by Jon Bounds
SOUTHSEA South Parade
Opened: 1879 (Architect: G. Rale; 1904 rebuilding by G. E. Smith)
Length at start: 1,950 ft (594 m)
Length now: 600 ft (183 m)
Burn baby burn? Fires in 1904, 1966 and again during the filming of the rock opera Tommy in 1974. The fire began (according to director Ken Russell) while filming Ann-Margret and Oliver Reed dancing together, a spotlight setting fire to some drapes. Smoke from the fire can be seen in the film. There's a shot of the pavilion fully ablaze during the destruction of Tommy's Holiday Camp in the finished movie, which must have saved money on special effects.
David Bowie, Peter Sellers and organist Reginald Dixon have all played the pier.
We pretty much ignore the arcade and skirt round onto the pier itself. It's flat and uninteresting, the faded tarmac coming loose and making it sandy and scuffy underfoot. There are lumps, bumps and kerbs all around – the surface has a crazy-golf course built into it. The pier is unloved; weeds force themselves through the deck. It is being reclaimed from commerce by nature, almost folded back into the world away from organised fun. It's busy, though. The seaward edges of the concrete are being fished heavily and, surprisingly for us, by people of non-whiteBritish ethnicity. The absence of other cultures until now should perhaps have come as a shock, but we've been focussed inward on ourselves and outward on the water. This pier reflects the modern working class, rather than the McGill postcard or Carry On class of the early part of the last century, which isn't quite what we expected.
* * *
The sky is still warm when we arrive in Bognor, even though the mechanical shutters of the beachside huts on this most Englishlooking seafront are ratcheting closed as we hurry past them. Along the front, signs blink 'Mr Whippy' and 'Cassino' – maybe the King who gave the place his seal of approval was as dyslexic as I am.
Bognor earned the 'Regis' (literally 'of the king') suffix when King George V took the sea air during a convalescence from pleurisy and a nasty bout of septicaemia. World War One and a gradual eroding of the empire had taken its toll on a, by all accounts, terse and grumpy bloke at the best of times. It's often said his last words were 'Bugger Bognor', but it's more likely that he said those words when he was presented with the petition for it to have the suffix. His actual last words were more likely to have been 'God damn you', addressed to a nurse shortly before his physician took the brave but not unheard of option to euthanise him with a mixture of cocaine and morphine. Another version is of a tough, well-travelled man with a magnificent beard who, on his deathbed, summoned his secretary to ask 'How is the Empire?', only allowing himself to fade into unconsciousness when told that 'All is well with the Empire', but this was probably a generous fantasy concocted out of kindness and decorum by Stanley Baldwin, who was Prime Minister at the time – a story protecting an angry old man who had seen too much and had to be put to sleep with the same speedball cocktail that took John Belushi.
* * *
Seaweed hangs tautly from the crossed metal under the pier. Rust and wear are obvious. Which is a bit of a shame as the pier looks – like much of Bognor at this quick glance – to be well cared for. If a little dull. I don't spend too much time on the pier or in the arcade. It's our sixth pier today and they're starting to blur. Instead, I clamber over the heavy blocks meant to stop people crossing the road directly outside the pier and cross the road. I say I'm off to post the approximately 30 postcards we've spent most of today's car miles scribbling on, but really I just want to stand in the ebbing sun.
BOGNOR REGIS
Opened: 1865 (Architects: Sir Charles Fox and J. W. Wilson)
Length at start: 1,000 ft (305 m)
Length now: 350 ft (107 m)
Burn baby burn? A little fire in 2011, but suffered massive storm damage in 1964 and 1965.
The pier was named HMS Barbara when 200 men were billeted there during World War Two. The Bognor Birdman event, where contestants attempt to fly by the use of home-made devices, has taken place at the end of the pier almost every year since 1978. A man called Ron Freeman has won the event the most times (and has set the world record for such an event at Worthing Pier just along the coast).
