Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Mystery Brighton Beach man

It is 15 years ago to the day that a passer-by found - on 12 February 2010 - a well-dressed man on Brighton Beach, east of the pier, soaking wet and unconscious. He was taken to the nearby Royal Sussex County Hospital where he was diagnosed with hypothermia (the beach in February is pretty cold). It soon became clear that he had no idea who he was; and although he had a few personal belongings there was nothing to identify him. There have been a few other reported cases of unidentified individuals being washed-up (literally or metaphorically) on British beaches, and the media loves a good beach mystery - see also Reggie Perrin disappears, again and again and again . . .

After exhausting various lines of inquiry, the police decided to appeal to the public, using a photograph of the mystery Brighton Beach man, and this led to his fiancee identifying him as a 26 year old from London. Although still in a fragile state two weeks later, he was said to be making a good recovery. According to the police, the man’s family was informed but neither they nor the man himself wished for his name to be released to the public. See more at the BBC and The Independent.

Some five years earlier, a disoriented individual had been found in a dripping wet shirt and tie near the beach on the Isle of Sheppey. He was taken to Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, but refused to say who he was or to speak at all. However, when given pen and paper, he drew a piano (see
The Guardian), and subsequently played a piano for hours, with staff describing it as a way for him to control nerves and tension. He was dubbed the ‘Piano Man’, and the case attracted international attention. Some four months later he claimed his memory had returned, and he revealed his identity as Andreas Grassl from Germany. An article in the Mirror provided a few more details: Grassl had come to Britain on a Eurostar train after losing his job in Paris; he had been planning to commit suicide when he was discovered on the beach, and he would not talk because he was so distressed. See Wikipedia.

Much more recently, in September 2023, there was a similar case of a man - this time dressed in black motorcycle gear - who was found near Weymouth’s seafront in Dorset. Initially he was unable to tell police who he was or where he came from. Investigators eventually determined that he was a 43-year-old Latvian man. See the Lad Bible for more.


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