 

Public consultation is set to continue on all aspects of 

the store. You can view, and comment on, the designs 

at johnlewis.com/our-shops/brighton 

....95....

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MINDFULNESS IN BUSINESS 

............................................ 

Jo Berry 

Befriending the bomber 

Two days after her father was killed by the Brighton 

bomb, Jo Berry went to church. During the service, 

listening to a peace activist’s speech, she made a 

decision, suddenly and quite firmly. It was “like putting 

an anchor in the ground, or something.” 

Before the bomb, she’d been very interested in 

pacifism and meditation and peace work. But her 

father’s death had raised a question in her mind. 

“Was I going to give up everything I believed in? 

That would mean having an enemy, and maybe 

closing down on life, closing down on myself? Or 

was I going to stay open, and try and find a way to 

transform it and feel it and bring something positive, 

and carry on believing in nonviolence?” She 

chose the latter path, without having any idea how 

she’d actually go about doing that. 

The process kicked off by that decision eventually 

led her to meet, listen to, and actually befriend the 

bomber, Patrick Magee. She and ‘Pat’ now work 

together on conflict resolution, as part of the charity 

Building Bridges for Peace. The key to Berry’s 

thinking, I gather, is that dehumanising the enemy 

“is the basis of all unhealthy conflict. Conflict can 

be healthy, but in all unhealthy conflict there’s some 

aspect of dehumanising happening.” 

This month, Berry will be speaking at Meaning, a 

conference about progressive business practices. 

Can businesses really benefit, I asked, from lessons 

learned in serious armed conflict? 

“I think so. There’s a whole spectrum of blaming 

and demonising the other. It can be as simple as 

someone at work who says something that you take 

the wrong way. Even in small conflicts, when we 

blame and demonise someone, then I feel we’re 

contributing to a culture of blame. Blame, for me, is 

a form of violence. So how do we change that? How 

do we begin to empathise with people and hear 

their stories? And if they do something that annoys 

us, how can we challenge their behaviour without 

actually blaming them? 

“The whole blame culture in the workplace can 

mean that people are quite scared to open up; 

perhaps their self-esteem is affected, so they can’t 

do their best; perhaps they stop caring. All sorts of 

things can contribute to people being less productive. 

A workplace which is more empathic and 

respectful means that people will want to work. 

“So as in schools now, where they have circle-time 

sharing, I think every healthy business will also have 

a safe place for people to share what’s happening 

with them, so they can feel heard. Because once 

we’re heard, it’s much easier to let it go. 

“You know, our politicians don’t give us leadership 

in that way of communicating; it’s all about, ‘I’m 

right you’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you why’. 

This is more about the kind of dialogue where we 

learn to listen. Listening is a skill that’s very underrated. 

Real listening’s hard to do.” Steve Ramsey 

Meaning, 17th, Brighton Dome. Jo Berry will be giving 

a talk and a workshop. 

2016.meaningconference.co.uk 

....97....

INSIDE LEFT: BHS, 1968 

.......................................................................................... 

It’s all change since this picture was taken in December 1968, not in terms of the architecture, but in 

terms of what things were then named, and what they are called now. For starters, in 1968 the photographer 

would have been standing outside the Castle in Clarence Gardens, while now he’d be outside 

the Pull & Pump in Clarence Square. To the left we can see gentlemen’s outfitter Roy Baxter, a space 

now inhabited by Santander. And, most strikingly, the grand building which dominates the background 

of the picture, which we now know so well as Primark’s Brighton store, was then owned by British 

Home Stores, as it had been since the building was constructed. 

British Home Stores was founded in 1928, and the controlling shares were almost immediately bought 

by American chain-store owners Neisner Brothers, who were intent on growing Britain’s second ever 

national chain store (the first being Woolworths). Like the latter store, BHS was a bottom-end-of-themarket 

operation, with a price limit of 3d to one shilling (which later rose to five shillings); the first 

shops were built in London, with the Brighton version constructed in 1931. 

They may have been a cut-price store, but they certainly paid top dollar for the building. Though 

you wouldn’t necessarily know it nowadays. Pevsner’s Architectural Guide comments that the building is 

constructed of Portland Stone ashlar blocks, which were, it points out, ‘painted in 2007, astonishingly’. 

The store traded from 164-170 Western Road until 1969, when they moved to the new Churchill 

Square development, with C&A taking over and opening their store the next year, remaining there 

for nearly 30 years, until 2000, when the company withdrew from the UK market. Littlewoods traded 

there for a few years until 2005, when the building was purchased by Associated British Foods, who 

soon plonked a Primark in place. And so one popular chain selling low-price goods has turned into 

another; do you know anyone who has never purchased anything from the store? AL 

....98....

Providing hospice care for local 

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and their families so they can enjoy 

every little moment together at home 

chestnut-tree-house.org.uk 

#ChestnutLittleThings 

Registered charity no. 256789

Viva Brighton Issue #45 November 2016

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