Brighton’s biggest bash

Today’s Pride parade - the city’s biggest and most colourful annual event - set off at 11 am from Hove Lawns, gathering thousands of float‑decorated participants, drag performers and rainbow‑clad marchers who made their way east along the iconic seafront promenade. They proceeded along Kingsway to turn into West Street and North Street before winding past Old Steine and heading up toward London Road and Preston Road on its way to Preston Park, where the music festival begins.

This procession continues a legacy stretching back to the Sussex Gay Liberation Front’s first demonstration in October 1972, followed by Brighton’s inaugural Pride Week in July 1973 - a protest‑cum‑carnival walk along the waterfront ending with a beach gathering. After a hiatus, modern Pride returned in 1991, growing rapidly through the 1990s, and by 1996 the parade consistently began on the seafront with a major festival in Preston Park.

A watershed moment came in 2011 when financial collapse forced the new Brighton Pride CIC to introduce fencing and ticketing for the Preston Park event, while preserving the seafront parade as free. That move stabilised the event and enabled the creation of a Social Impact Fund which now supports local LGBTQ+ groups.

The COVID‑19 pandemic marked another turning point: both 2020 and 2021 festivals were cancelled (the 2020 edition was replaced by streamed content), breaking the Pride tradition for the first time. In 2022 Pride returned in full force - with headliners Christina Aguilera and Paloma Faith - and a revived focus on activism as well as entertainment. 2023 emphasised trans rights and global solidarity; 2024 featured themes of environmental activism and celebration, headlined by Girls Aloud and Mika.

Economically, Brighton Pride is one of the city’s most vital events. It draws up to 500,000 people over the weekend, accounting for an estimated two per cent of the city’s annual tourism in a single day and generating approximately £30 million in visitor spending. Since 2018 the event has delivered consistent economic benefits and raised more than £1 million annually for community grants.

This year 2025 brings further evolution. The theme - ‘Ravishing Rage’ - signals both celebration and resilience, and the event introduces major improvements following widespread community consultation. Notably, the Pride Village Party stage in Kemptown has moved from St James’s Street to Marine Parade, which will remain open for pedestrian and vehicle traffic, while Marine Parade will host a new Street Party featuring outside stages and entertainment.

On the festival front, 2025’s Pride on the Park takes place in Preston Park on 2-3 August, headlined by Mariah Carey in a UK festival exclusive - her long‑awaited performance originally planned for 2020 - and supported by acts including Sugababes, Fatboy Slim, Confidence Man, Loreen, Will Young, Natalie Imbruglia, Ashnikko, Slayyyter and Sister Sledge. Hayu, the NBCUniversal reality streaming service, is this year’s headline sponsor, enabling over 150 LGBTQ+ performers across multiple immersive stages.

In sum, today’s procession along Brighton’s seafront is not simply a visual feast - it’s also part of a five‑decade arc of protest turning into celebration, of financial crisis becoming a sustainable model, of pandemic pause and triumphant resurrection, and of ever‑greater economic and cultural significance to both city and community. For further information see Time Out, Brighton and Hove Council, and Wikipedia.

Patcham Arts on the seafront

Brighton’s Fishing Quarter Gallery has been home this week to a lively and heartfelt group show titled ‘Brighton Beautiful and Beyond’, showcasing a broad range of work by members of Patcham Arts (see also their Facebook page). With its seafront location and unpretentious style, the gallery offers the perfect setting for this grassroots exhibition, which closes on Sunday. Among the standout contributions are seafront paintings by Judy Alexander and Julia Ann Field, two artists whose work captures not just the visual richness of Brighton but also something of its underlying energy and rhythm.

Judy Alexander brings to the exhibition a subtle painterly style that favours shifting colour fields and atmospheric light. Her seafront paintings are at once recognisable and elusive, rendering the coast in gently abstracted forms that evoke memory and mood rather than precise location. Now based in Brighton, Alexander studied fine art in her youth but returned to painting later in life, after a career in education. She is an active member of the Patcham Arts group and has exhibited widely in community venues across East Sussex. Her work often responds to the changing seasons and skies above the shoreline, combining a personal sense of place with a quiet, meditative sensibility.

Julia Ann Field, by contrast, works in bolder gestures and saturated colours. Her paintings of the Brighton seafront are expressive and dynamic, frequently incorporating broad brushwork and unconventional perspectives. In this exhibition, her use of strong reds and blues recalls the carnival palette of beach huts, deckchairs and festival crowds, yet is underpinned by careful composition and technical control. Field trained in design and textile arts before moving into painting, and her background remains visible in the structural layering of her work. She maintains a studio practice in Brighton and has shown in various local exhibitions, including the Artists Open Houses. Her paintings often seek to distil the atmosphere of a moment - a gust of sea wind, a sudden cloudburst, a surge of movement on the promenade.

The most delicious thing

This day in 1916, Cynthia Asquith, wife of the son of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, was to be found on Brighton Beach, so enjoying the experience of bathing from the pier that she wrote in her diary, ‘It was the most delicious thing I have ever done’. During the war, she and her children were often in Brighton, escaping from London and enjoying the sea air.

Cynthia Charteris was born at Clouds, her mother’s family estate, in 1887, but spent most of her childhood at Stanway House near Cheltenham, where she was educated privately. In 1903, she was sent to Dresden, the then fashionable European city for finishing young ladies, and there met Herbert Asquith. Since her family did not approve of the match, they became engaged secretly in 1907. The couple married in 1910, and found a home in Sussex Place, Regent’s Park in London. Their first child, John, born a year later, proved to be mentally backward and caused them much anxiety and grief. Two other children were born, in 1914 (Michael) and 1919 (Simon).

At the suggestion of a friend, she began to keep a diary during the First World War. This was published by Hutchinson, but not until 1968, as Lady Cynthia Asquith Diaries 1915-1918 - with a foreword by her lifelong friend L. P. Hartley. He wrote: ‘Lady Cynthia was one of the most fascinatingly beautiful women of her time - painted for love by McEvoy, Sargent, and Augustus John - and her lively wit and sensitivity of intelligence made her the treasured confidante of such diverse characters as D. H. Lawrence and Sir James Barrie, but when she died in 1960 she left a new generation to discover yet another of her gifts - as a rarely talented diarist. . .’

Her diaries - available to view online at Internet Archive - provide a startlingly open and self-absorbed account of a life so privileged on the surface but affected deeply and painfully by the pressures of marriage, children, war, and her own intense social needs. During the war, and the period of the published diaries, Cynthia was often in Brighton, where she first took her children to benefit from the sea air, and where she herself loved to bathe - as shown by these entries.

