Every summer without fail, I would make a trip down to the coastal seaside town of Brighton, a train ride which would take me about 40 minutes from Clapham Junction.
I first visited Brighton when I was 11 years old. I remembered that the sand wasn’t sand at all and that they were pebbles you had to trudge your way through with great difficulty if you wanted to get closer to the sea. You would hear seagulls as you’d walk down the hill and find that some would float in a stationary position like a puppet on strings (because the wind was blowing against them).
I once felt like I was going to get blown off at the pier. You had to sort of stand sideways against the wind (which messed up your hair anyway). I wasn’t sure if I ever trusted the wooden planks which carried the whole weight of the buildings and people on it – I’d see metal bits start to rust (and doesn’t the salty sea increase the erosion rate of metal?).
It is always a tradition to have fish and chips when you’re at Brighton. In the past few years however, I have taken a liking to jellied eels – something I didn’t fancy when I was younger (just like olives) but have come to love recently. Basically, you’d get bits and pieces of steamed eel dunked and served in a styrofoam pot filled with an odd, salty jelly mixture. If you were brave enough, you could eat the jelly which tasted a bit like seawater and I don’t think many people liked that at all.
I don’t think the rides have ever changed in Brighton since the beginning of time and I didn’t dare attempt to go on one till I was older. I did see the haunted house being featured in the last episode of Midsomer Murders though.
There used to be another pier just 15 minutes down from this one, but I think it got burnt down recently. I did ask about it when I was older but people keep telling me that there’s just the one. You can see it though – just the black metal frames and the fragility of it just sort of standing in the middle of the sea like matchsticks ready to be blown away. I think the story was that some knobhead decided to play with fire one day, and the whole thing caught on fire. It’ll just crumble down in time I suppose.
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