The pier itself is pretty standard. During World War Two it escaped demolition on account of its status as a Royal Navy base. The ballroom has been turned into a nightclub named Sheiks: it seems the appeal of dancing above the waves is universal. It's understandable. One of my secret thrills when walking on a pier is looking down between the cracks and wondering what would happen if I stepped on a rotten board. This small flirtation with mortality has always been humanity's drug of choice. Spending the night dancing above the black water, defying time's wing'd chariot, is as romantic as it is advantageous from a wooing gentleman's point of view. The link between sex and death has long been established. I mean, who doesn't get horny at a funeral? Even the body gets stiff.
* * *
I do that skippy jog that isn't quite a run, speeding up as a car rounds the corner from out of sight. Safely and less embarrassingly on the pavement, I post the cards. Whenever I put anything in a postbox I'm gripped by indecision and terror. As I lift my hand and am about to release, my mind goes into a terrible dead-end. 'What if I post my keys in there by mistake?' 'What if I post my phone?' These things are both safe in my pockets but I really believe that I'm about to fall prey to the urge and do it. It's a fear of doing something that you can't repair. Alone here, I get a bit of that, but not too much.
I've done lots of posting on the trip already, and will have to post nearly 400 cards by the time I'm finished, so maybe it has been a sort of aversion therapy. Maybe on the trip there is so much I can't control, or that can go wrong, that the worry of losing something isn't too overwhelming. I walk back towards the guys and pass a gypsy fortune-teller's hut.
I can see Danny and Midge ambling around the arcade, prodding at buttons and pointing out oddness, but I'm happier outside. I perch on the barrier and stare over the road again at the crazy-golf course. It's virulently green in its astroturfed landscaping. The obstacles – including the obligatory windmill – are stark in their whiteness, bright in the early-evening light. We've no time to play as we plan to hit Brighton this evening and still have Worthing to go before then. There is one family playing: mum, dad, teenage son and daughter, who's about 18. She's got cropped hair and a mod-ish dress, and I enjoy watching her play. She moves with the unconscious grace of the young. I feel very lonely. And old. And conscious.
Conscious of all my faults and doubts. Doubly conscious that lusting after a young woman who's bending over to play crazy golf is a seaside cliché.
As we're about to get back into the car my phone buzzes at my thigh. It's bad news.
* * *
I see his face ashen. Jon hates answering the phone at the best of times but recently I have got the impression that time spent away from the real world, faced with the enormity of nature, is more useful to him than just a holiday. He steps away and when he comes back he's running his hand through his hair:
'You know that bag?' he says.
'The one that definitely wasn't yours?' I ask.
'Yeah, that one – well, it is.'
'Well, we can't go back for it,' I say, stifling a smile. 'What's it got in it?'
'My T-shirts and my toilet stuff.'
To the left, underneath one of the sea barriers on the beach, a shrug of teenagers sits chatting and throwing stones at the sea, not laughing at Jon, but laughing.
* * *
Grand, ornate, domed, difficult to find the entrance to: Worthing Pier is a huge structure, its front dominated by a seated theatre that's closed but preparing for a more modern English oddity. Tonight the Pavilion Theatre is going to host a Sex Pistols tribute act. We won't be able to stick around to see the facsimile punks entertain a sit-down crowd.
WORTHING
Opened: 1862 (Architect: Sir Robert Rawlinson)
Length at start: 960 ft (293 m)
&nbs
p; Length now: 984 ft (300 m)
Burn baby burn? Storm-damaged in 1913; the Southern Pavilion went up in flames in 1933; the pier was partly demolished during World War Two to stop enemy craft from landing on it.
The 'New Amusements' sign that featured on the cover of the album To See the Lights by Britpop band Gene was changed in 2006 to 'Pier Amusements'. In November 2009 Lewis Crathern and Jake Scrace became the first people to kitesurf over the pier.
