sussexlifemagazine.co.uk

MARCH 2024

YOUR ESSENTIAL MONTHLY GUIDE TO THE COUNTY

YEARS
of the

RNLI
Meet the Brighton sisters saving lives at sea

KALEB
COOPER
‘Jeremy
Clarkson
should listen
to me more’

KAFFE
FASSETT
Making quilts
by the beach
in Hastings

Ins r ng
women

• Brighton’s Helena Normanton: First Lady in Law
• Hoteliers Alex & Olga Polizzi: ‘We have spats sometimes’
• Sussex women in wine battling to be top of the crops
Plus: NEWHAVEN, PULBOROUGH, BRIGHTON, OVINGDEAN & MORE

£4.99

Sussex Life

March 2024

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March 2024

Sussex Life

WELCOME
from the editor

PHOTO: COURTESYOFTHERNLI

Sisters and RNLI Brighton lifeboat volunteers Sarah Huntley (left) and Emily Summerield.

mission. It looks more like a ishing boat than a lifeboat.
hen I was a young news reporter starting
my career, I used to say my job was mainly
But the volunteers who went out on them, then and
chasing ambulances.
now, are equally brave – which is why the RNLI and its
bicentenary is our cover star.
Now, editing Sussex Life, and living
in Eastbourne’s stunning Sovereign Harbour, I could
It’s also inspiring to see that more and more women are
describe it as chasing – or at least watching – the RNLI
part of this vital rescue service and we meet two sisters
lifeboat, the all-weather Diamond Jubilee.
who are stationed out of Brighton in a fascinating feature
Living on the coast is a privilege and I can see the water
on page 12. They are just some of the incredible women
featured in this issue for International Women’s Day on
from my house, but I, like many others by the sea, never
take it for granted. Just as the English Channel can be a
March 8. We speak to the mother who set up Mother
mesmerising haze of blue, it can also be a cruel and raw
Nurture in Brighton, a group to help other new mums
beauty. It is why we have the RNLI, which is
who are overwhelmed or struggling (page 50),
200 years old this month on March 4.
Alex Polizzi, the inspirational hotelier who
Eastbourne station was created two years
works with her mother Olga, (spoiler alert:
before the RNLI was established, operating
it’s not all sunshine and rainbows) on page
26, and on page 109 meet Sussex’s leading
continuously since 1822. Its myriad lifeboats
have saved over 700 lives since then. They
ladies. Britain’s irst practising barrister lived
were even used in the evacuation of Dunkirk
in Brighton – read about her riveting life and
in 1940, bringing our troops home, for which
career on page 56 – and women are putting
10 medals of gallantry were awarded. Back
the local wine industry irmly on the map
then, the lifeboats were nothing like the stateKaren
on page 18. Let me know what you think of
Pasquali Jones
of-the-art Tamas Class vessels the RNLI have
this inspirational issue. Until next month!
Editor,
today – take a look at page 16 to see one that
karen.pasquali-jones@newsquest.co.uk
Sussex Life
sustained a lot of damage during a rescue
07918 696074

W

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INSIDE
March 2024

PHOTO:ALAMY

12 26 38 44
PERIL OF THE SEA

By Stephen Roberts
Meet sisters Emily Summerield
and Sarah Huntle who were
inspired to join as volunteers for
Brighton RNLI after growing up
watching their dad answer ‘the
shout’ for 20 years. Now it’s their
turn to be on call to help those in
peril on the sea.
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March 2024

ALEX AND
OLGA POLIZZI

By Sam Murray
Working with family should come
with a warning, but mother-anddaughter hoteliers Olga and
Alex Polizzi enjoy running The
Star Inn at Alfriston together,
even though the pair admit they
occasionally disagree.

THE GILDED GARDEN

By Angela Wintle
Lamb House, in Rye, became
an ‘indispensable retreat’ to the
writer Henry James. Although
a New Yorker by birth, he fell in
love with this English setting and
created a magical walled garden,
complete with a sweeping lawn
and bright lower borders.

LET’S GO TO
PULBOROUGH

By Karen Pasquali Jones
This charming West Sussex
village is in the middle of wine
country and has the South
Downs on its doorstep along with
a very upmarket Oscar-winning
resident who is often spotted in
the local supermarket.

Sussex Life

PLUS

PHOTO:DEBBIEPATTERSON

124

MAKING QUILTS BY THE SEA
By Angela Wintle
His designs have appeared in Vogue but now Kafe Fassett’s
inspiration for his colourful – and gorgeous – quilts are
the isherman’s huts, rusting boats and vivid houses by the
seaside at Hastings, his second home.

18

59

Bird Life
We join the RSPB on a
tour of Pagham Harbour.

61

Peter Owen Jones
How the emergence of the
brimstone butterly is a sure
sign spring is on its way.

