Juvenile herring gull

Found on Brighton Beach: a boldly barred feather from a young herring gull, and, nearby, the bird itself resting among the shingle. Juvenile herring gulls are clad in mottled brown plumage that provides camouflage against pebbles and sand, with dark bills and pale streaked heads. They will not gain the crisp grey-and-white adult plumage until their fourth year, passing through several transitional stages. The feather on the beach is part of this annual cycle, dropped as the bird grows and moults, each stage revealing a closer resemblance to the adults wheeling above the seafront.

Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) are common residents of the Sussex coast but their numbers in natural colonies have declined sharply, leading to a Red List status despite their success in towns and on rooftops. They begin breeding at about four years old, laying two or three eggs in late spring, with both parents sharing incubation and feeding. The chicks fledge after five to six weeks but remain dependent for a while, learning to forage on intertidal invertebrates, fish, carrion and discarded food. A bird that survives its first winters may live for decades, and ringed individuals have been recorded at over 30 years old.

The multitude of gulls seen loafing on Brighton’s pebbles are rarely nesting on the shore itself. Instead, most come from colonies established on rooftops throughout the city. Since the 1970s herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls have increasingly used chimneys, ledges and flat roofs as substitutes for cliffs, taking advantage of the protection from predators and the ready supply of food in urban areas. Thousands of pairs now breed across Brighton and Hove, while natural cliff colonies remain further along the coast at Newhaven, Seaford Head and Beachy Head. The young birds you see on the beach may have been raised only a few hundred metres inland, above hotels, flats and shops lining the promenade.

The juvenile on the pebbles is one of many dispersing from nests this season, leaving behind patterned feathers as evidence of their growth. Those fragments are reminders that the familiar gulls of Brighton, noisy and opportunistic, carry complex life cycles bound to the changing fortunes of the sea and the town.

For more information see the RSPB and BTO BirdFacts.

Guest: Anzac’s Brighton Beach, Gallipoli

On the Gallipoli Peninsula in north-west Turkey, there is a beach whose name echoes far from home. Known to soldiers of the First World War as Brighton Beach, it lies on a long curve of sand between the headland of Gaba Tepe and the narrow inlet of Anzac Cove. The name was never official but it stuck, a reminder of how men carried fragments of familiar landscapes into the most alien of settings. More than a century later the shoreline is quiet, its role in the campaign less famous than other places nearby, but it remains part of the story of Gallipoli.

To get there, walk south from Shrapnel Valley Cemetery, rejoin the main beach road and follow it for approximately half a kilometre. Ahead stretches the promontory of Gaba Tepe, and to your right lies the shoreline the ANZAC troops called Brighton Beach - originally designated ‘Z Beach’. In The Story of Anzac, Charles Bean recorded that the 3rd Australian Infantry Brigade - the intended Covering Force - was to land here on 25 April 1915 and advance inland to strategic ridges. But as history shows, the actual landings occurred further to the north.

The terrain facing inland from Brighton Beach was noticeably flatter and less rugged than the dramatic cliffs around North Beach and ANZAC Cove. It’s widely accepted that had the troops landed here, casualties would have been higher: the Turkish guns at Gaba Tepe and artillery further back at a location later nicknamed the ‘Olive Grove’ posed a grave threat to any incoming forces.

In the days following the initial landings, Brighton Beach became something of a logistical backwater. Under heavy shelling and sniper fire, men occasionally risked the water there, drawn to its relative serenity as a swimming area. A stores depot emerged at the mouth of Shrapnel Gully, heaped with supplies and hidden behind stacks of crates, timber, barbed wire and engineering stores. The Indian Mule Cart Company also established base here, transporting supplies inland under hazardous conditions. In one extraordinary incident on 22 May 1915, a white flag appeared at Gaba Tepe opposite Brighton Beach - prompting soldiers to improvise a truce using a beach towel raised as a flag.

Today, Brighton Beach stands in peaceful contrast to its wartime past. The shoreline is open and inviting, framed by gentle slopes and the distant headland of Gaba Tepe. Visitors can walk the same coast road used by soldiers and pause where stores once piled high against the dunes. It is now one of the few officially sanctioned swimming spots on the peninsula, a place where locals and travellers cool off in summer. Families picnic on the sand, tour buses stop nearby, and signs mark the site’s historic associations. The water is clear, the beach is quiet, and apart from the occasional memorial plaque there is little to suggest the noise and danger that once dominated this tranquil corner of the Dardanelles.

The starlings have gone mad

Today marks the 16th anniversary of the publication of The Death of Bunny Munro - Nick Cave’s darkly comic novel partly set in Brighton. One particular passage focuses on the burning down of the West Pier.

Cave, an Australian singer, songwriter, novelist and screenwriter, has been closely associated with Brighton since the early 2000s. Having lived for years in Hove with his wife Susie Bick and their children, Cave was often seen around the city and became a familiar if sometimes reclusive presence. 

Brighton has figured in both his music and his fiction: he wrote and recorded albums here, and its seafront and piers became woven into The Death of Bunny Munro. His time in the city was also marked by personal tragedy, most notably the death of his son Arthur in 2015, after which Cave and his family later relocated to London and Los Angeles.