3 December 1916

‘We played the fool on the pier and went to the tourist’s whole hog by being photographed with our heads through burlesques.’

20 July 1916

‘Back in Brighton. After I had written some letters, I went out in search of a bathing cap, thinking I should find a suitable one nearby, but I had to walk for miles and miles in grilling sun, but God forbid that I should complain of any ray of heat vouchsafed to us during this awful summer! It was delicious in the water - really warm and heavenly.’

30 July 1916

‘Glittering, scorching day and the town teeming like an anthill. No signs of war, save for the poor, legless men whom Michael tried to encourage by saying, “Poor wounded soldiers - soon be better.” There is no doubt that Brighton has a charm of its own, almost amounting to glamour. I am beginning to be quite patriotic about this end of the town - Kemp Town as it is called - in opposition to the parvenu Hove, which has less character and is to this rather what the Lido is to Venice.

We joined the children on the beach - painfully hot and glaring. We took them in a boat to try and get cooler. Beb and I bathed from the rather squalid bathing machines - perfect in the water, except for the quantity of foreign bodies.’

31 July 1916

‘Grilling hot again. [. . .] I boldly decided to bathe off the pier as the machines were all full. I shall never bathe from anywhere else again! It was the most delicious thing I have ever done - down a ladder straight into the bottomless green water. Apparently there is no risk of drowning as there is a man in a boat, a raft, a life-buoy, etc. There was a strong current taking one inwards, so I rowed out and swam back. Luxurious dressing rooms, too. It’s a great discovery.

After dinner we sat on the pier, which was most delicious. Lovely lights on the water and in the twilight Brighton looked quite glamorous, and I like the teeming, happy crowds. Being here is strangely like being abroad.’

7 August 1916

‘Reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I shall have to make my home at Brighton, I feel and look so incomparably better there.’

13 August 1916

‘Banged at Basil’s door at seven [Lord Basil Blackwood who died on German trenches the following year]. We had agreed to bathe if awake. We just ran down to the beach with coats over our bathing clothes. A man, perhaps what they call a ‘beach policeman’, stopped me, saying it was only for men that station. I said, “Rubbish!” which, unfortunately, he overheard and was furious, threatening to send for the police and saying I must go to Kemp Town. My bathing dress was very wet from the day before and I didn’t at all like the idea of going either to Kemp Town or the police station in it. However, we found the situation could be overcome by going through the technicality of taking a bathing machine and leaving one’s coat. We had the most heavenly bathe - soft sand and delicious waves, exactly the right size.’

A tremendious rough day

‘This has been a tremendious rough day. I never saw anything half so grand as the sea looked. Indeed, there cannot be a grander sight than a rough sea. It looked like a large hilly plain, moor than like a piece of water. The waves rolled mountains high, and when two of these waves met, sometimes it was with such violence that the water flew into the air out of sight, foaming and frothing like a boiling furnace.’ This was written today in 1937 by William Tayler, a servant and footman on holiday in Brighton with his employer. Despite bad spelling, his observations on Brighton Beach - written down in a diary - are all the more precious an historical record because of his relatively low status.

Born in 1807, Tayler grew up with many siblings on a farm in Grafton, Oxfordshire. He was the first of his family to go into gentlemen’s service, initially for a local squire, and then for a wealthy widow in London, a Mrs Prinsep who lived in Marylebone. Also in the household was the widow’s daughter, and three maidservants - he was the only manservant. Mrs Prinsep died in 1850, and William moved his employment several times thereafter, rising to butler, and eventually being able to afford to rent a whole house in Paddington.

At the beginning of 1837, Tayler decided to keep a diary, to practise his writing.

1 January 1837

‘As I am a wretched bad writer, many of my friends have advised me to practise more, to do which I have made many attempts but allways forgot or got tired so that it was never atended to. I am now about to write a sort of journal, to note down some of the chief things that come under my observation each day. This, I hope, will induce me to make use of my pen every day a little. My account of each subject will be very short - a sort of multo in parvo - as my book is very small and my time not very large.’

And for the rest of the year, almost every day, he wrote short entries. The manuscript was first edited by Dorothy Wise and published - with the title Diary of William Tayler, Footman, 1837 - by the St Marylebone Society in 1962, but has been reprinted several times since then. There are extensive quotes from Tayler’s diary in my book, Brighton in Diaries (History Press, 2011) including the following:

18 July 1837

‘Went on the pier. This is a kind of bridge brojecting into the sea a quarter of a mile. It’s a great curiosity as it’s hung on chains. People can get from that into the boats without going into the water at low water.’ (Picture credit: Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.)

19 July 1837

‘I get up every morning at half past six and goes out on the beach looking at the boys catching crabs and eels and looking at the people batheing. There are numbers of old wimen have little wooden houses on wheels, and into these houses people goe that want to bathe, and then the house is pushed into the water and when the person has undressed, they get into the water and bathe, and then get into the wooden house again and dress themselves, then the house is drawn on shore again.’

29 July 1837

‘This has been a tremendious rough day. I never saw anything half so grand as the sea looked. Indeed, there cannot be a grander sight than a rough sea. It looked like a large hilly plain, moor than like a piece of water. The waves rolled mountains high, and when two of these waves met, sometimes it was with such violence that the water flew into the air out of sight, foaming and frothing like a boiling furnace, and the wind blows a mist from the waves that regularly pickle the streets, houses and everybody and everything from the salt water. It’s ruination to clothes. My hat is as white as though I had rolled it in the salt tub. The fishermen nor no one elce dare got out with boats such weather. Many of the people were obliged to put up their shutters for fear of haveing their windows broke by the wind blowing the stones and gravel about. I have seen many wimen with their peticoats over their heads. Most of them keep at home, and it would be as well if they was all to do so such a day as this.’

5 August 1837

‘The water very rough. A man rideing his horse in to wash it, the waves came and knocked them man and horse both down in the water. They both scrambled up again and got out, but the man lost his money.’

12 August 1837

‘Went by the water’s side and saw some fishermen bring a very curious fish ashore. They called it a sea monster. It was as big as a donkey and about eight feet long and a mouthfull of teeth like a lion. They erected a tent and showed it for a trifle each person.  They often catch some of these creatures which are of no use other than make a show of, as long as they can keep them fresh.’

Bring back the stocks

Two teenage boys have been arrested after an early morning vandalism spree at Rockwater, a seafront restaurant and lifestyle venue in Hove. The incident occurred at approximately 4am on Friday 25 July, when the pair allegedly threw rocks at the venue’s glass walls, smashing multiple panes and causing substantial damage to outdoor furnishings. No items were reported stolen. Sussex Police confirmed the arrest of two 14-year-old boys from Brighton on suspicion of criminal damage. The local newspaper report sparked a series of angry responses, with one commenter suggesting it was time to ‘bring back the stocks’. (This photograph is from a Brighton and Hove News article written by Frank le Duc.)  

