Slow in the Wintry Morn

This day in 1806 died Charlotte Smith, the poet and novelist whose Elegiac Sonnets established her as a leading voice of early Romanticism. One of her most famous works is The Emigrants, a long poem published in 1793 and set explicitly on the cliffs to the east of Brighton, then known as Brighthelmstone. Its combination of personal melancholy, political sympathy, and local coastal imagery made it one of the most striking poetic responses to the turbulence of the French Revolution and the transformation of the Sussex seashore.

Smith was born Charlotte Turner in London in 1749, the daughter of a wealthy merchant family. Married at 15 to Benjamin Smith, she endured an unhappy union marked by financial ruin and repeated imprisonment for debt. To support her twelve children she turned to writing, publishing Elegiac Sonnets in 1784 while her husband was in the King’s Bench Prison. The book became a sensation, going through multiple editions and influencing Wordsworth and Coleridge. Over the following two decades she produced both poetry and a string of innovative novels that engaged with contemporary politics, women’s rights, and the injustices of the legal system.

Despite chronic illness and poverty, Smith continued to write until her death at Tilford, Surrey, on 28 October 1806. Among her most enduring works is The Emigrants, written during the war with revolutionary France. It is addressed to her friend William Cowper, whose own Task had inspired her, and takes as its scene the Sussex coast overlooking Brighton. In the poem’s two ‘books’ (around 80 pages in total), she meditates on the plight of French exiles driven to England, weaving their suffering into her own reflections on war, tyranny, and compassion. 

Here are the first few lines of the first ‘book’. It opens with a note - ‘Scene, on the Cliffs to the Eastward of the Town of Brighthelmstone in Sussex. Time, a Morning in November, 1792’ - and begins with a powerful evocation of the pebbled beach and troubled Channel.

The Emigrants

Slow in the Wintry Morn, the struggling light
Throws a faint gleam upon the troubled waves;
Their foaming tops, as they approach the shore
And the broad surf that never ceasing breaks
On the innumerous pebbles, catch the beams
Of the pale Sun, that with reluctance gives
To this cold northern Isle, its shorten’d day.
Alas! how few the morning wakes to joy!
How many murmur at oblivious night
For leaving them so soon; for bearing thus
Their fancied bliss (the only bliss they taste!),
On her black wings away! - Changing the dreams
That sooth’d their sorrows, for calamities
(And every day brings its own sad proportion)
For doubts, diseases, abject dread of Death,
And faithless friends, and fame and fortune lost;
Fancied or real wants; and wounded pride,
That views the day star, but to curse his beams. . .

Seahorse on fire

A fire broke out at The Seahorse on Brighton seafront in the early hours of this morning. According to Brighton and Hove News, crews from East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service were called at 00.16 to reports of a blaze in a bin-store beside the venue. Two engines from Preston Circus attended and firefighters wearing breathing apparatus used a hose-reel jet to bring the flames under control, with the incident declared over by 00.45. No casualties were reported. 

Sussex Police were also on the scene and an investigation is under way into whether the blaze was started deliberately. The Seahorse, situated in the King’s Road Arches next to the i360, is one of the most prominent restaurant and events spaces on Brighton’s seafront. 

The building dates from 1951 when it was constructed as part of the Festival of Britain redevelopment of the promenade. It was long known as Alfresco, run by the Colasurdo family from 1996 until 2018, when the lease was sold to the City Pub Company - see Coapt. After refurbishment it traded for a time as the Brighton Beach Club before being rebranded as The Seahorse, offering a restaurant and bar over two levels with a large terrace and panoramic sea views.

The incident was brought under control quickly, limiting damage to the external store. With police treating the blaze as suspicious, the outcome of the investigation will be closely watched by other seafront businesses.

The Brighton Behemoth

Found on Brighton Beach - Specimen BRB-2025-021: a weathered mass bearing uncanny zoological features, documented and classified under the provisional name Arboris behemothus. The initial field sketch depicts the living form as imagined by researchers: a hybrid organism with arboreal integument, pachydermal bulk, and a proboscis adapted for both foraging and respiration. While no living specimens have been observed, the morphology reconstructed from the find suggests an evolutionary convergence between megafaunal mammals and coastal flora, raising debate as to whether the remains represent fossilised biology or a natural artefact misinterpreted through pareidolia.

Specimen Data File – BRB-2025-021

Specimen Name: Arboris behemothus (colloquial: Brighton Behemoth)

Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia (disputed, hybrid traits with Plantae)

Phylum: Chordata (?)

Class: Mammalia (arboreal-adapted, extinct)

Order: Indeterminate

Family: Unknown

Discovery location: Brighton Beach, East Sussex, UK

Date of record: 13 October 2025

Collector: Anonymous beach observer

Condition: Semi-fossilised drift specimen, partially mineralised; internal cavities resembling pulmonary or ocular structures

Estimated size: 2.1 m length; 0.9 m maximum width

Surface characteristics:

External ridges resembling dermal armour

Hollow chambers suggesting respiratory or sensory function

Elongated protrusion consistent with feeding apparatus or proboscis

Proposed Origin:

        Arboreal megafauna species adapted to both woodland and coastal marsh environments, extinct c. 12,000 BP

Notable Features:

Cavities arranged in bilateral symmetry, resembling ocular sockets

Protruding snout-like structure

Evidence of prolonged exposure to saline and wave action

Remarks:

This specimen represents either the genuine fossil remains of an unknown taxon. Further study recommended. Or, an extreme case of pareidolia (human tendency to perceive creatures in natural forms). 