It seems every pier has had a major fire at some time or another. Worthing Pier's happened in 1933 when possibly a discarded cigarette started a fire that would, at its peak, have shot 60-ft sheets of flame into the air, fanned by the stiff breeze. Onlookers destroyed part of the promenade to stop the fire spreading further and chains of women, still in their swimming costumes, passed buckets of water up and down to the firefighters. Worthing Pier didn't escape World War Two either, having a hole blown in it in 1940 for fear of the Germans winning too many tickets on the amusements and bankrupting us of novelty items and stuffed toys.
Now it's a massive art-deco monument with three buildings: the entrance, which houses a theatre and café; a middle-of-thepier amusements arcade; and a nightclub called Angelik that was soon to open. All have the soft modern curves and domed roofs that hark back to a time before glass and concrete panels. Jon, still reeling from the loss of his hair products, absent-mindedly brings with him onto the pier his copy of a J. B. Priestley book that I haven't seen him read once.
* * *
It no longer surprises me, the range of bands that have touring, money-making tribute versions. The arguments against them are well told: that they are dull, that they stifle new artists, and so on. But they're easier for the venues to sell, guaranteeing an audience. Or at least they do in the back of a pub where an audience drawn in by the beer and atmosphere won't be drawn out again by anything not too challenging. But the Sex Pistols offer a different thing, because – despite years of commercial and cultural assimilation – they are still resolutely unpalatable. Sure, jukebox favourite 'Pretty Vacant' isn't going to upset the punters but lots of the rest of the 'hits' are discordant, stuffed with bile and lyrics that have to be spat with venom to work at all. In short, a Pistols tribute can't work unless it's harsh, and only 'real' punks will like that.
And shouldn't real punks care enough about authenticity to reject a tribute show as the antithesis of everything they are? Midge is a man rooted in the punk of the now, his bank holidays much more likely to be spent in a sweaty pub at an 'all-dayer' than at the seaside. I've picked up a flyer for a punk festival here, a mixture of old bands I've heard of (Buzzcocks, UK Subs…) and ones formed after 1980 that, if I've encountered them at all, it's been on hand-cut flyers on pub tables. Due to the fonts used, their names are hard to read to start with but get even more illegible as beer drips and condensation leave pools on the melamine.
'Booze and Glory, Johnny One Lung, 5 Shitty Fingers, The Bots … are any of these any good, Midge?'
'I have absolutely no idea. Most modern 'old school' punk bands all sound the same. Dirt Box Disco are not too bad.'
I like punk, especially as an attitude, but the cider-drinking, whiffy, denim scene it's become is not one I want to spend too much time in. It demands commitment, like all subcultures that somehow survive in aspic. I've dipped my toe into mod and northern soul, but could never really dive in head first. To really do it right you have to exclude all sorts from your life.
We eventually slip round the side. The pier is nice enough but nothing we probably haven't seen before. A girl with long dyedred hair is taking artful photos of the structure. I quickly think 'on holiday with parents' rather than resident. We've taken nothing but memory-joggers. I wish we had more time.
* * *
In many ways the rate at which we are consuming piers is becoming a little concerning. The details are being lost. But, honestly, how long does it take to enjoy a pier? The seaside is a short-term thing. The beach, even in summer, is weather roulette, the arcade a diversion for an hour. Even with a show at the theatre it's only one night. Bed & Breakfasts are inherently short-term, too. The English seaside, for working-class city folk, either by design or nature, is a temporary thing to be enjoyed on a long weekend away from work rather than over a leisurely two weeks.
* * *
On our way into Brighton I make us stop at a large Sainsbury's. I figure I can get toiletries, maybe a T-shirt or two and a towel. I know I could have waited till tomorrow, got stuff in the centre of town, but, disorganised as I am, when there's something outstanding I just want to get it done as quickly as possible. The place does homewares, shower stuff, shaving stuff – and booze. I need booze. But there are no clothes. I'm stuck with what I'm standing in till tomorrow at the earliest.
This is the second towel I've bought since we set off. It, being new, will leave fluff stuck to me when I wash in the morning. For us slightly bookish, slightly alternative kids of a slightly certain age, the towel means Douglas Adams. And it means much more than that. Because if a traveller has a towel, if they've managed to negotiate deep space and keep hold of their towel, then they're clearly someone to be respected. You've got to know where your towel is.