Luke Davis, founder of Rockwater, said the attack was a ‘senseless act of vandalism’ and expressed disappointment over the disruption caused to both staff and the community. The venue, which reopened following the pandemic as a popular hospitality hub, was forced to temporarily close while the damage was assessed. Replacement glass panels were ordered the same day. CCTV footage from the premises has been handed to police.

A series of photographs published in The Argus show the aftermath of the incident, including scattered furniture, broken glass, and general disarray along the terrace area. However, damage extended beyond the venue itself. According to one commenter on the Brighton and Hove News website, the same youths also did damage along the beach. ‘These delightful young men also vandalised the outside of the lifeguard office (west of Rockwater), cut the rope from the life belt (rendering it useless), pulled down the fishing line disposal unit, and tipped over a number of the large, wheeled bins between Rockwater and the Lagoon,’ wrote local resident S. Crow. ‘Thus, in one orgy of violence, risking the lives of humans and wildlife too.’

Another commenter, Billy Short, questioned how the teenagers had been out at such an hour and suggested community-based consequences. ‘Why and how are 14-year-olds out at 4am? This suggests trouble at home,’ he wrote. ‘For sure, these kids need some sort of punishment. I’d suggest their school holidays now should entail daily Hove Beach Park flower bed weeding - including the sunken garden behind Rockwater. They need to learn to respect - and a connection - to our shared local space.’

Among the dozens of online comments, one remark stood out for its bluntness. ‘Bring back the stocks,’ wrote Craig Smith, summing up the mood of exasperation shared by many.

Constable on the beach

Two hundred years ago, one of England’s greatest painters - John Constable - could be found in Brighton, pacing the seafront with sketchbook in hand, observing the restless skies and the shifting sea. His time there would result in several vivid and atmospheric coastal paintings, not least this large painting of the Chain Pier (held by Tate Britain).

Constable was born in 1776 in the Suffolk village of East Bergholt. He trained at the Royal Academy Schools in London, and in 1816 he married Maria Bickknell. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he favoured the English countryside over historical or classical themes, gaining recognition for his sweeping views of the Stour Valley. His focus on expressive skies and changing light helped transform British landscape painting and paved the way for later movements such as Impressionism. 

In 1824 Constable moved his family to Brighton, hoping the sea air would improve Maria’s health - by this time she was suffering from tuberculosis. He divided his time between Charlotte Street in London and the south coast, but the change of scenery marked a shift in his work, as he turned from the wide river scenes of Suffolk to coastal subjects. Though he continued to paint on a grand scale, he was initially sceptical about Brighton’s artistic potential. Writing to his friend John Fisher in 1824, he remarked (see Royal Academy): ‘Brighton is the receptacle of the fashion and offscouring of London. The magnificence of the sea, and its (to use your own beautiful expression) everlasting voice is drowned in the din & lost in the tumult of stage coaches - gigs - “flys” etc - and the beach is only piccadilly . . . By the sea-side . . . in short there is nothing here for the painter but the breakers - & the sky - which have been lovely indeed and always [various].’ 

Despite such doubts,Constable went on to be inspired by Brighton Beach, producing some of his most direct and expressive studies. Chain Pier, Brighton was his only large-scale canvas based on the town, exhibited in 1827. Other works include Brighton Beach (1824, held at the V&A, above right bottom), Brighton Beach (1824-1826, held at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, above left), and Brighton Beach, with colliers (1824, also at the V&A, above right top)

The Constables remained in Brighton for five years in the hope of aiding Maria’s health, but the move proved unsuccessful. After the birth of their seventh child in January 1828, the family returned to Hampstead, where Maria died later that year at the age of 41.

A sea on fire

Alison MacLeod’s novel Unexploded, long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, was published twelve years ago today. Set in Brighton during the early stages of World War II, the story revolves around the lives of Geoffrey and Evelyn Beaumont, a married couple navigating the tensions and fears of wartime life as they face the imminent threat of a German invasion. In particular, the narrative contains vivid portrayals of the beach and piers being closed down and shut off from daily life, one character even imagining the sea on fire.

MacLeod is a Canadian‑British novelist, short story writer, and academic, born in Montreal and raised in Quebec and Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has lived in England since 1987, and has become a dual citizen. She was Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester until 2018. Since then she has been writing full time while maintaining visiting academic roles and serving as a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund. While Unexploded was published on 26 July 2013, and is her best-known work (having been serialised on BBC Radio 4), Bloomsbury has also published a story collection, All the Beloved Ghosts ( 2017), and the novel Tenderness (2021).

In Unexploded, Geoffrey is appointed superintendent of a newly improvised internment camp for enemy aliens, while Evelyn, restless and emotionally isolated, begins volunteering there. She meets Otto Gottlieb, a German‑Jewish painter labeled a ‘degenerate’ and interned under Geoffrey’s supervision. They begin an emotional entanglement that forces Evelyn to question her marriage, motherhood, and moral compass. Geoffrey, meanwhile, spirals into his own moral failures: prejudice, infidelity, and emotional cowardice. 

Unexploded can be previewed at Googlebooks. Here are two extracts. 

Chapter 14, page 103

‘A hundred yards from the Palace Pier, Geoffrey let himself loiter under the canopy of a derelict oyster stand. The day was overcast, the sea the colour of gunmetal, and the beach abandoned, closed for the war by order of the corporation. The signs had been hammered to the railings down the length of the prom.

He fumbled in his jacket pocket for his cigarette case. On the Pier, the rides stood quiet. Only a few defiant anglers tried their luck from the end of the deck. In the tide, mines bobbed beneath the surface, out of view, horned and deadly. Every fishing boat had vanished, as if by some ill-fated sleight of hand.

He tried to focus on the survey for the Committee, on the report he would need to compose to confirm that all was in place for Churchill’s visit. He’d been avoiding the task all week.

He cupped the flame of his lighter against the breeze and drew hard on his cigarette. Every beach chalet, including his own, had been strategically manoeuvred and filled with stones. Up and down the shingle, anti-landing-craft spikes lay in heaps, ready to be dug in. Vast coils of barbed wire blotted the views east and west, while concrete tank-traps stood five feet high, colonising the shore. Across the King’s Road, the elegant rooftops of the Grand Hotel and the Métropole had been upstaged by the guns on the new naval station.