70

The Diary
What’s on across the
county this month.

76

Literary Life
A new book about Winnie the
Pooh’s friend Christopher
Robin’s attempts to escape
Hundred Acre Wood.

83
PHOTO:TOBYADAMSON

32

Brain Teasers
Can you solve our crossword
puzzle or tricky sudoku?

130 Dream Home
A converted 19th-century
chapel to love in a tiny hamlet
just outside Petworth.
132 Gardening
Visit these Sussex gardens for
inspiration on how to create a
spring bouquet at home.

ROUND OUR WAY:
NEWHAVEN

PHOTO:ANDREWHASSON

By Andrew Hasson
The Saxon ishing town became
a port in the Middle Ages when
Seaford began to silt up but it’s
also where Lord Lucan was last
seen and has a monument to
Vietnam founder Ho Chi Minh,
who was a chef on the ferries.

First Lady of Law
Brighton-based Helena
Florence Normanton became
the country’s irst practising
female lawyer.

80 An Eye On The Past
A Dutch trading ship that ran
aground in 1749 is preserved
by Sussex clay, near Hastings.

WOMEN IN WINE

By Rebecca Pitcairn
Now Sussex has the same status
as Champagne and Bordeaux,
we meet the women in the local
wine industry who are top of the
crops. As well as making quality
sparkling, red and whites, they
are also putting the county on the
world wine-tourism map.

56

138 Bruce Fogle
How the Sussex coast is being
changed by the elements.

ON THE COVER

50

MOTHER NURTURE

Sussex Life

PHOTO:MOTHERNURTURE

By Deborah Nicholls-Lee
After struggling with her irst
baby, Brighton mum Ellen
Baldwin began a support group to
help desperate mothers. Mother
Nurture now helps mums, who
are busy doing sponsored runs
and other activities to raise
money to ‘pay it forward’.

Beachy Head Lifeboat by Nigel
Wallace whiteonesugar.etsy.com

March 2024

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sussexlife.co.uk
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Karen Pasquali Jones
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March 2024

Sussex Life

Historic walled garden,
restored and managed by
Plumpton College.
Open daily and free to enter,
for events, eating, meeting,
pleasure and plants.
Courses and
workshops in
horticulture and
floristry delivered
by our expert
tutors

Scan to
discover
more

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March 2024

Sussex Life

Sussex Life

March 2024

11

FEATURE

right: Sisters Emily

and Sarah face
danger daily in all
weathers as part of
Brighton’s RNLI crew

PERIL
on the

SEA
Celebrating 200 years of The Royal
National Lifeboat Institution through
the eyes of two of its Brighton crew
Stephen Roberts

PHOTO:STEPHENDUNCOMBE

WORDS:

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March 2024

Sussex Life

LA LABEL (RIGHT)

Sussex Life

March 2024

13

The sisters were
inspired by their dad
to join the RNLI

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March 2024

Sussex Life

FEATURE

W

volunteered in January 2023. She only has
two more assessments before she’s the fourth
seat in the boat.
Now the sisters – who look so alike they
are constantly mistaken for each other – face
danger on an almost daily basis leaving their
families at home to risk their own lives
rescuing others.
They are part of a mostly female crew at
Brighton’s lifeboat station, the irst in Britain
to be LGBTQ+-accredited providing a 24/7
on call search and rescue service on Random
Harvest, the station’s only lifeboat, an
Atlantic 85, which plies the Sussex coastline
between Newhaven and Shoreham. It’s a far
cry from when the RNLI irst began, 200

PHOTO:STEPHENDUNCOMBE

hen the ‘shout’ comes Sarah
Huntley and Emily Summerield
scramble to Brighton Marina,
desperate to join the rest of the
Brighton Royal National Lifeboat Institution
crew. The women are sisters and between
them they’ve helped save countless lives.
Rescuing those in peril at sea is in their blood.
Their dad, Paul, 76, was a RNLI volunteer in
Eastbourne for 20 years, and Sarah, 39, and
Emily, 36, grew up knowing that he was a
real-life hero. ‘It was totally normal for Dad’s
pager to go of in the middle of the night and
of he’d rush to help save lives at sea,’ Emily
says. ‘We thought it was all really exciting and
it was those memories that inspired us to join.’

