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.’

Piper Tri‑Pacer test flight

Found on the beach: Piper Tri‑Pacer. Not the real thing! but a foam glider from a familiar seaside toy set, labelled ‘Jet Fighters’. Though this packaging suggests a focus on military jets, the set often include a mix of fighter planes, vintage propeller aircraft, and general aviation types like the Tri‑Pacer.

Still in a sealed package, I felt this find was an invitation to make and test fly the model. The design is No. 12 in a series of twelve collectible aircraft designs. The Piper Tri‑Pacer itself was a four-seat, high-wing monoplane produced in the United States from 1950 to 1964, known for its tricycle undercarriage and popularity among postwar civilian pilots.

Often manufactured in Asia and sold under various generic brands, the toys are part of a long tradition of inexpensive, throwaway beach items. But their materials - non-biodegradable plastics and foams - have made them a target of environmental concern.

The toy glider, likely made of polystyrene foam with a plastic nose cap, would have been sold for very little from a beachfront kiosk or souvenir shop. These lightweight, slot-together models have been a fixture of seaside holidays since at least the 1970s.

And yet, they are poorly made, too light to cope with even the mildest of sea breezes (despite the evidence of these photographs!), so they duck and dive barely able to stay airborne before crashing into the pebbles. 

Time for one last staged photograph before flying off to a waste bin.

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.