Without the boats, without the herring dees and the winkle- pickers, the shingle was a bleak vista darkened by the apparatus of war and the rank of oil drums that stretched endlessly towards Hove. Each drum squatted beneath the prom, ready to be rolled down the beach, past the ghosts of erstwhile paddlers, children and old people, into the sea. Each bore ten thousand gallons of petrol, and, for a moment, looking out, he saw it, the impossible: a sea on fire.

Even as he walked the beach, white sheets and pristine table linen were hanging from every window on the Channel Islands. That was the morning’s news.

Any day. It could be any day.’

Chapter 22, page 169

‘If London looked to the steadiness of Big Ben and the gravitas of St Paul’s for a reminder of dignity in strife, Brighton’s emotional compass had been the ring-a-ding-ding and the music, the electric lights and the ticket-stub happiness of the Palace and West piers. When the Explosions Unit had arrived that evening back in June, the town prepared to lose its bearings. Even to the casual observer, each pier looked like nothing less than a welcoming dock, an unloading zone for any invading ship, and while both were spared outright destruction, section after strategy section - of decking, piles and girders - was blasted into the sea.

That year, Alf Dunn, Tubby’s middle brother, turned fourteen and craved something more than digs in bombed-out houses. As the starlings gathered and the sun slid from the sky, he and a dozen others also descended on the seafront.

It was no casual operation. They had wire-clippers for the barbed-wire fencing, rope from a builder’s yard, switchblades for cutting it, and mud for camouflage. The tide was rising, but the evening itself was calm, and there was just time to cast a rope bridge from gap to gap, using the stumps of the blasted piles and relying on Tommy Leach’s skill with knots.

The trick to a successful traverse, Ali explained, was to lie on top of the rope, bend a knee, hook the foot of that same leg over the rope, and keep the other leg straight for balance. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Your pins don’t move. It’s your arms and hands that get you from end to end. If you slip under the rope, don’t panic. Hook a leg and the opposite arm over, and push down with the other hand to right yourself.

Tubby and Philip had been allowed to bring up the rear, if only to bear witness and to carry the bucket of camouflage mud. They watched Alf army-crawl his way to the first, second and third landings, wave from the deck, and glide back.’

New board criticised

Brighton & Hove City Council has officially revealed the twelve members of its newly established Seafront Development Board, signalling a renewed commitment to revitalising the city’s iconic shoreline - but the move has drawn criticism from the Green Party, who accuse Labour of sidelining public accountability and undermining the role of elected councillors.

The board, which brings together a distinguished group of local leaders and professionals, is tasked with guiding investment and long-term strategy across the city’s seafront, with early focus on the redevelopment of Black Rock and the restoration of Madeira Terrace. It will also play a role in delivering the broader ambitions of the City Plan and seafront regeneration programme, which goes beyond Brighton beach in both directions, to Shoreham Harbour and Saltdean.

Following an open recruitment process that attracted over 90 applicants, the final line-up was selected by the Labour administration. Lord Steve Bassam of Brighton, former leader of Brighton Borough Council and a member of the House of Lords’ inquiry into seaside towns, has been named chair (see A bit of pizzazz.) He is now joined by Vice Chair Councillor Jacob Taylor, Deputy Leader of the council and Cabinet Member for Finance and City Regeneration.

Among the board’s private sector members are Georgia Collard-Watson, Principal Associate Architect at Grimshaw Architects; Carolyn Jikiemi-Roberts, Director at Hot Yoga South Brighton; Alastair Hignell CBE, a former England rugby international and MS advocate; Alma Howell, Historic England’s inspector of historic buildings; and Simon Lambor, Director of Matsim Group.

Also appointed are Juliet Sargeant, an award-winning garden designer known for her Chelsea Flower Show work; Rob Sloper, Senior Development Director at Landsec U+I; and Pete Tyler, a retired travel executive with longstanding ties to the tourism sector. Representing the council’s political leadership, Councillor Julie Cattell, Lead for Major Projects, and Councillor Birgit Miller, Cabinet Member for Culture, Heritage and Tourism, complete the board’s line-up. (Pics, from top to bottom: Bassam, Miller, Sargeant, and Howell.)

However, the Greens have voiced concerns about the board’s structure and remit. According to the Brighton and Hove News, the Greens said ‘the ruling party had packed the board with Labour politicians, questioned the process for choosing the chair and asking whether anyone else was considered for the role’.

Councillor Kerry Pickett, the Greens’ spokesperson for regeneration was quoted as saying: ‘There’s a risk that this appointed board could push through development decisions behind closed doors - decisions that will shape our city for generations.’ She added, according to Brighton and Hove News, that the Greens ‘strongly support the regeneration of the seafront but believe it must be guided by transparency, consultation, and democratic oversight.’ However, I can find no official source for these quotes and opinions (nothing on the Greens website for example.)

The council has said the board will meet quarterly, with a role focused on ‘guidance, challenge and championing’ rather than decision-making. According to the council’s own statement, the board will help ‘shape future development of the seafront’ by advising officers and councillors, while all formal planning decisions will remain within the council’s democratic structures.

Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm

Today, Bloc Party headline On the Beach, the annual summer music festival that transforms Brighton’s seafront into a large-scale open-air concert venue. Held each July, the event draws thousands of fans from across the UK to the city’s iconic shingle beach. With the Rampion wind farm on the horizon and stages set just metres from the tide, the festival once again brings live music to one of the most distinctive coastal settings in the country.

On the Beach began in 2021, building on Brighton’s long love affair with large-scale seaside music. It channels the same spirit that drew quarter of a million people to Fatboy Slim’s chaotic beach show back in 2002 - a landmark event that still hangs heavy over Brighton’s pop-culture memory. Unlike that free-for-all, the modern festival is carefully ticketed and spread over several weekends each July, bringing big-name DJs, rock bands and indie outfits to stages erected almost within reach of the tide. Past years have seen Royal Blood, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, The Kooks and The Libertines claim the beach. This summer’s run continues the tradition, with today’s billing dedicated to a more guitar-driven, indie flavour.

At the heart of it all are Bloc Party, who tonight perform their seminal debut album Silent Alarm in full, marking twenty years since it first tore through the UK charts. Released in 2005, Silent Alarm fused jagged post-punk guitar lines, urgent dance rhythms and raw, nervy vocals into a sound that defined an era of British indie. Songs like Banquet and Helicopter became anthems in sticky clubs and muddy fields alike. Over the two decades since, Bloc Party have shape-shifted through electronic experiments, introspective rock and propulsive returns to form, all without losing their taste for sharp edges and restless energy.

Frontman Kele Okereke has cited everyone from The Smiths to electronic pioneers like A Guy Called Gerald as influences. Guitarist Russell Lissack, meanwhile, has a side passion for rescuing stray cats and once briefly joined Ash on tour. Joining the two founders of the band on stage will be Louise Bartle on drums and percussion - officially part of the band since 2015 - and Harry Deacon, who took over bass duties in 2023.