I'm Arthur Dent, but even more adrift. Except, I know where my towel is.
The Isle of Wight.
Along with my wash bag and T-shirts, and the shirt I'd packed in case we go to a nightclub: maybe a white-stilettoed Essex nightclub. I want an epic night now, too. We have come to Brighton with the avowed intent to disrupt the lives of its inhabitants.
We booze and press on. Arriving outside my friend Adam's flat – beautifully set on an Edwardian grassed square which is open on one side to the front – we park up remarkably easily but find ourselves under a sign announcing a parking restriction. 'Residents-only parking between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday to Friday.' It's half past seven, so as long as we watch it for a bit we'll be okay till the morning.
'Early start for you in the morning, Midge. You can move the car before we get a ticket.'
He says nothing and starts unpacking some stuff out of the car.
CHAPTER SIX
BRIGHTON ROCKS
We arrive at Adam's flat with an eagerness for excess. We have planned our first night of true bacchanalian worship in England's party town, London-on-Sea, Britain's unofficial gay capital, the magnificent newly minted city of Brighton.
* * *
We're stopping with Adam, who Danny calls 'Wes' and Midge hasn't met. No one calls Adam 'Wes' to his face. No one calls Adam 'Wes' at all apart from Danny, and me when I need to explain 'who this Adam is' to Danny. Dan has met Adam, but knows him much better from his regular guest appearances on my radio show where he played the anchorman of The Sweary News.
Rhubarb Radio was the appallingly named Internet radio station that both Danny and I had shows on until about a year ago. When we first found out about it we both excitedly got slots talking rubbish in between records. My show, the Saturday breakfast slot, featured a news slot where the presenter needed to be heavily bleeped – and the man I know that most needs bleeping is Adam. Late on a Friday night, often audibly inebriated, he would write and record a real news bulletin peppered with some of the very worst and most inventive swearwords, and then email it to me so that I could censor it pre-show, often hampered by sleeplessness or hangover. Most weeks at least one would slip through. Adam, wisely if unusually modestly, hid behind the pseudonym 'Wes Mundell'. Adam buzzes us up to his flat and we bring in our bags. Well, the other two do. They get changed, ready for a night out. I pace the bay window chugging lager, paranoid about what my parking fine would be if I got one – £60 would break the bank. I can't change until eight o'clock strikes and wonder aloud if my retro Birmingham City shirt (yellow, seventies, away) will cause a problem at any nightspot we go to.
* * *
The first time I came to Brighton it was on a city break when I fell in love with the second-hand bookshops and other independents. I've always bemo
aned Birmingham's lack of independent shops, but I'm at least partially wrong to do so. The fact is, Birmingham has a good few non-chain retailers in the city centre. It's just that most of them are the expensive sort of boutique selling 'deconstructed' (read: poorly made) or 'distressed' (tatty) jackets for the sort of money I would normally reserve for holidays or moon landings. Either that or they spend so much effort to look like one of the generic high-street staples it would take a somebody who gave more shits than me to tell the difference.
The second time I came to Brighton was the way most people will experience it: on a stag do. The details probably shouldn't be recorded here, but we did meet Joe Mangel from Neighbours, we weren't really sober enough to be go-karting, and me and my other best friend, Mat, got ostracised at the end of the last night because we had no desire to pay money to have our crotches rubbed by bored-looking women going through the motions of arousal. I've never really understood the strip club. If I were to list the ideal circumstances in which I wanted to be aroused, 'with my mates, in a dark public room that smells of sweat, despair and money' doesn't even feature in the top 20. We chose to go to the beach and watch the sea writhe soothingly as we chatted about the big things – sex, death, the future – with the earnestness of two men who had drunk themselves sober. I had a lot of fun that weekend, but that bit, that moment with Mat and the sea, is a moment frozen in time. Locked in my head-cave for safe keeping.