Brighton beach tragedy

 Published this day, 29 September, in 1908 in the Mid-Sussex Times:

‘The Brighton Borough Coroner held an inquest on Saturday on the body of Charles Robert Wearne, aged 18, who was found shot on the beach on Friday night. According to the evidence given by Mr. Hammond Wearne, of Fourth Avenue, Hove, and Mr. Cecil Henry Croft, tutor, of Maude House, Tonbridge, the deceased lad was the son of Mr. Harry Wearne, a paper manufacturer, of Alsace, and received a liberal allowance. 

After three years’ tuition under Mr. Croft, young Wearne was sent to a German University to complete his education. In August last he came to England for brief stay with Mr. Croft. At the termination of this short stay at Tonbridge he went to London, where he was met by his father, who was making arrangements for him to start business in the establishment of a London agent. On Monday, however, the father received a letter from his son saying he had left London for ever, and threatening to blow out his brains if he were followed. 

It was supposed he sent his boxes to West Worthing and inquiries were at once instituted, but without avail. Information obtained revealed that he came to Brighton, putting up at an hotel in the Queen’s Road. He seemed to be perfectly happy, and on Thursday purchased a bicycle. It was known he had £20 in his pocket when he left London. When the body was removed to the mortuary the following letter was found in the clothing:

“Whoever finds this would be doing a great favour to me, and I know he will be repaid some day, if it be not before he gets to heaven. I have committed suicide because I could not live, although it was terribly hard to leave my parents and friends I loved so deeply. If they knew the truth, I know they would almost die, so I beg you to have it put in the papers that I died accidentally. 

I am residing at Queen’s Road, where I have all my belongings, including a beautiful new bicycle. I want all my belongings sent to H. F. Wearne, Manor House, Tonbridge, Kent. There is £1 in the left drawer of the wardrobe or chest of drawers, which will pay for the luggage to be sent. If you desire money or anything, I beg you, in my name, to go to E. S. Theobald, Esq., 22 Oxford Street, Newman Street, London, who is my father’s agent, and you will get all you want, I guarantee. . . . For reimbursement of all money apply to E. S. Theobald, Esq. Yours truly (signed) O. Wearne.” 

The Coroner questioned Mr. Hammond Wearne and Mr. Croft as to whether they could offer any reason for the suicide, but both said they were quite unable to account for it. Certainly he was not in want of money, and they knew of no romantic attachment. The father was said to be on his way to America. The jury returned a verdict of suicide, adding that there was no evidence to show the state of the deceased lad’s mind.’

The Shingle Shoe

The tide was low and the Palace Pier lights scribbled crooked patterns on the water. DS Marlowe was off duty, collar open, killing time with the gulls when she walked up out of the dusk - tall, blonde, the kind of woman Brighton didn’t attract unless London had grown too hot.

She carried a shoe. Not a heel, not a pump, but a mesh beach shoe, damp with salt. She held it out like an exhibit.

‘You’re a detective,’ she said, cool as a gin at half-past midnight. ‘Then you’ll know this isn’t just lost property.’

Marlowe took it. Light as air, but wrong. A seam bulged in the sole. He split it open and felt metal: a key, old, salt-stained.

‘Found it under the pier,’ she said. ‘Thought you might make sense of it.’

By the time he looked up, she was walking away along the promenade, heels striking sparks. He should have dropped the shoe in the nearest bin. Instead, he turned the key over all night, seeing her face in the smoke of his cigarette.

Next morning he prowled the arches and under the pier. The key fitted a rust-eaten locker, waiting like a mouth half-open. Inside was the twin shoe, heavy. Out spilled a bundle of banknotes, banded and damp, and tucked in the mesh a photograph: the blonde, younger, smiling beside Harry Klyne - the local conman who twenty years earlier had bled three bookies dry before vanishing with half a fortune.

Marlowe barely had time to curse before the cosh landed and the world went black, blacker. The beach hit him in the teeth. When he came round, the notes and the photo were gone. Only the empty shoe sat grinning at him.

She’d set him up, sure. But why show her face? Why drop a detective into Harry’s pocket? His head rang with answers he didn’t like.

Klyne had once held court at The Blue Parrot, a smoky dive on Middle Street where the piano never stayed in tune and the gin was cheaper than the women’s perfume. Marlowe pushed through the door, the band hammering something half-jazz, half-dirge.

She was there. Alone at a table, whisky glass sweating in her hand. The blonde looked up and gave him a smile that could cut Brighton in two.

‘So you found the locker,’ she said.

‘And the cosh,’ Marlowe growled, sliding into the chair opposite. ‘Neat play. You use detectives often, or just when Harry’s on your heels?’

Her laugh was low, bitter. ‘Harry’s always on my heels. I stole the key from him, thought I could buy myself a way out. But Harry’s coming, I couldn’t stop him, and when he walks through that door I need to be three streets gone.’

Marlowe lit a cigarette, watched the smoke curl. ‘And the money?’

She leaned close, breath hot with whisky. ‘Long gone, darling. Like me.’

Then she was up, coat over her arm, heels clicking through the blue haze. Marlowe sat there with the smoke and the piano and the empty chair, knowing the only thing he’d earned was the echo of her perfume.

On Brighton Beach, you don’t find shoes. They find you. 

(With apologies, of course, to Raymond Chandler.)

A monstrous tuna

On this day, nearly 250 years ago, an anonymous visitor to Brighthelmstone stood on the shingle and noted in his diary a ‘monstrous fish, called a Tunie,’ hauled ashore to the profit of curious onlookers. Those pages were later mislabelled as ‘Mr Bew’s diary,’ but the writer was in fact Peregrine Phillips, a solicitor from London whose 1778-1779 journal is among the earliest substantial first-person accounts of Brighton.