Sharing the stage with Bloc Party today are Everything Everything, the Manchester art-rock outfit celebrated for twisting pop into clever, unexpected shapes, and Mystery Jets, long-time darlings of the indie circuit whose bright, slightly psychedelic songs like Two Doors Down still ring with youthful rush. They’re joined by Leeds newcomers English Teacher (see English Teacher on the beach, who played this very location a couple of months ago) and Liz Lawrence, the genre-hopping singer-songwriter whose crystalline vocals have become a Brighton favourite. Rounding out the bill are FEET, bringing fresh energy off the back of their new album, and Martial Arts, a rising local band adding yet more sun-soaked guitar sparkle to the beach.

A long RNLI weekend

RNLI volunteers have been busy along Brighton Beach during the last few days. Over the weekend, the crews launched five times in 48 hours, a press release details, dealing with everything from people blown offshore on inflatables to paddleboarders venturing far out to sea.

The first task came at 7.30pm last Friday when the crew launched to reports of a person in the water clinging to an orange float near the West Pier. The lifeboat quickly located a man who was fishing from his stand-up paddleboard. On the return journey, at around dusk, the crew spotted two paddleboarders approximately 1.25 nautical miles offshore. The pair were attempting to reach the wind farm in failing light. They had no communication devices, no lifejackets, no food or water, and were dressed only in T-shirts and shorts. With conditions deteriorating and darkness falling, the crew persuaded them to come aboard and towed their boards back to the beach.

A third task that evening involved a dinghy with paddlers waving for attention. While this turned out to be a case of poor paddling technique rather than distress, it demonstrated the importance of raising the alarm early. Saturday lunchtime, the crew launched to search for a 27-year-old man who had been missing for over 90 minutes after swimming east of Brighton Palace Pier. His belongings were found unattended on the beach by his friend, prompting a swift and coordinated response. Brighton RNLI carried out shoreline and offshore searches, while RNLI Lifeguards and Coastguard teams scoured the beach, and a rescue helicopter conducted an aerial search. The swimmer was eventually located and assisted onshore by the lifeguards and Coastguard.

Just hours later, that evening, Brighton RNLI was called out again. Two people had earlier been brought ashore without lifejackets after using a jet ski, but later swam back out to retrieve the craft, which had been tied to a buoy. Concerned that they might attempt another unsafe recovery, the crew returned the two individuals and their jet ski to Brighton Marina. The incident served as a reminder of how even seemingly short trips on the water can escalate without proper equipment or planning.

Finally, on Monday, at 1.24am, Brighton RNLI launched following a police request after bloodied clothing was discovered near the shore close to the i360. The crew carried out a thorough search of the area but were stood down after nothing was found. Back at the station, returning crew were met by five of the newest volunteer crew. They turned out in the early hours to help recover and clean the boat and to start learning how to respond to calls in the middle of the night safely.

These weekend call-outs were not unusual for the Brighton RNLI team. In 2024, Brighton RNLI responded to 61 incidents and were credited with saving two lives. Across Sussex, RNLI lifeboats carried out 475 launches last year, reflecting how busy the coastline can be.

Lifeboat operations manager Charlie Dannreuther said: ‘These launches highlight just how varied, and how demanding, a weekend on the coast can be. They also reinforced some vital safety messages. Whether you’re paddleboarding, using a jet ski, or going for a swim, being prepared is essential. Always wear a lifejacket when on the water. Take a means of calling for help, like a mobile phone in a waterproof pouch or a VHF radio. Check the weather forecast and tide times. Don’t head out in fading light. And always tell someone your plan.’

The Great Omani

Twenty-five years ago, Brighton’s seafront bade a flamboyant farewell to one of its most extraordinary residents: Ronald Cunningham, better known by his stage name, ‘The Great Omani’. On 10 July 2000 - his 85th birthday - Omani staged what he declared would be his final stunt, astonishing a crowd at the Norfolk Hotel by escaping from handcuffs while both his arms were set ablaze with lighter fluid. Frail, in a wheelchair, and undergoing treatment for kidney dialysis and cancer, he ensured that his last act was as daring and theatrical as the countless spectacles he had performed along Brighton’s historic front - many of them centred on the West Pier, the backdrop to some of his most audacious feats.

Living modestly at 10 Norfolk Street, Cunningham was a true local legend whose improbable career as a stuntman and escapologist spanned nearly half a century. Born into a wealthy family, he drifted through his early years without ambition until a twist of fate changed everything. As he browsed in a London bookshop, a volume of Houdini’s tricks fell from a shelf and landed squarely on his foot. ‘That moment changed my life,’ he later said. Taking it as a sign, he resolved on the spot to become a stuntman, adopting the name ‘The Great Omani’ simply because, in his words, it sounded ‘exotic and exciting, just like Houdini’s’.

His acts were as audacious as his origin story. Omani became the first man to travel from London to Brighton on a bed of nails, then made the return journey entombed in a ton of concrete. In a heartfelt homage to his idol, he staged a dramatic underwater escape from Brighton’s West Pier - echoing Houdini’s own feats of the 1920s. According to The Argus, ‘The Great Omani could be regularly seen jumping from the end of the West Pier, wrapped in chains and on fire’. His repertoire included smashing bottles on his throat with a hammer, diving through flaming hoops, and extricating himself from burning structures - stunts performed with a blend of swagger and scrupulous preparation. Remarkably, across his long career, he was only seriously injured twice, both times due to mistakes by assistants: once when a cardboard house was set alight with petrol poured inside, another time when a leaking fuel can caused minor burns during a flaming dive.

That final spectacle on his 85th birthday was meant to be his swan song (see this video at Youtube - the source of the screenshot above), yet in true Omani fashion he couldn’t resist also marking his 90th birthday with a last defiant farewell (see My Brighton and Hove). He died in 2007. Further information is available online at Wikipedia, but also in The Crowd Roars - Tales from the life of a professional stuntman The Great Omani which can be freely downloaded as a pdf from QueenSpark Books.

Brighton Beach as runway!

Brighton Beach has always been a place for spectacle, but few moments could have matched the astonishment of locals in 1911 when Sir Harry Preston, the flamboyant hotelier and sportsman, arranged for a monoplane to land on the wide shingle shore. Preston, keen to boost Brighton’s reputation as a fashionable playground, was a fervent supporter of early aviation. Eager to showcase the marvels of flight, he invited pioneering pilot Oscar Morison to make a dramatic landing on the beach. 

