Tearing the city at the seams #10 - A trip to Brighton

Everyone knows that first impressions are of the utmost importance, and so it was that on arriving in the seaside town of Brighton – or London-by-the-sea as it has historically been known – my first impression was, quite literally: rubbish. Mounds of it, banks of rubbish shored up along the roadsides, bins overflowing like garbage fountains, in places it was like the news footage of Leicester Square during the 1977 ‘winter of discontent’.

There was such an abundance on display that we – my girlfriend and I, that is – were instantly convinced that something must be amiss, for the simple reason that Brighton could hardly have maintained its fun-loving, escapist appeal if this were the normal order of things. And yet there was that lingering doubt that, perhaps, away from the watchful eye of the national media, some woefully inept town council had presided over this renaissance of litter. I half expected to reach the seafront and find families continuing to recline amongst the trash, building models out of it, forlorn donkeys trying to adapt to this insidious terrain.

But no, things had not declined so far. In a shop we spoke to an assistant there who told us how we had arrived on the climactic day of a 5-day strike by refuse workers. From what I could gather it appeared to be regarding a fresh staff intake resulting in a projected reduction of overtime hours available for existing staff. What better way to protest than by creating a whole load of extra overtime work for themselves! And what an oddly unique situation binmen on strike must find themselves in, I thought, since unlike train drivers or teachers, after a few days of striking the shit quite literally begins to pile up; in essence, a very visual and smelly reminder not only of their unrest but also their intrinsic necessity.

As strangers to Brighton though, we found the initial situation rather amusing. Primarily, I think because the previous evening we had watched the iconic mod film ‘Quadraphrenia’; a film about youth culture, angst, pills, music, rebellion and disenchantment. The film being so fresh in my mind, initially the disorder of things gave cause to think that we had arrived in Brighton the morning after the famous riots between the mods and rockers, and that what we were seeing was the aftermath of the chaos.

However, just as you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, so I don’t like to judge a place by its civil unrests. After checking into our seafront hotel we walked along the promenade ensconced in the persistent sea mist. The skeletal West Pier sat marooned from the main land like an abandoned climbing frame in a flooded playground where only seagulls could now perch.

There's an intriguing resonance about the idea of derelict piers; sheared away as they are from the mainland, left adrift just offshore, bereft of any life or functionality. Extending the metaphor further, they are not simply decaying relics like normal structures, but are more effectively comatose. If you consider them in any depth (and who would really, but just humour me), the concept of a pier is rather a strange one anyway.

Aside from those with a more intrinsic utility, at ports and docks for instance, pleasure piers were originally designed so that tourists could experience the sea close-hand, since the large tidal ranges of many popular reosrts often meant that the sea was out of sight of the mainland. I still think they are structural oddities; in a sense, emblematic of the out-stretching infrastructure, as in the Victorian railways, that were able to interconnect disparate locales and bring in tourists, thereby securing the town's fortunes from then on.

I can't help but think that if, in an alternate version of history, piers had captured popular imagination in the same feverish way as skyscrapers did at the start of the 20th century, maybe now you'd have monolithic pier scans extending far out into the open oceans, confirming the high-modern status of the coastal city. (As it happens, the longest pleasure pier in the world is at Southend-on-sea which extends 1.3 miles into the Thames estuary).

Continuing on our way we passed the Grand Hotel; the Dealey Plaza-that-never-was, having survived the noteriety of the 1984 IRA bombing. Upon reaching the famous East Pier, we diverted inland to explore the Lanes network of curiosity shops and cafes. And also to locate the narrow alley just off East Street in which Phil Daniels and Leslie Ash escape from the rioting for a quick shag.

With such a pivotal location pinpointed and ticked off, we arrived at the Cultural Quarter, dominated by the Royal Pavillion, built by the Prince Regent in the 19th century. Its Indo-Saracenic architecture, part of a new wave of Indian influence reaching Britain due to the Empire, is still quite arresting, with its minarets and bulbous domes rising and falling in stately elegance.

Later on, sitting and eating fish & chips on the seafront as the sun began setting, casting shadows across the out-stretched arm of the pier that tried vainly to hold back the oncoming tide, you get a definite sense that you are participating in some kind of instinctive British ritual. Indeed, so innately British was the scene that I thought we could almost be modelling for a UKIP election campaign poster.

Of course, there is something inexplicably British about the seaside town experience, something almost touching on that noxiously patronising concept of ‘heritage’. With the summer sun shining (and perhaps the litter cleared), there is no doubt that towns such as Brighton blossom with a certain joyfulness that has meant the prolonged endurance of their appeal. However, it is also the case that on the more frequent grey and drizzly days, the unavoidably shabby and dishevelled reality is laid bare and accentuated. You need only go to Blackpool on a rainy day to see this hypothesis in evidence. The sunshine acts as the cosmetics that serve to beautify and transform a plain and, in some cases even unsightly, face.

The following morning when we went out on to the streets, there had clearly been a dawn raid to avert the army of litter from gaining any further ground. The morning sun had purged the grey mist of yesterday, and we were able to witness the true appeal of Brighton. I was left with the feeling that the fortunes of such a place can only have been hindered by the proliferating ease of foreign tourism, the jet-setting lifestyles and particularly the ‘golden era’ of low-cost air travel of the last 15-20 years. Why travel to Brighton when for a little extra time and money you could relax on the South of France, one of the Greek Islands or the Costas? Perhaps now, as we see fuel costs rising, and with it air fares and taxes, a resurgence of interest in resorts like Brighton will develop, as people once again turn to the great British seaside towns.