Brighton - Travelling to and Day 1

"Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside. Oh, we do like to be beside the sea..." Not too sure if this song is specifically about Brighton but it fits so well. We heard it more than once as Mums sang it to their excited children as they walked towards the Brighton seafront.
Brighton is my ancestral home. Indeed, for nine years or so it was actually my home so we were always going to return here at some point this year to look around. It had taken several weeks of looking on the internet to make the plan come together. Accommodation was the main problem. Eventually persistence and luck paid off and we were able to get a really good deal at the 5 star Hilton Brighton Metropole hotel right on the seafront.
We travelled to Brighton on Sunday 25th October. It was a different train route east this time with a change at Westbury to connect with the Cardiff to Brighton line. I doubted that we would make the narrow connection window (7 minutes) but the trains went like clockwork on this day. We got off the train at Westbury, waited a minute and a half, in came the train from Cardiff, hopped on and five minutes later we were off to Brighton. Easy when it works. The train took us through Portsmouth and then through more familiar names of towns from my childhood: Worthing, Shoreham-By-Sea, Hove and eventually Brighton.
It was about 5pm when we arrived, so early evening. We rolled our little and recently purchased cabin bags down Queen Street and West Street towards the seafront. The first thing that strikes you about Brighton is that it is a very busy town with lots of noisy traffic. The second thing is that it is quite hilly. It was nice to arrive in Brighton with clear, blue skies. There was a cold bite to the air though as winter is very much here. Things became more familiar to me as we got nearer the seafront. There was an amusement arcade/casino that maybe I remember. There was The Odeon cinema which I think has always been there. Vague recollections at this stage but familiar none the less. The seafront with its distinctive turquoise railing, pebbled beaches and pier was instantly recognisable. We found our way to the Hilton Brighton Metropole, checked in and went to explore the local area in the hope of finding some dinner. We took a quick stroll along the seafront in order to get our bearings and soak up the atmosphere. Evenutally we found ourselves in The Lanes, a network of narrow walks with small specialty shops and swank eateries. I don't have many memories of The Lanes but by the look of it it has been 'glitzed' up with expensive jewellery shops and haute couture fashion shops. There was a good buzz in The Lanes on a Sunday evening with lots of beautiful people and families eating and drinking in the many funky cafes. We couldn't decide what to eat until Stefanie said "Oo look. I've never tried Vietnamese". Vietnamese for our first night in Brighton? Why not? It is that sort of place. Funky, spontaneous, cosmopolitan. No Jellied Eels and Cockles in vinegar for us. We ate beautiful traditional-style Vietnamese which was very healthy and tasted delicious. Fish and chips would have to wait for another day. There is an endless choice of fish and chips along the Brighton seafront. I had to have fish and chips in Brighton to pay homage to my late Grandad Foster who at one time ran the oldest fish and chip shop in Brighton.
After dinner it was back to the hotel to go to bed. We had separate rooms for the adults and for the children (part of the excellent deal the Hilton offered...50% off a children's room) but this meant that the children were sharing an enormous triple bed. They learnt to get on well over the next couple of days.
The next morning we emerged and went downstairs to The Windsor Room to have our buffet breakfast. Clearly, the children were going to identify 'breakfast' as a highlight of their trip to Brighton. All manner of cereal, pastries, breads, juices, cooked breakfast items, pancakes, waffles, eggs cooked to order by the friendly chef, Finnish-style breakfast goodies of smoked fish, cheeses, ryebreads, fruit, yoghurt, croissants...ridiculously good. Jack decided he likes 5 star hotels. Off we waddled to start our exploration of Brighton proper. We spun through the revolving door into blazing sunshine, blue skies and a flat, sparkling blue sea stretching before us. We had created a flexible itinerary with the help of my Dad before arriving and we used that to start our exploration. The first event was 'Wayne's World Famous Brighton Heritage Tour' which turned out to be an arduous hike through Brighton complete with 'hilarious and moving anecdotes about a childhood in Brighton in the 1970's'. We were going to get a bus from The Old Steine area but we didn't look at a bus timetable and it was going to be a long wait so we thought we would walk for a bit and catch the bus farther along. It is here that 'it is just around the corner' syndrome took hold and we ended up walking the whole way and not getting the bus at all. It wasn't until we got to an area called The Level that I had any real sense of deeply personal childhood memory. The Level hasn't changed in the last 30 years at all. Heck, The Level hasn't changed in the last 150 years I now realise as an adult. It is simply a flat, park-like area with a children's play area. I remembered the swings, the paddling pool, the stone step arches. I remembered playing there as a kid. I was glad to see that it is still the same.
Our next stop was 19 Aberdeen Road. This was where my Dad was born. A simple two-storey, terraced house in the middle of Brighton. He now lives on a large block of green on the open, rolling-hill plateau of the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. I don't think you could get any more different and I think he is now in a better spot.
We crossed the road and went to my old school, Fairlight School. It is still the same though I don't remember the garish blue signage and the same garish blue used as a colour theme in the school. Being half-term it was locked so we couldn't go in but we could see some of the colour through the windows. Around the back of the school they have put a second ramp entrance. The central playground was still the same except for a fenced off infants play area and a sort-of garden area. We used to kick a football around the playground. I'm guessing they are not allowed to do that any more. The world is bigger when you are a child and the memory sticks with you. It was weird looking down on this small playground space but remembering playing games there as a child. The perspective was all wrong.