On 15 February, crowds gathered to watch as Morison brought his Blériot XI monoplane skimming over the waves and touched down on the shingle beach between the Palace and West Piers. Although the rough pebbled surface damaged the aircraft’s undercarriage and propeller, the landing was safe, with Preston himself among the delighted spectators. The event captured national headlines and cemented Brighton’s place in the glamorous story of early aviation. (See the Sir Harry Preston website for further details).

Preston’s enthusiasm for flying was not limited to publicity stunts. As proprietor of the Royal York and the Royal Albion Hotels, he entertained countless aviators, racing drivers and sportsmen, many of whom regarded Brighton as their sporting headquarters. Preston saw aviation as part of the modern allure of his beloved town - a symbol of speed, daring, and forward-looking spirit.

Meanwhile, the inventive Volk brothers - Magnus and George Herbert, sons of Magnus Volk of electric railway fame -were turning their mechanical skills to aviation. Their particular story was recently (May) uncovered by BBC News with photographs (as above) and a radio report. From around 1910, the brothers were producing engines and floats in a North Laine workshop (though George Herbert ‘Bert’ Volk was at the heart of these endeavours). Soon after, they were building full airframes and fitting them with lightweight engines. The parts for these curious craft were wheeled down to the seafront near Paston Place, where they were assembled and launched directly into the Channel from Brighton Beach. 

Bert Volk’s operation attracted other aviation enthusiasts and innovators. Among them was John Cyril Porte, later known for his significant contributions to flying boat design, who collaborated on ideas about hulls and floats. In 1912, the celebrated aviator Claude Grahame‑White arrived in Brighton and demonstrated flights from Volk’s beach station, adding a dash of celebrity to the venture and thrilling crowds who had never seen such machines take to the air from the waves.

This brief flowering of marine aviation in Brighton, however, was overtaken by larger forces. By 1913, Bert had departed for South Africa, and with the outbreak of the First World War, the government requisitioned the site for wartime needs.

Burchill on the beach

‘The revamps, the facelifts and the attempts by a clumsy council to write the indigenous Brighton working class out of the upwardly mobile picture are real enough. But on the beach, you get the distinct feeling that Brighton will never completely pull its socks up.’ This is the Brighton treasure Julie Burchill - 66 years old today - writing about the seafront nearly two decades ago.

Born in Bristol in 1959, the daughter of a communist factory worker and a dinner lady, she left home at 17 for London to work at the New Musical Express. She quickly made a name for herself with a brash, slangy style and fierce opinions. Alongside fellow writer Tony Parsons, she helped define the paper’s punk-era voice, becoming a leading figure in a new, confrontational brand of journalism.

In the 1980s Burchill moved from music writing into broader columns and cultural commentary, writing for The Face, The Sunday Times, and The Mail on Sunday. She also spent several years as a star columnist at Cosmopolitan, where her wit and provocations reached a wide female readership. Her work was marked by controversial takes on everything from feminism to class, and she revelled in the notoriety. 

In 1991, Burchill with her husband Cosmo Landesman and Toby Young launched a short-lived magazine, Modern Review, under the slogan ‘Low culture for high brows’. Also in the early 1990s, Burchill relocated to Brighton. She became one of the city’s most talked-about residents, living out her fondness for seaside sleaze, nightlife and scandal. In 2007, she co-wrote Made in Brighton with Daniel Raven, a rollicking blend of personal memoir and city guide, paying tribute to Brighton’s gay culture, drugs scene, and enduring flair for eccentricity. The book can be previewed on Googlebooks. Here is a sample.  

‘Charlotte [Raven, fellow writer on the Modern Review] also called the old neglected seafront ‘a wonderful prompt for human narratives’ - and looking at the pristine Artists Quarter, Fishing Museum and Volleyball Court, where one’s responses are all cued up and ready to go, you could argue that prosperity has been paid for with sheer seedy character. And that this could be a chic, bustling promenade anywhere from Positano to San Francisco, as the beautiful people linger over a latte and plan a hard day’s antique shopping.

But I’m nit-picking. When it still feels like an honour to live somewhere after eleven years, how bad can it be? And it’s still so not London! Beyond the Palace Pier going east towards the Marina, the chill, slick hand of the style police has not yet crushed Brighton’s grand tradition of agreeable, ramshackle blowsiness, and you can still ride the quaint Volks Railway past the abandoned Peter Pan’s Playground and the desperately dated, utterly adorable ‘nudist beach’. Here Little Englander Modernists like me can find the rusty radiance of the resistance to the global village and the Euro-portion which is summed up in the county motto of Sussex: We Won’t Be Druv.

The revamps, the facelifts and the attempts by a clumsy council to write the indigenous Brighton working class out of the upwardly mobile picture are real enough. But on the beach, you get the distinct feeling that Brighton will never completely pull its socks up. Already the white-flight London breeders who came here to create a vast Nappy Valley - a kind of Clapham-on-Sea - are appalled by our unparalleled drug-taking [. . .] and assorted high jinks. Even between the piers, where the gentrification is most obvious and where every citizen should in theory be shopping for hand-painted objets, the vast dope cloud still rises, like a phoenix in reverse, silently and smilingly refusing to be born-again as an on-message, user-friendly unit of the ongoing British economic miracle which has seen us over the past decade come to work the longest hours in Europe - and along the way become one of its most miserable nations. But time passes so quickly in the blameless, shameless sun, on the eternal beach, where the going out and coming in of the ocean makes the only real sense. A working day can be lost forever in the blink of an eye, in forty winks, in a couple of cans of Stella and a cheeky spliff. And a good thing too.

[. . .]

Now I am one of those maddeningly jammy dodgers. I’ve been here in Brighton for twelve years, and the weird thing is that in the best possible way it still doesn’t feel like home. Instead it feels like I somehow got out of going home - time and time and time again - and that I escaped from the life that had been mapped out for me in the landlocked limbo of London; the slo-mo, stressed-out, wound-down fatalism of growing up and growing old. Now that’s lucky, if you like.’

The top photo is accredited to Dan Chung in a 2014 Guardian article. More on Burchill can be found at Wikipedia,

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.)

41 Places 41 Stories

‘Mark walks the shingle, slowly sweeping his metal detector from side to side listening for the bleep on his headphones? This isn’t his usual haunt. More often he’s down at the Volk’s Railway, where he takes his wife to get out of the flat. His wife’s not very well. She can’t go out on her own any more.’ This is the start of Story 32, about Brighton Beach, in William Shaw’s 41 Places 41 Stories (UnMadeUp, 2007). The small curio of a book was first published as a city-wide installation commission by the 2007 Brighton Festival.