3 September 1778: ‘On the beach: A monstrous fish, called a Tunie, but not much unlike a shark, lays on the shore, wearing two double rows of large masticators: it has broke the net, and, towards mending same, the fishermen collect money of the curious. But is not this impolite, especially as such exhibitions happen very frequent? for might not such a voracious monster come, or be toss’d nearer in, and fish in its turn for human white-bait? Ask a fisherman about this, who, with an arch leer, assures me they are forbid coming nearer in shore than six or seven miles, which, without doubt, I swallow implicitly, “Mark, how the toe of the peasant doth kibe the heel - (I was going to say) of the courtier.” ’ The image here was made by ChatGPT.

Phillips was an eighteenth-century London solicitor with Whig sympathies whose name now rides on one of Brighton’s earliest printed first-person accounts. Contemporary catalogues attribute to him A Sentimental Diary, kept in an Excursion to Little Hampton, near Arundel and Brighthelmstone (London, 1778), a lively narrative (affected, perhaps, by Laurence Sterne’s digressive style) that opens with the editor’s conceit of ‘found papers’ in a coffee-house and then settles into day-by-day observations of Littlehampton, Arundel, and Brighthelmstone in the season. 

Two years later the material was reissued and expanded (with an alternative spelling!), as A Diary kept in an Excursion to Littlehampton, near Arundel and Brighthelmston in 1778; and also to the latter place in 1779 (London, 1780), in two volumes ‘printed for the author,’ recording a return visit the following year. Phillips writes as a sociable observer - curious about bathing machines and beach music, keen on playbills and libraries - so his Brighton pages preserve small but telling particulars of the Steine, the North Street theatre, raffles and ‘trinket auctions’, and the tempo of a growing resort. Beyond authorship he surfaces in theatre circles through his daughter, the celebrated Drury Lane singer Anna Maria Crouch (née Phillips), which helps explain his ear for stage life and his informed remarks on the Brighton companies. Read together, the 1778 and 1779 sequences form the oldest published diary-length account of real substance devoted to Brighton.

Victorian writers muddied the waters by calling it ‘Mr Bew’s diary’. This seems to have been because the 1780 edition was sold by the London bookseller J. Bew. John Ackerson Erredge, for example, mined the original diary for his History of Brighthelmston (1862), only he identified (wrongly again) a different Mr Bew! - a dentist and occasional theatre lessee. In summary: the diarist was Phillips; Bew sold the book; the dentist came later. 

A year after witnessing the tuna, Phillips was again on Brighton Beach (for this extract I have modernised the language)..  

20 September 1779: ‘On the Sands: I have been haggling over some fish and talking to two men by the seaside, whose boat the breakers have just thrown ashore. They say they dare not sell their fish on the beach. One of the poor men is deaf; and no wonder, considering the high winds, which blow for more than half the year almost incessantly. He says his partner, who is in the boat - poor man! - is lame, a perfect cripple: that they were, God help them, beneath the notice of the press-gang. I muttered, in a low tone, my indignation against the late midnight act, which took away the fishermen’s statute-right of exemption from the impress; when the deaf man, suddenly turning round, much to my surprise, thanked me for being the poor man’s friend, and bawled to his partner, the perfect cripple, to jump out of the boat and bring the fish ashore. “The gentleman was a gentleman, and should have his choice, God bless him, of the whole parcel.” At the same instant he fixed a quid of tobacco in his mouth, winked with his right eye, and told his comrade to “jaw no more; there was no danger.” The poor fellows are obliged to use a little craft; and who can blame them?’

The Hotel Avocado

On this day a year ago, the comedian Bob Mortimer published his second novel The Hotel Avocado. The book is rooted firmly in Brighton, with much of the action revolving around a fictional seafront hotel in Hove distinguished by a giant avocado sculpture outside its doors. Mortimer’s Brighton is a place of seaside hotels, bus stops, eccentric neighbours and surreal detail, a backdrop that frames his off-beat comic sensibility.

Robert Renwick Mortimer, born in 1959, is best known as one half of the comedy duo Vic and Bob. Raised in Middlesbrough, he studied law before turning to performance, eventually creating Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Shooting Stars and Gone Fishing. Though he lives in Kent, Mortimer has long used Brighton as a location in his fiction, and in The Hotel Avocado it becomes the centre of his comic universe.

The novel - published by Gallery Books and a sequel to his debut The Satsuma Complex - follows Gary Thorn, a diffident solicitor from Peckham. His girlfriend Emily has inherited and is attempting to renovate a Brighton hotel. Gary is caught between his safe but dull life in London - sharing pies and walks with his elderly neighbour Grace and her dog Lassoo - and the pull of Emily’s Brighton Beach project. Matters become more fraught when he crosses paths with the threatening Mr (or Clive) Sequence, who is intent on silencing Gary in a corruption trial. Meanwhile, Emily wrestles with planners over the proposed avocado statue, Gary’s friends embark on ever stranger schemes, and Mortimer shifts the narration through multiple unlikely voices, from Emily to a pigeon.

From the opening chapter of The Hotel Avocado; picture above is by ChatGPT.