The Death of Bunny Munro, published on 8 September 2009, follows the disintegrating life of a Brighton-based door-to-door cosmetics salesman. Bunny, a compulsive womaniser and alcoholic, is left to care for his young son after his wife’s suicide. As he spirals into chaos, his grotesque behaviour and addictions clash with moments of tenderness toward his child. The novel mixes bleak comedy, surreal imagery and local detail, casting Brighton in a lurid and unsettling light. Here is one extract from the book.

Bunny . . . says, ‘Libby, baby, where do we live?’

‘Brighton.’

‘And where is Brighton?’ he says, running a finger along the row of miniature bottles of liquor arranged on the bedside table and choosing a Smirnoff.

‘Down south.’

‘Which is about as far away from “up north” as you can get without falling into the bloody sea. Now, sweetie, turn off the TV, take your Tegretol, take a sleeping tablet—shit, take two sleeping tablets—and I’ll be back tomorrow. Early.’

‘The pier is burning down,’ says Libby.

‘What?’

‘The West Pier, it’s burning down. I can smell the smoke from here.’

‘The West Pier?’

Bunny empties the tiny bottle of vodka down his throat, lights another cigarette, and rises from the bed. The room heaves as Bunny is hit by the realisation that he is very drunk. With arms held out to the side and on tiptoe, Bunny moonwalks across the room to the window. He lurches, stumbles and Tarzans the faded chintz curtains until he finds his balance and steadies himself. He draws them open extravagantly and vulcanised daylight and the screaming of birds deranges the room. Bunny’s pupils contract painfully as he grimaces through the window, into the light. He sees a dark cloud of starlings, twittering madly over the flaming, smoking hulk of the West Pier that stands, helpless, in the sea across from the hotel. He wonders why he hadn’t seen this before and then wonders how long he has been in this room, then remembers his wife and hears her say, ‘Bunny, are you there?’

‘Yeah,’ says Bunny, transfixed by the sight of the burning pier and the thousand screaming birds.

‘The starlings have gone mad. It’s such a horrible thing. Their little babies burning in their nests. I can’t bear it, Bun,’ says Libby, the high violin rising.

The photograph of the West Pier above is credited to Terry Applin and can be found at The Argus.

Ace Cafe Reunion

The Ace Cafe Reunion returned to Brighton today, bringing thousands of bikers to Madeira Drive for a spectacle that has become one of the city’s most distinctive annual gatherings. The event began in 1994 when Ace Cafe London, a legendary biker hangout on the North Circular, marked its rebirth after decades of closure by organising a ride-out to the seafront. Since then, every September, the Ace Cafe Reunion has seen riders thunder down from the capital to the coast, recreating the Rocker spirit of the 1950s and 60s.

The Ace itself first opened in 1938 as a transport cafe serving lorry drivers, but its position beside a major arterial road made it a natural magnet for motorcyclists. After the war, it became synonymous with Rockers, leather jackets, jukeboxes and the rise of teenage rebellion. Racing from cafe to cafe along the North Circular became notorious, and when the Ace closed in 1969, it passed into legend. Its relaunching in 1994, and the annual Brighton ride-out, cemented its place in modern motorcycling culture. (The three Harley-Davidsons parked on the pavement in the photo above are: yellow on left - Street Glide/Electra Glide; green in middle - Softail Fat Bob; and red on right - Sportster trike conversion.)

Madeira Drive has long been associated with motor events, from the 1905 Brighton Speed Trials to Mods and Rockers in the 1960s - see Mods and Rockers clash in the 60s. The reunion has sometimes stirred memories of those rivalries, especially when police have warned about antisocial riding or unofficial late-night gatherings spilling over. But the day itself is now an organised celebration, complete with trade stands, live music, and bikes of every possible make and style lined up along the seafront.

Quirky traditions abound. It is said that the first year’s Brighton run ended with bikes parked so tightly on Madeira Drive that some riders couldn’t retrieve theirs until nightfall. Another year saw complaints about burnouts on the promenade leaving black scars on the tarmac. More recently, council restrictions and road closures have occasionally caused tension between organisers and the city, but the event remains a highlight in Brighton’s busy calendar, attracting international visitors as well as locals.

Today, as a band played from a truck stage and the sun lit up the line of machines stretching towards the Palace Pier, it was easy to see why the reunion endures. The Ace Cafe’s story is one of survival and reinvention, and each September in Brighton it finds fresh expression in the roar of engines on the seafront.

The Crazy Mouse

This year marks a quarter of a century since the Crazy Mouse first arrived on Brighton Pier. Installed in 2000 by Reverchon of France, it quickly established itself as a landmark attraction, standing at the seaward end with its tangled lattice of track and sharp hairpin bends visible from the promenade and beach.

The ride’s distinctive appeal has always been its unpredictability. Four-person cars spin freely as they negotiate sudden drops and tight corners, so no two rides are quite the same. A generation of families, teenagers and day-trippers have been thrown backwards, sideways or forwards around its upper levels, the element of chance making the Crazy Mouse as lively and chaotic as its name suggests.