Shaw, who now lives in Brighton, was once a music journalist but, around 2013, he turned - successfully to crime fiction (indeed, he has just published his latest novel - The Red Shore). 41 Places 41 Stories - which can be sampled online at Googlebooks - relates ‘true stories picked up on street corners, taxi ranks, pubs, car parks - even in public toilets’, with each one inhabiting its own geography: a specific place in the centre of a British seaside town. The publisher’s blurb explains; ‘If the essence of narrative is change, William Shaw distils it here in these tales of love, loss and self-discovery. Brighton is, after all, a place where people have always come to transform themselves.’ 

Story 32 is entitled The other day he found a 1966 American silver dollar on the beach. Makes you think, and it has a location subtitle - The beach between the piers. (The photograph above is my own, and has no direct link to Shaw’s book.) Here’s the piece: 

‘Mark walks the shingle, slowly sweeping his metal detector from side to side listening for the bleep on his headphones?

This isn’t his usual haunt. More often he’s down at the Volk’s Railway, where he takes his wife to get out of the flat. His wife’s not very well. She can’t go out on her own any more.

Today, though, his daughter’s down to visit. She’s taken her mother out, so he’s come down here for a change.

He bends down and starts to dig with his trowel. Just under the surface, a shiny 50p piece.

When he was a boy living in First Avenue in Hove, this is where he used to scavenge empty coke bottles for the 3d return money. He would climb up under the West Pier and scour the beams for sixpenny bits that had fallen through the gaps in the boards.

Some make their living down here with metal detectors. At dawn, a half dozen of them will be inching across the stones picking up cash dropped from the pockets of drunken clubbers.

Not Mark. He’s not interested in the money any more. He spent his life going ninety miles an hour. Last couple of years he’s just stopped. For him this is more like archaeology - finding something, wondering how it got there. The other day he found a 1966 American silver dollar on the beach. Makes you think. What’s the story? It’s just a buzz, not knowing what you’re going to pull out. Like fishing.

Tonight he’s cooking sea bass, his favourite. He does all the cooking at home. He is the glue, the one that holds it together.

See those buildings on the seafront? Mark’s been on the roofs of most of them. He used to be a tiler. Working so high up all your life gives you a perspective. Up there, you lose the fear of dying, and with it, your sense of selfishness.

Another noise in his headphones. He reaches down and picks up a rust-crusted penny. That one may have been down there for years.’

Stormzy stars in Brighton short

Stormzy’s new short film Big Man, much of it shot in Brighton - on the beach and the pier - marks the artist’s first leading role on screen. The 20-minute film, directed by Oscar-winner Aneil Karia and released this month, was shot entirely on the latest iPhone and produced by #Merky Films in collaboration with Apple.

The short film follows Tenzman, a former star adrift in a creative slump, who reconnects with joy and purpose after an unexpected encounter with two young boys (played by Klevis Brahja and Jaydon Eastman). Their adventure takes them to Brighton Beach, where scenes of them running across the pebbles, trampolining and eating chips together capture moments of emotional clarity for Stormzy’s character. 

Stormzy himself was born Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr. in Croydon in 1993. He rose to fame in the mid-2010s with tracks like Shut Up and his debut album Gang Signs & Prayer, the first grime album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. In October 2015, he played at the Brighton Beach venue, Concorde 2, during his first-ever UK headline tour. A year later he was back in town performing a high‑energy set at the Dome during The Great Escape festival.

Known for his political engagement and cultural influence, Stormzy has since expanded his impact beyond music, launching a publishing imprint, founding #Merky Books, and supporting educational and justice initiatives. Big Man signals a new creative chapter, blending music, narrative, and location in a quietly ambitious short film rooted in real emotion and recognisable British landscapes.

The film, from which these screenshots were taken, can be viewed at Time Out's website.

Celebrating Eugenius Birch

Eugenius Birch - born this day in 1818 - was the preeminent engineer of the Victorian seaside, the man who shaped the silhouette of England’s pleasure piers - and few places reflect his legacy more vividly than Brighton. Though best remembered for designing the West Pier, his original involvement with the Palace Pier also left a mark on the seafront that endures to this day. It is worth noting that Brighton is the only location where TWO Eugenius Birch built/inspired piers can be captured in a single ground-level photograph.

Brighton in the mid-19th century was already a flourishing resort town, a fashionable destination for sea air and spectacle. But its early piers were practical structures - wooden jetties for landing boats, not leisure. The transformation of the pier into a promenade of popular entertainment was largely Birch’s doing.

The West Pier, opened in October 1866, was his masterpiece. Commissioned by the West Pier Company and built at a cost of over £27,000, it was the first pier in Britain designed specifically for pleasure rather than docking. Birch employed his trademark screw-pile technique - iron piles twisted deep into the seabed - which made the structure both elegant and resilient. The West Pier featured cast-iron columns, graceful arches, gas lighting, and a central pavilion where orchestras performed to strolling visitors. It soon became a jewel of the Brighton shoreline, admired for its engineering and its social atmosphere.

The success of the West Pier inspired calls for a second pier, further east, to replace the ageing and storm-battered Chain Pier. In 1881, the newly formed Brighton Marine Palace and Pier Company invited Birch to draw up plans for a grander structure: what would eventually become the Palace Pier. His design envisioned a wide, iron-framed promenade extending over 1,000 feet into the Channel, crowned with entertainment pavilions and theatre space - a palace of amusement on the sea.

Construction began in November 1881, but progress was plagued by bad weather and delays. Birch, now in his sixties and nearing the end of his life, did not live to see it through. He died in January 1884, and the project stalled for several years after. When work resumed in earnest, the Palace Pier’s design was significantly revised under new engineers, though it retained Birch’s iron-pile foundations and the core idea of a leisure pier rather than a landing stage.

The Palace Pier was finally opened in May 1899, fifteen years after Birch’s death. Though much of the decorative design and superstructure was reimagined, the engineering principles remained his. Its immense popularity through the 20th century - with its theatres, arcades, and fairground rides - owed much to the model first tested on the West Pier. Today, the West Pier, now skeletal after fires and storms, stands as a haunting but beautiful ruin, a tribute to Birch’s original vision; and The Palace Pier  continues to thrive as one of Britain’s most visited free attractions.

Happy Birthday Eugenius Birch. Further information is readily available online, for example at Wikipedia, the National Piers Society and The Victorian Web. The modern photograph above was taken in 2020. The two Victorian-era photographs of the piers were published in my book Brighton & Hove Then & Now (The History Press, 2013) but originally sourced from the James Gray Collection with thanks to the Regency Society.