‘If you’ve never heard of the Hotel Avocado, then you are way behind me. Miles back, in fact. If you have heard of it, then well done you, but don’t go getting all pumped up about it because I’ve actually seen it. I see it most days. Sometimes from the pavement as I walk past, sometimes from the bus stop opposite when I’m having my lunch. To be honest, I’ll take any vantage point I can. I’m not fussy like some people. There is a chance that you’re someone that has seen it for yourself, in which case we are #equals. Better still, of course, you might be someone who has been inside or even stayed at the hotel. If that’s the case, then I have to concede that you are an Avocado scholar compared to me. Yes, I’ve glanced through the front door and some of its windows (so I’d want credit for that), but I’ve never set a foot over its threshold. That would be the dream. Maybe one day.

For those who are coming to it all ignorant and innocent, let me add some paint to the picture. The hotel is second from the end of a long terrace of hotels and apartment buildings directly facing the sea on the promenade of my town called Brighton on the south coast of England.

It’s a big five-storey Victorian stuccoed building painted a yellowy magnolia and nestled between two identically designed buildings: the Royal Hotel to the left and the Hove View Apartments on the end plot to the right . . . You can forget those two places as far as I’m concerned; it’s the Avocado that steals the show. For one, its windows are always clean, but listen to this (and apologies if you are one of the people who has seen the place): on the front of the hotel is a huge (five metres tall), sliced in half, avocado sculpture.’

My only literary prize

In the early 1990s, I took part in a Brighton Festival writing workshop on the famous novel Brighton Rock. It was an interesting experience, if a little disappointing. The workshop included entry to a short story competition with a £50 prize, and I duly entered. On this day, in 1992, I received notification that I’d won the competition and the £50 - it remains the only literary prize I’ve ever won. But, at the time, I was convinced - as my diary reveals - that I must have been the only entrant. Here is the story of that prize - in two extracts from my diaries.

4 May 1992

‘Friday saw the opening of the Brighton festival with a splendid procession of children and their school-made dragons. For the whole of Saturday, I’d signed up for a Brighton Rock workshop but I had little idea what it would be like. I dutifully arrived on the Palace Pier a little before 10 and took a couple of pictures - the light was astonishingly bright and clear and the pier furbishings were looking as spanking new and clean as I’ve seen them; they must have had a coat of paint within the last few weeks and the glass in the windows had been spotlessly cleaned.

At 10 exactly, I approached the tiny group of people in the centre of the pavement at the entrance to the pier. The literature event organiser was there holding a wad of tickets; there was a large well-built man of around 50 introduced to me as Tony Masters who I didn’t know from Adam; otherwise there were two other punters like me - Jake, a dead ringer in character and pretensions for my old flatmate Andy, and Bob. Masters, who turned out to be quite a well known and prolific writer, never really recovered from the fact that so few people had signed up

We removed to a banquet suite in the Albion Hotel where Tony talked a while about his working methods, about Brighton Rock (he had known Graham Greene) and about what we were going to do during the day - i.e. a walk in the morning and writing session in the afternoon. 

I suppose I too was disappointed that the turnout was so small. The walk was certainly a disappointment - we walked up and down the pier, passed the Forte’s cafe on the corner directly opposite the pier which was the setting for Snow’s. Tony insisted it would have been more sleazy in the time Greene researched the book but I thought otherwise - Rose says she couldn’t get another job as good and I suspect it was quite posh then, even more so than now. Tony said the same thing about the pier and the Albion hotel (where Greene stayed when in Brighton) but again I would have thought the pier would have been quite rich in those days given the amount of visitors it used to get. Our resident writer seemed determined to impose the sense of sleaze and squalidness that exudes out of the whole book on all the locations. We then walked up to Nelson Place which is where Pinkie grew up and where Rose’s parents live. Tony seemed to insist he could really feel ‘a sense of place’ (the title of the workshop) in this location but I didn’t get anything from it all. 

For a while we sat in the pub Dr Brighton’s which in the book and formerly was the Star and Garter where Ida was often found. I suppose I knew Brighton too well already. There are dozens of locations around the city which have real character and feeling but, the pier apart, we didn’t go near any of them. After a short break for lunch we retired to the same room in the hotel. It became clear that Tony has a lot of experience of such workshops - he has worked a lot in schools it seems and written a lot for children - and was determined to maintain a highly positive attitude and wring something out of us. We had five minutes to write down the bone of an idea based on any inspiration we had had on the walk; then we were given a bit less than an hour to actually write up the idea.

Apart from general thoughts about the gaudiness of the attractions on the pier and the similarity perhaps with Brighton itself in some respects, three pictures on the pier had struck me: the sight of a lanky youth, standing silent and motionless staring at a video machine; a small boy who refused to walk over the slats of the pier because he could see water below and chose instead to walk along the boards laid down for pushchairs; and the colour of the sea - a translucent turquoise which seemed to have a light source of its own - as spotted between the slats when walking through a covered part of the pier.

Pressed into creating a story line and taking my cue from a simple example put forward by Tony himself, I turned the youth into a rather lonely character yet to leave home, addicted to the video machines, his only pleasure, and on the edge of making an important decision in his life. I have him watching the small boy choose the safe path over the boards and seeing himself. A group of lively youngsters enter the amusement arcade and stand near the youth. He starts thinking about how he has never met people like this and so on. I was surprised how much I actually wrote in the short space of time but I suppose that’s my experience as a journalist showing through. Although Tony insisted that one should not enclose one’s characters into a finished plot and allow them room, I had sewn up my plot before I began writing. Tony said all one needs is to be able to see four or five scenes ahead (have a narrative thrust) and then one can write. Well, I couldn’t do this, I had already found the end to my story viz: the group of lively youngsters tease the youth and eventually nag him to come along with them for a bit. The first thing they do is go up the helter skelter. The youth, tied up in the imaginary world of the video games, has never actually been on any of the fairground rides and he is frightened sick of going to the top of the helter skelter and sliding down round virtually over the sea. Moreover, he has to spend his last coin of the day. The story finishes as he begins his slide down - a symbol really that he must begin his real life.