We then followed the route I used to take for walking home from school. Around the corner and then up the hill of Hartington Road. I remember it being a long, steep hill and it still is! It is a nice road though with trees lining the bottom of it. It is fairly wide for England and there is a wonderful view of Brighton's Regency terraces from the top. Eventually we got to 229 and 235 where my Mum, Dad, my sister and I used to live. There was Carisbrooke Road where I used to play. As we stood outside 235 taking photos with me pointing out who lived where (there - the Barton's; there - my friend Ricky Green and his Nan who used to look after me after school and we used to watch Batman and Zorro; there - someone we knew a bit, their daughter was a policewoman; there - my friend Anna, we bought their house 235; there - Mr. Crooke a World War 1 hero; there - my friend Claire) a couple of little girls came skipping out of Mr. Crooke's house (Mr. Crooke now being 115 or so, so he has probably passed on). Partly curious as to what we were doing taking photos and such they skipped past and darted off down Carisbrooke Road to play. 'The new generation of Carisbrooke Kids' I pointed out to Stef, Jack, Annie and Eleanor. Surely they were going to see if Derek, Charlotte, Paul and Sarah could come out to play. I was pleased that the legacy of the Carisbrooke Kids continued. I wanted to sit down on the steps of a Carisbrooke Road house and tell the new generation stories of me, Derek, Charlotte, Paul and Sarah and the adventures we had playing on Carisbrooke Road. Sadly, that would have probably got me arrested in this day and age and we had to move on and continue our tour.
At the top of Hartington Road in the 70's there was a stone masons that made headstones for the graves of Brighton Cemetery and there was a gate known as The Top Gate which gave entrance to the cemetery. Both the stone masons and the top gate are no longer there. The stone masons is just an ivy overgrown ruin and the top gate has been blocked up by an ugly concrete slab wall topped with razor wire. Graffiti, probably marking St. Helen's Road gang territory, capped off the ugly scene. St. Helen's was known as a no-go zone for us as kids and it seems to be the same today. You could pass through there OK with an adult but it is to be avoided if by yourself or at night I would suggest. We walked back down Hartington Road to the main cemetery entrance.
Many childhood memories were here as quite a lot of time was spent exploring and playing in the cemetery. The memory that hit me most was the coloured glass beads that some people spread on the top of the graves. I'd forgotten about this and I instantly remembered being dazzled and fascinated by it as a child. The cemetery was always good for finding conkers in the autumn and we quickly found some as we walked up the road. I think the road used to be a sort of white-ish gravel but now it is just black bitumen. Our mission was to find the graves of my Grandads and the memorial plaque of my Nan Foster. 'Always read the instructions!' is the moral of the story as my Dad had clearly emailed where the graves were but I had only remembered 'near the chapel' as a reference. Amongst the thousands of gravestones there it was like finding a needle in a haystack so we spread out. Thankfully, fortune smiled and we found the grave of Grandad Hagon fairly quickly. Grandad Foster is supposedly buried right next to Grandad Hagon but there was no headstone to mark the place. We could see that there was indeed a grave next to Grandad Hagon's so we assumed it was the right place and paid our respects to both Grandads.
In the 70's there used to be a hole in the wall that could be used to access the old part of the cemetery. A wall divided the old and new parts of Brighton Cemetery. We tried to find it but we couldn't. There was an area that looked right but it was all overgrown and blocked off. Time was getting away from us anyway and we wanted to visit the Memorial Garden where I believed my Nan had a plaque on the memorial wall. We looked and looked but this WAS like looking for a needle in a haystack. Unless it suddenly sprung out to the eye there was no chance we could find it. With a feeling of 'at least we tried' we had to continue our journey.
Sick of walking by this stage we decided to get a bus back to town. We caught it at the cemetery gates and it went back up Hartington Road, Ryde Road, around the hospital, Queen's Park Road, Islingwood Road, towards Brighton Station, London Road shops etc. It was a bumpy, windy journey which gave me great opportunity to change my walking tour into a bus tour and point out things to the now-flagging but bravely staying with me, family.
We had lunch and a bit of a rest before getting the bus to Preston Park and The Rockery (one of the world's largest rock gardens). Both these places were childhood favourites with learning to ride a bike at Preston Park cycling track, kicking a football around on the fields, walking through the walled garden of Preston Manor on a sunny Sunday and exploring the Rockery. The bus trip was a bit of an adventure as the bus didn't take the route that I expected and we missed the park. Realising the mistake and a bit anxious that we would have to pay for an unnecessary bus ticket (not cheap when you are dragging around a family of 5) we waited for a bus in the opposite direction. I explained our predicament to the very friendly bus driver who helped us out both ticketwise and with directions. Grateful, we alighted at the correct stop. Then came the best example of childhood memory distortion yet. "Oh dear," I said to Stef, "we are diagonally opposite from where we should be which means we've got to walk all the way across the park." Surely, Preston Park is a vast acreage of land which takes hours to get across! We crossed the road and entered through the gate in the wall which hides Preston Park from this angle. About the size of three football fields, Preston Park is not as big as I remember it. Everything is still there as it was. We went to look in the rose garden and walled garden of the manor. Is it just me or did the garden and manor look a little run down from 30 years ago? The walled garden had closed at 4pm so were unable to go inside but we looked through the gate. We made our way across the road to the Rockery. It is a lovely rock garden with some beautiful Japanese Maple type trees in beautiful autumn colour. I remember struggling to climb the rocky paths as a little tike. Dad used to make up stories as we walked around. The witch that lived in the whirring electrical room buried in the rocks always made walking along that bit of path a challenge and we used to enjoy doing 'trip trap trip trap over the rickety bridge' like Billy Goats Gruff when we got to the wooden bridge. There was always a chance that you would fall in crossing the stepping stones in the frog pond. We liked visiting the Rockery it was a bit of quiet, relaxing space in an otherwise busy city.
We hopped back on the bus and went and found a rocking Italian restaurant at the children's request. They weren't that keen on the Vietnamese the night before apparently. Then back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.