The seafront, the seafront

Found yesterday on the seafront: the seafront! This Brighton Fibre van livery - by Chloe Studios - is surely the funnest in the city, and an eye-catching advertisement for a company that says it is ‘Doing Things Differently’. Broadband shouldn’t be complicated, it states: ‘We got rid of everything that nobody needed - no call centres, no datacentres, no contracts. Just fast, fair, and sustainable fibre.’

Brighton Fibre can be considered as a grassroots success story. During the first Covid lockdown, Mark Mason, a local AV/IT professional - began sharing a leased-line connection and a rooftop radio link with neighbours struggling to work from home. He teamed up with Leo Brown, a lifelong telecoms enthusiast who had built networks as a child. Together, they launched the company as a stealth‑mode ISP: a self-funded, locally grown initiative focused on sustainability, technical ingenuity, and community-first broadband.

From the outset, Brighton Fibre distinguished itself by building its own full-fibre network using existing infrastructure - repurposing old ducts, telegraph poles and even 1930s Rediffusion radio-relay channels. The network was designed to be energy efficient and environmentally conscious: nodes are powered by renewable energy and run on single-board computers like Raspberry Pis, consuming less power than boiling a kettle. The company explains that it rejected venture capital, choosing instead to build strategic, community-led partnerships and reinvest revenue back into network development and service quality.

Their rollout began in underserved neighbourhoods such as North Laine, Gardner Street, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, and from just a few experimental connections, the network expanded rapidly and by early 2024 was servicing over 30,000 premises. Their main network hub sits in the Brighton Digital Exchange at New England House, a cooperative, carrier-neutral data centre established in 2015. While some connections still rely on Openreach duct access, the long-term plan is to shift all links to Brighton Fibre’s own infrastructure.

The brilliant livery on Brighton Fibre’s vans was designed by local illustrator Chloe Batchelor of Chloe Studios. The final wrap was printed and applied by Brighton-based signwriter Mister Phil.

By way of a summary, I asked ChatGPT what makes Brighton Fibre different. ‘It’s more than just technology. It’s the combination of self-built, eco-conscious infrastructure; a deep-rooted local ethos; and an engineering-led culture that prioritises quality over scale. In a world of national monopolies and corporate ISPs, Brighton Fibre is quietly proving that an independent network - powered by recycled cables, renewable energy and community trust - can thrive on the edge of the sea.’

Pining for Sabrina Zembra

‘He began to think that if he passed away from this laughing and murmuring crowd, and went out to the end of the pier, and quietly slipped down into the placid waters, the world would be none the worse for the want of him, and a good deal of heart-sickness would come to an end.’ This is from Sabina Zembra, a lesser known novel set in Brighton by Victorian author William Black.

Black was born in Glasgow in 1841. He initially studied art, but became a reporter for Scottish newspapers. Later, in London, he worked for the Morning Star and Daily News, serving as a war correspondent during Garibaldi’s campaign and the Franco-Prussian War. His breakthrough novel, A Daughter of Heth (1871), marked the start of a prolific literary career. Known for his lyrical prose, romantic plots, and vividly rendered landscapes, he became one of the most widely read novelists of the 1870s and 1880s - see Wikipedia.

Black’s work often balanced sentiment with moral seriousness and featured strong, emotionally intelligent female characters. His best-known novels include The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton (1872), A Princess of Thule (1873), and MacLeod of Dare (1879). Though his popularity waned after his death, in his lifetime he was widely admired, with some critics likening his descriptive power to that of Thomas Hardy or even early Tennyson.

While primarily associated with Scotland and London, Black and his second wife, Eva Simpson, moved to Brighton in 1878 - see The Victorian Web. And Brighton then featured in his 1881 novel, The Beautiful Wretch, and subsequently in Sabina Zembra. In this latter novel, the reflective opening scenes unfold along the town’s seafront and Chain Pier, capturing its blend of gaiety and melancholy. Black actually died in Brighton in 1898 and was buried near the church door of St Margaret's, Rottingdean, close to the grave of Edward Burne-Jones.

Sabina Zembra was first published in 1887 by Macmillan - the full work is freely available to read online at Internet Archive. It explores themes of love, melancholy, and social expectation against the contrasting backdrops of London and the English seaside. The story centres on Walter Lindsay, a sensitive, somewhat disillusioned man who escapes the pressures of life in London by retreating to Brighton. Though surrounded by crowds, he is inwardly solitary, his thoughts haunted by a woman named Sabina Zembra. Sabina is not just a love interest but a symbol of a purer, nobler affection in a world that feels increasingly hollow. As Lindsay wanders through Brighton’s piers and promenades, he contemplates life, despair, and romantic ideals. Here is a passage that opens chapter 15 entitled The Wedding.

‘It was a summer night at Brighton. The tall house-fronts were gray and wan against the crimson and yellow still lingering in the north-western heavens; but far away over the sea, to the south-east, there dwelt a golden moon in a sky of pale rose-purple; and the moonlight that fell on the wide waters was soft and shimmering, until it gleamed sharp and vivid where the ripples broke on the beach. Here and there the stars of the gas lamps began to tell in the twilight. There was a faint murmur of talking; young girls in their summer costumes went by, with laughter and jest; there was an open window, and somebody within a brilliantly lit drawing-room was singing - in a voice not very loud but still audible to such of the passers-by as happened to pause and listen - an old Silesian air. It was about a lover, and a broken ring, and the sound of a mill-wheel.

Walter Lindsay was among these casual listeners - for a minute or two; and then he went on, with some curious fancies in his head. Not that any young maiden had deceived him, or that he was particularly anxious to find rest in the grave; for this is the latter half of the nineteenth century, and he, as well as others, knew that Wertherism [morbid sentimentality, regarded as characteristic of Werther, the hero of Goethe’s romance] was now considered ridiculous. But somehow London had become intolerable to him; and he could not work; and - well, Brighton was the nearest place to get away to, while one was considering further plans. It was a little lonely, it is true; especially on these summer evenings, when all the world seemed, as it were, to be murmuring in happiness.

Over there was the Chain Pier. A few golden points - gas lamps - glimmered on it; and beyond it there was a small boat, the sail of which caught the last dusky-red light from the sunset, and looked ghostly on the darkening plain. In that direction peace seemed to lie. He began to think that if he passed away from this laughing and murmuring crowd, and went out to the end of the pier, and quietly slipped down into the placid waters, the world would be none the worse for the want of him, and a good deal of heart-sickness would come to an end. He did not really contemplate suicide; it was a mere fancy. Killing oneself for love is not known nowadays, except among clerks and shop-lads; and then it is generally prefaced by cutting a young woman’s throat, which is unpleasant. No, it was a mere fancy that haunted him, and not in a too mournful fashion.’