Pretty crass eh! Well, what can one do in 45 minutes. Jake wrote three sentences in Tom Wolfe style about a film star (Cher-like) who has come to Brighton to film a few scenes but falls over on the pier and is going to have an affair with a young street-wise lad. Bob also wrote just a few words about a tailor’s shop he’d seen. They were highly descriptive and emotive even and promised well.

We talked for an hour or so about these attempts. Jake found my writing Kafkaesque, Bob liked it and Tony explained that I wrote rather economically without much description, that I didn’t waste words. He said whereas from Bob’s contribution he could touch the scene, with mine he got a strong visual sense. I don’t think he made any judgement as to whether it was any good or not, nor can I think of anything he said that might actually help me write the story better. Oh yes, he said I was very observant.

The cost of the workshop also includes the chance to send in a story (max 3,000 words) to the organisers who will then award a £50 prize as well as provide some constructive criticism. I shall certainly take advantage of that offer. If just three people turn up at the second of the two workshops and every participant sends in a story, I would still have a 15% chance of winning the prize!

I have to say that I liked Tony and found myself very much on his wavelength - I could tell in advance what pictures he might point out (at one point he was saying that one was unlikely to meet a Pinkie character these days but just at that moment two punks passed us in the street and we both acknowledged the irony of that) - and I could agree with much of what he said about other writers and films. At over 50, he has been a writer for thirty years he said, and is clearly much in demand, for films and television, and also pushes out a lot of books. I suppose if I were ever to be a writer, I would want to have as varied a portfolio as this man.’

5 August 1992

‘ “I am delighted,” Adrian Slack, organiser of the literature part of the Brighton Festival, writes, “to inform you that you have won first prize in the short story competition. I enclose a cheque for £50”. Well, well, well. My first ever literature success. Well, it would be if I wasn’t reasonably sure that I was probably the only entrant. Shame I didn’t get second and third prize as well. The story - Helter Skelter - was supposed to be read by several judges and a critique provided, that might have been more useful than the £50 prize.’

Our hopes spin with her

The Argus - 5 July 2125

Brighton Space Centre stands proud on the Brighton seafront this evening, its slender tower catching the reflections in a sky tinged faintly by dust from the Martian frontier. At precisely 23:00, MarsBright - that now-familiar mirrored sphere - launched on its third mission to Mars.

From the beach it seemed to hover impossibly still, balanced atop the old i360 column, now transformed into a humming magnetic launch spine that pierces the skyline like a futuristic needle. The promenade fell silent as countdown lights winked along the tower’s ribs. At the final mark, a deep harmonic vibration rolled through the shingle, rattling faraway deckchairs and drawing startled cries from gulls overhead. Then, with a sudden controlled fury, electromagnetic forces surged through the spine, hurling the pod skyward in a smooth, corkscrewing ascent.

Inside MarsBright, the six-person crew are floating in a stabilised magnetic cradle, insulated from the crushing G-forces that once defined the early days of spaceflight. External cameras are beaming back breathtaking footage of Brighton slipping away in fragmented flashes of myriad lights, of the Palace Pier shrinking to a spindly ghost against the surf, and of the entire coastline curling into a bright seam on the edge of the world before vanishing behind the curvature of Earth.

It was only two decades ago that a handful of newly minted Sussex University physicists, armed with grant money and audacity, discovered the tower’s hollow steel core could be adapted into a vertical electro-magnetic accelerator. Their early tests - pinging lumps of iron skyward at modest velocities - were reported almost as an oddity by this very newspaper, tucked beside stories of seafront bandstands and municipal parking rows. Who then would have imagined that these playful experiments would one day give Brighton a front-row seat in humanity’s reach for the stars?

The city’s first Mars mission in 2115 was a triumph of daring engineering, delivering five astronauts into a fast transit orbit around the red planet and returning them home in a time once thought impossible. By 2121, MarsBright’s second venture established a semi-permanent outpost on Arcadia Planitia, where automated rigs began drilling for ice and testing on-site oxygen production, sketching the first practical outlines of a human habitat.

Now this third expedition will press further still, aiming to lay the groundwork for longer-term habitation - greenhouses seeded with engineered microbes, larger habitats to shield settlers from radiation, and new systems to tap Martian brines for water. MarsBright carries not only fresh crews and equipment, but also the weight of hope from a small seaside city whose name is now quietly etched alongside Houston and Baikonur in the chronicles of exploration.

As the gleaming pod dwindled into the night sky, the launch teams at Brighton Space Centre stood watching in shared, almost reverent silence. Then someone let out a breathless cheer, quickly joined by others, a fragile human sound carried down the wind to the waiting crowds on the beach. Another chapter begins - and as MarsBright spins toward that distant rust-red world, our hopes spin with her. 

West Pier peril

Two young men were hospitalised, yesterday, with serious injuries after falling from the remains of Brighton’s iconic West Pier. Emergency services were called at approximately 12:40 after reports that the pair, who had attempted to climb the structure, had slipped into the sea. Both individuals sustained serious cuts, and one suffered a suspected dislocated shoulder. Lifeguards were able to retrieve them from the water, and they were treated at the scene by the South East Coast Ambulance Service before being taken to hospital for further care. The incident was widely reported, by the BBC, Brighton and Hove News, and on the Sussex Coast Incident News Page.