Over the years, Brighton Pier’s amusements have changed repeatedly, with new thrill rides introduced and old favourites taken down, but the Crazy Mouse has endured. Its survival for 25 years makes it now one of the pier’s oldest attractions, the illuminated yellow sign as recognisable as the helter-skelter or the carousel. Other rides have made headlines - such as a 2004 fine after a different coaster was found operating with a missing track section, or a 2019 incident on the Air Race - but the Crazy Mouse has run without serious incident, testament to its durability and design.

As Brighton Palace Pier continues to balance Victorian heritage with modern amusements, the Crazy Mouse holds its place as both a crowd-pleasing roller coaster and a slice of seaside history. A quarter of a century on, it remains what it was in 2000: noisy, unpredictable, and irresistibly fun.

Rayner on the beach

Found on the beach: Angela Rayner! The Daily Mail has published photographs of Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, drinking wine on the beach at Hove and of the Victorian seafront street where she is said to own a flat. The paper described ‘the tawdry saga of Angela Rayner’s £40,000 Stamp Duty dodge over her luxury seaside apartment’ and suggested it deserved the nickname ‘Hovegate’. It claimed the story began when a café-goer spotted her distinctive red hair on the shingle, her appearance made all the more striking by a ‘camouflage’ coat with pink trim.

Rayner, born in Stockport in 1980, Rayner left school at sixteen while pregnant, trained as a care worker, and rose through the union movement before being elected MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015. She became deputy leader of the Labour Party in 2020 and has since established herself as one of Westminster’s most recognisable and outspoken figures.

The Hove flat, bought for around £800,000 in May, drew controversy after Rayner admitted underpaying stamp duty by about £40,000. She said she had relied on legal advice that the property could be treated as her primary residence, having placed her share of a Manchester home into trust for her disabled son. Subsequent guidance showed the higher rate for second homes applied, and she has since contacted HMRC to settle the difference and referred herself to the independent ethics watchdog.

The row intensified yesterday when the Hove property was vandalised, with graffiti branding Rayner a ‘tax evader’ sprayed on walls and boards nearby (see Brighton and Hove News). The attack was condemned by both Downing Street and Labour as unacceptable and unjustifiable. 

For Brighton and Hove, the controversy adds another link between its seafront and national politicians. James Callaghan once kept a flat on the promenade, Norman Tebbit lived in Hove and was injured in the Grand Hotel bombing, and Caroline Lucas has long represented the city from her home nearby. And, of course, politicians of all colours come to the seafront regularly for their party conferences - indeed Rayner won’t have far to go next time the Labour Party Conference is held at the Brighton Centre.

Bandit at Two O’Clock

Here is the 15th of 24 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained Glass Window 1 for background. In this image, two small planes fly low over a bright green landscape beneath a sky of blue and white cloud. The larger, red-winged aircraft (possibly a Cessna) dominates the scene, its nose lifted as if coming in to land. Below it, a smaller pink plane (possibly a de Havilland Tiger Moth) tilts across the fields, wings angled in motion. To the right, a golden path curves towards a pool of deep blue water, catching the eye as it winds away toward the horizon. The whole picture brims with movement and colour, a vivid glimpse of flight above fields and shore.

A limerick starter

A jaunty red flyer on high

Saw a pink one come wobbling by.

They jostled for space

In a comical race,

And both nearly fell from the sky.

Bandit at Two O’Clock (in the style of the Biggles books by W. E. Johns)

The Channel lay calm as glass, Brighton Beach stretched in a golden strip, and the gaunt ribs of the old West Pier glinted in the sun. Biggles held the stick steady, his red-winged machine purring contentedly. Algy, perched in the observer’s seat behind, shaded his eyes with one hand and scanned the horizon.

‘Bandit at two o’clock!’ he barked suddenly.

Biggles banked hard, the aircraft flashing scarlet as it turned seaward. Out of a puff of white cloud came a pink biplane, nose down, engine snarling, its guns spitting spitefully.

Below, holidaymakers thought it part of a show. Children clapped from deckchairs as the two machines roared along the surf-line. Biggles dropped lower still, his wheels all but kissing the spray, the enemy reckless enough to follow.

‘He’s too green for this game,’ Algy shouted over the slipstream. ‘Give him the slip and he’ll tie himself in knots!’

Biggles grinned thinly, jerked the stick, and the red machine shot upwards in a steep climb. The pink biplane tried to match it, stalled, and floundered. In a flash Biggles was round on its tail, the Vickers gun chattering.

The intruder wavered, engine coughing. A plume of black smoke streamed back as it staggered over the Palace Pier. Moments later it flopped ignominiously onto the lawns behind the Metropole Hotel, wheels splayed, wings broken.

When they set down at Shoreham, the word was already through: a foreign agent, papers in his pocket and not a word of English, plucked from the wreckage.

Algy clambered down, brushing sand from his trousers. ‘Another spot of bother tidied up,’ he remarked.

Biggles lit a cigarette, his gaze on the fading light over Brighton.

‘Tidied, yes,’ he said. ‘But there’ll be more of them. Mark my words, Algy - Brighton’s a hotter spot than the holidaymakers ever guess.’