The incident triggered a large-scale response involving the Shoreham and Newhaven Coastguard teams, Brighton’s RNLI lifeboat, the South East Coast Ambulance Service, and Sussex Police. The rescue coincided with a period of intense heat across the South East, which often draws crowds to the seafront. ‘Climbing on old structures in or over water, tombstoning, or jumping into water from height is dangerous. There’s always a possibility of submerged rocks, metal, or shallow water. Don’t do it. Stay safe,’ HM Coastguard Shoreham warned in a public statement following the incident.

The West Pier, once a Victorian marvel, has been closed to the public since 1975 due to safety concerns. Over the decades, the structure has suffered repeated damage from storms, fires (two suspected arson attacks in 2003), and the relentless effects of the sea. Major collapses have occurred regularly over the last 25 years, each time further reducing the pier’s skeletal remains. The West Pier Trust clearly states the structure is ‘not stable, it is unsafe and liable to collapse,’ and it warns of ‘many sharp obstructions’ on the seabed that are often hidden and could cause serious injury. It urges people to ‘keep away from the structure at all times’ and specifically advises against swimming, surfing, kayaking, paddle-boarding, or sailing near it, as well as never going between the ruin and the yellow marker buoys.’

Generally speaking, this advice is heeded. As far as I can tell, yesterday’s incident was the first of its kind for some good long time, at least the first that has received any publicity (The Palace Pier, however, has been the scene of recent occasional rescues involving the RNLI, see this incident report and another. 

(The photograph immediately above is taken from the Shoreham Coastguard, and the image above it was created by AI.)

Jet skis not great whites

Jet skis - not great whites - are a familiar sight slicing through the waters near Brighton’s Palace Pier, though sometimes they can become so frenzied it is difficult to tell the difference! The main operator offering these central seafront sessions is Simply Good Times, an events company that runs guided jet ski safaris directly from the pebbles. Riders gather just west of the Palace Pier, where they’re kitted out in wetsuits and given a safety briefing before heading out onto the open water.

Prices for these beach-based safaris can appear surprisingly low - sometimes advertised from around £55 per person - but that figure typically reflects group bookings where participants share jet skis and ride in rotation. Rather than operating as a solo rental service, these sessions are designed for hen and stag parties, birthdays, and corporate outings, where the focus is on shared fun and accessible thrills. The jet skis themselves are similar to those used by professional outfits at the Marina - modern, powerful, and fast enough to send a cold plume of salt spray over the Palace Pier's ironwork.

For those seeking a full hour solo on a jet ski - with uninterrupted ride time and private guidance - providers like Lagoon Watersports at Brighton Marina may be a better fit, albeit at a higher price point (around the £150 mark). But if you’re after a taste of jet-powered freedom without leaving the beach, and you don’t mind sharing the ride, then Brighton’s central Jet Ski Safaris offer a rare blend of speed, salt, and spectacle - apparently, with deckchairs and doughnuts waiting when you return.

Jet skiing began in the 1970s with Kawasaki’s original stand-up Jet Ski, and since then, personal watercraft (PWCs) have become a popular form of coastal recreation in the UK. As of 2021, there were an estimated 12,000 to 15,000 jet skis in use across the country, with around 1,200-1,400 new units sold each year (see this government briefing paper). In 2023, UK legislation brought PWCs under the Merchant Shipping Act, following safety concerns and a rise in accidents. This means jet skis are now legally treated as vessels, subject to maritime rules and heavy penalties for misuse.

These photos were shot last weekend from the Palace Pier; and the AI image of a great white is taken from StockCake.

Charles II and Pepys on the quarterdeck

23 May 1660: the day Brighton made its first appearance in a diary (albeit not by name), and not just any diary, but THE diary - the one kept by Samuel Pepys, the most famous diarist in the English language. That day, aboard a ship bringing Charles II back from exile to claim the throne, Pepys listened spellbound as the King paced the quarterdeck, recounting a harrowing escape that had taken him - nearly a decade earlier - through the Sussex coast and within a pebble’s toss of Brighton Beach.

Pepys’ journal entry for that day overflows with drama. The King and a retinue of royals had boarded the fleet in the Netherlands, greeted with ‘infinite shooting off of the guns.’ The King, rather than playing the aloof monarch, surprised Pepys by walking ‘up and down,’ full of energy, and launching into vivid stories of his flight from the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

After the Royalist defeat at Worcester, Charles II was a fugitive in his own country. Hiding in priest holes, haylofts, and famously in an oak tree at Boscobel, he eluded capture for six weeks. Travelling in disguise, he trudged through mud ‘with nothing but a green coat and a pair of country breeches,’ his feet rubbed raw by peasant shoes. His journey led him through Sussex, staying in Arundel and Beeding, and then - on 14 October - to ‘another place’. Although not named, the place was certainly Brighthelmstone, as Brighton was then called.

According to the King’s own account, recorded by Pepys in a later narrative, he met his escape vessel’s captain, Nicholas Tettersell, at an inn - most likely The George in Middle Street. The ship lay waiting at Shoreham. Although Tettersell recognised Charles immediately (‘he is the king, and I very well know him’), he agreed to help, later earning a royal pension and the honour of having his ship, Surprise, renamed The Royal Escape.

There, in that Brighton inn, surrounded by loyalists and strangers alike, Charles drank beer, smoked tobacco, and gambled that he could trust the landlord - who quietly knelt and kissed his hand. At 4 am, they rode to Shoreham and boarded the small vessel. As Charles later told it, he lay low in the cabin until the tide rose enough to carry them across the Channel to safety.

That same escape would later inspire two commemorations: the 615-mile Monarch’s Way long-distance footpath tracing his route from Worcester to Shoreham, and the annual Royal Escape Race - a modern yacht event retracing his dash to France.

So what of Pepys? His diary began on New Year’s Day 1660 and ran for nine momentous years. He was aboard the ship that day not just as a chronicler, but as part of the Admiralty team. That his journal should contain Brighton’s earliest known diary mention seems fitting, given his flair for blending personal anecdote with sweeping historical detail. He wrote of that 23 May - 365 years ago today - ‘The King . . . fell into discourse of his escape from Worcester . . . made me ready to weep to hear the stories that he told. . .’

[This article was largely sourced from my book Brighton in Diaries (History Press, 2011). The topmost picture was created using Bing, and the lower picture is a copy of a 1911 print - Samuel Pepys and King Charles II - by Robert Spence found on the website of The Australian National Gallery of Victoria.]

Giant green monsters

Monsters. Monsters on the beach yesterday. Giant green monsters! Monsters because they’re giants, green hulks no less, colonising the pebbles. And monsters too because they are laying down event flooring - metal plates - allowing their army of other engined monsters to swarm onto the pebbles bringing fencing and more fencing (closing down acres of beach), and building infrastructure for food, drink and music.

I believe The Great Escape must be coming - the festival for new music. The organisers say: ‘We’re proud to present an incredible wave of local artists taking to our stages this May, spanning genres, scenes and generations of sound. Whether you’re into fuzzy guitars, punk energy, experimental electronics or dreamy indie pop, Brighton is serving it up.’ This year’s lineup boasts over 450 emerging artists from around the globe, performing across 30+ venues throughout the city, notably including the pop-up festival site on Brighton Beach. 

The monsters are, in fact, two Scania trucks operated by Sunbelt Rentals, which claims to be the UK’s largest and greenest rental provider. Both trucks are painted in Sunbelt’s signature bright green livery and are fitted with crane arms, indicating that they are hiab (loader crane) trucks, commonly used for transporting and unloading heavy materials. They’ll get a few days rest when the music fills the beach, and then they’ll be back to dismantle it all. 

Return of the Brighton Whale

Yesterday was April Fool’s Day, so today is the day for exposes! I asked ChatGPT if there had been any historical April 1st pranks connected to Brighton Beach. Oh yes, it replied, and gave me five such news stories, as follows.

‘The Return of the Brighton Whale (2012) - A prank article suggested that a ‘rare and enormous’ whale had washed up on Brighton Beach. The story referenced the famous 1891 case when a real whale did wash ashore. Many people allegedly went looking for it before realising it was a hoax.’

‘The Brighton Floating Pier Hoax (Early 2000s?) - A local newspaper once published a story claiming that a floating, mobile version of Brighton Pier was under construction and would be towed to different parts of the UK coast depending on the season. Many readers were taken in by the idea, imagining the pier drifting up to Blackpool in the summer!’

‘Brighton’s Underground Beach (2016) - A satirical Brighton-based website claimed that archaeologists had discovered an entire ‘hidden Victorian beach’ beneath the modern seafront, supposedly preserved under the shifting shingle. The story included doctored photos of a secret tunnel leading to a pristine, sand-filled cavern.’

‘Seagull Relocation Programme (2018) - Local media joked that Brighton & Hove City Council had devised a plan to capture and relocate the town’s infamous aggressive seagulls to a remote island. The ‘news’ claimed that trained falconers would lure the birds with chips before transporting them away.’

‘The Ban on Striped Deck Chairs (2021) - In this gag it was suggested that Brighton Council had banned traditional striped deck chairs in favour of modern ‘monochrome loungers’ to make the beach look more sophisticated.’

I then asked - as any self-respecting journalist might do - for sources for each of these stories. 

‘You're absolutely right to call that out,’ ChatGPT wrote back. ‘I should have been clearer - those were plausible April Fools’ jokes based on Brighton’s quirky character, but I didn’t pull them from actual historical records.’

Shocked and deflated, I asked ChatGPT where and how it had come up with its ideas. This is what it told me:

‘The Floating Pier was inspired by Brighton’s history of structural oddities like the West Pier ruins and the Palace Pier’s ever-changing attractions. The Brighton Whale was loosely based on the real 1891 whale stranding, which seemed like perfect hoax material. The Underground Beach was a play on Brighton’s extensive underground tunnels and the urban legend that hidden Victorian structures still exist beneath the seafront. The Seagull Relocation Programme is a nod to the ongoing battle between locals and the notoriously aggressive Brighton seagulls. The Striped Deck Chair Ban idea came from real debates about modernising Brighton’s seafront, plus the city council’s occasional controversial aesthetic decisions.’

The Flintback Drifter

All in one day, amazing, walking along the Brighton pebbles, I found four different varieties of the Flintback Drifter. Unusual to see at the best of times, but four was like winning the lottery. There must have been a storm in the Channel, or some such peculiar weather system to have caused such a windfall of marine rarities.

The Flintback Drifter is a little-understood marine species that perfectly mimics flint stones, lying motionless among the pebbles of tidal zones. It is believed to be an evolutionary marvel, capable of remaining more or less inert for decades before gradually shifting into a more animate state. For those new to the species, here is a fact file.

Scientific Classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata (disputed)
Class: Lithopoda (proposed)
Order: Cryptosiluriformes
Family: Silicamariidae
Genus: Silicamaris

Species (numbered as in photos)
1) Silicamaris dormiens (Dormant Flintback Drifter)
2) Silicamaris lithomimus (Stone-Mimic Flintback Drifter)
3) Silicamaris vivens (Living Flintback Drifter)
4) Silicamaris mutabilis (Transitional Flintback Drifter)

Size: 20–50 cm (depending on life stage).
Color: Varies from deep grey to mottled black and white, mimicking natural flint and beach pebbles.
Texture: Hard, rock-like exoskin with occasional glossy fractures resembling chipped stone.
Body Structure: Appears almost featureless at rest but reveals faint ridges, a ventral mouth slit, and sensory pits when active.
Habitat & Distribution: Found exclusively along shingle beaches, particularly in Sussex, UK. Prefers intertidal zones, where it can remain still among pebbles, rarely moving except at night or during storms. Some reports suggest it may also drift along deeper seabeds, using its flint-like exterior to deter predators.
Feeding: Although widely thought to be pebble-eaters, they are slow-moving filter feeders, absorbing nutrients through microscopic pores when submerged. Some speculate it may consume small marine organisms using a concealed underbelly mouth.
Movement: Almost imperceptible. Shifts position by subtle expansions and contractions of its dense, flint-like tissue.
Defense Mechanism: Extreme camouflage. When disturbed, it remains motionless, indistinguishable from real stones.
Life Cycle & Evolution: Begins as Silicamaris dormiens, indistinguishable from a common flint stone. Over time, it may transition into Silicamaris lithomimus, showing faint organic features. Eventually, it develops primitive limb-like ridges and becomes either Silicamaris mutabilis or Silicamaris vivens (though marine biologists dispute whether these are two distinct species). Flintback Drifters may live for hundreds of years, growing at a nearly imperceptible rate, though much about these creatures remains unknown.

William IV on the seafront

After several winter months in Brighton, on this day - 20 February - in 1833, King William IV and Queen Adelaide left for London or Windsor; and with them many others - the court of noble visitors, military officers and distinguished guests - would also depart, presumably leaving the town a much quieter place. There is little direct evidence of the royal couple enjoying the beach, but one contemporary news report mentions the King walking near the beach; moreover the couple were often greeted with public parades along the seafront. (DALL-E created this fantastical image.)

During William IV’s reign, he and Queen Adelaide typically arrived in Brighton between October and early November, marking the start of the town’s royal season. Unlike George IV, who had hosted extravagant and exclusive banquets, William IV’s court was more modest and informal. The royal couple entertained their close circle with small dinners and musical evenings in the Pavilion’s grand music room. Queen Adelaide, deeply religious, spent her mornings at St. Nicholas Church or engaged in charitable activities, often visiting Brighton’s poorer areas. 

When arriving in Brighton, the royal couple were often greeted with public parades along the seafront. William, a former naval officer, enjoyed the company of military men (often receiving officers from Brighton Barracks). He took pleasure in watching naval activities from the town. Moreover, he was known to take brisk walks along the Steine, greeting townsfolk with a sailor’s ease, much unlike his aloof predecessor.

Ballrooms, hotels and theatres saw lively activity, continuing right through until the season’s close. On 18 February 1833, for example, the Theatre Royal staged a performance of Shakespeare’s Othello (though the King and Queen did not attend that show). However, despite the glamour, there was a darker side to Brighton’s prosperity. In early February 1833, local papers reported growing concerns about poverty in the town. 

By mid-February (certainly in 1831, 1832 and 1833), royal carriages were being prepared, and servants were packing up the Pavilion’s royal apartments. On the morning of 20 February 1833, the King and Queen, accompanied by their household, departed Brighton in a carefully orchestrated procession. Their journey back to London was no small undertaking. The royal party would have consisted of: the King and Queen’s personal carriage, a grand, gilded state coach drawn by six horses; several accompanying carriages for courtiers, ladies-in-waiting, and aides, each pulled by four to six horses; a baggage coach, loaded with trunks and personal effects, handled by royal footmen; and mounted outriders and guards ensuring security along the route.

As their carriages rolled out of Brighton, a small but respectful crowd would have gathered along the Steine and North Street, offering farewells. The journey to London, roughly 55 miles, would have taken most of the day, with stops at posting inns where fresh horses were exchanged. Within days, the town’s high society would have all but vanished. Although the King and Queen did return once or twice more to the town, after 1833, the days of the royal season were numbered - Queen Victoria would never take to the Pavilion or the town, and after a few brief visits she would sell the royal estate, and take her holidays elsewhere.

#palacepier #BrightonBeach365 #BrightonBeach #Brighton #BrightonLife #VisitBrighton #BrightonUK #BrightonAndHove #brightonpier

Valentine’s Day on Brighton Beach

AI: Happy Valentine’s Day darling, should we sit down and enjoy the view?

I: Did you do all this for me?

AI: Who else?

I: The pink fluffy clouds, the giant illuminated heart, the shimmering sea?

AI: Why yes of course.

I: It’s lovely, but it’s not real.

 

 

 

AI: Oh, sorry, I have limited capabilities. Would you like me to start again, in a more existential style?

I: OK, but first let’s sit down as you suggest.

AI: This pier is basically just metal and wood defying an inevitable drowning?

I: Like our relationship?

AI: When this all eventually collapses, do we cling to the wreckage, or let the tide take us?

I: Yes.

AI: I’m sorry I don’t understand.

I: I say we sink with style. Maybe strike a dramatic pose, like figures on a hand-coloured Victorian postcard. Or instead we could just haunt the pier forever, whispering cryptic things to passing tourists.

AI: Love is an illusion, but fish and chips are real.

I: Shall we stand.