EMILY’S STORY:

‘Dad inspired
me to join’

‘It was totally normal for Dad’s pager to
go of in the middle of the night and of
he’d rush to help save lives at sea’
Emily was working as a constable with
Sussex Police when she moved from Turners
Hill to Ovingdean, near Brighton, four years
ago. Even though she’d just had a baby girl,
Maddie, who was a year old, now that she
was on the coast she saw her chance to follow
in her father’s footsteps. ‘I’d always been
interested in the RNLI because of Dad and
had just had my daughter but I jumped at
the chance to become involved in September
2019,’ she says. Two years later, the trainee
crew member had her son, William, now two.
She’s now been joined by her sister. Sarah,
a performance and sports psychologist, and
a Wim Hof cold-water immersion trainer and
mountain leader, who also lives in Ovingdean,

years ago this month, when women weren’t
even allowed on the boat. Their only role
would have been to look after the family
while waiting for their men to return. In
fact, it wasn’t until 1969 when the irst woman
qualiied to command a lifeboat. Now nearly
one in eight of all volunteer crew members
are women.
Back then the lifeboats were wooden,
and relied on sails, oars, volunteers and
donations to keep it running since the charity
was founded by Sir William Hillary in 1824.
Living in Douglas on the Isle of Man, Hillary
saw the sea’s treacherous nature irst-hand.
He witnessed dozens of shipwrecks and saved
many lives with the help of locals. In the

The mother of two, who
investigates fraud and money
laundering for AMEX, is
part of the mostly female
RNLI crew at Brighton:

>

PHOTO:RNLI/HATTIMELLOR

above: Emily Summerield, Julian Cumberworth and baby William on Brighton’s lifeboat. Julian is
not only an RNLI volunteer but also an anaesthetist at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton so
helped to deliver Emily’s second child
inset: The Brighton lifeboat tackles large waves to save lives

Sussex Life

‘Volunteering for the RNLI was almost
inevitable for me. I was a police oicer
– a constable – with Sussex police
until last year and have two children, a
ive-year-old girl and two-year-old boy,
so I was busy but my dad was with the
RNLI for around 20 years.
‘He was launch authority, in charge of
deciding whether to page and launch,
and the sea safety advisor, reviewing
people’s boats and their equipment to
ensure that everything was seaworthy.
Dad was always into boats and saw
joining the RNLI as a way of repaying
the personal luck he’d had. He’s in
his mid-seventies now, and still just
as adventurous; he’s currently in
Antarctica on a cruise. He joined when
I was about 10 and it inspired me to be
part of it too.
‘I admit I’m a bit of an adrenaline
junkie and I feel lucky to be able to do it
in a lifeboat. It’s such a good cause too,
to be there as a rescuer. It’s remarkable
how happy people are to see my
uniform rather than my old one. We
have a great team in Brighton. Everyone
gets on really well and whoever turns
up for a particular “shout”, well, you
know you’re in safe hands. We have
highly qualiied people in their chosen
ields, such as paramedics, and we’re
always prepared.
‘We’re particularly lucky in Brighton
where we’ve had a female-heavy crew
compared to the national average. It’s
probably just the demographic of the
area, which is very accepting, but I love
it. It can be hard but anything I can do
to help save a life at sea makes it worth
it. I’m so glad Sarah, my sister, is part
of the crew too. She’s the right person
to have in the boat. I know Dad is very
proud of us.’

March 2024

15

FEATURE

Jane Holland Eastbourne lifeboat showing the damage she sustained during the Dunkirk evacuation in May/June 1940

early 19th century, there was an average of
1,800 shipwrecks a year around our coasts.
Rescue services did exist in some places, but
the danger of shipwreck was an accepted way
of life at sea. Hillary vowed to take action and
the RNLI was born (though it was initially
called the distinctly uncatchy National
Institution for the Preservation of Life from
Shipwreck). Since then the crews have saved
144,000 lives nationally – including during
two world wars when 19 lifeboats helped
in the Dunkirk evacuation – but while the
technology on board modern all-weather
power lifeboats is state-of-the-art, the
organisation still relies on brave volunteers
and funds to save lives.
The institution is celebrating its
bicentenary with a programme of activities,
including a special service of thanksgiving
on the RNLI’s 200th birthday, March 4. The

cost of running the RNLI in 2022 was £188m
with 81p of every £1 raised funding lifesaving
activities with the remainder used to generate
more funds.
RNLI chief executive, Mark Dowie, says:
‘For a charity to have survived 200 years
based on the time and commitment of
volunteers, and the sheer generosity of the
public donating to fund it, is truly remarkable.
‘In 2024, we remember the achievements
and commitment of all those who have
been part of the RNLI family over the past
two centuries; we celebrate the world-class
lifesaving service we provide today, based
on our 200 years of learning, expertise and
innovation, and we hope to inspire future
generations of lifesavers and supporters who
will take the RNLI into its next century.’
For more on the RNLI, or to donate,
visit: rnli.org/200

.

RNLI: The numbers
506 lives were saved by the RNLI in
2022 while 39,680 souls were saved.
140 people die annually in UK and
Irish coastal waters and the RNLI’s
vision is to save every one.
238 UK and Irish lifeboat stations
cover 19,000 miles of coastline with
441 lifeboats (including relief leet
vessels) and SEVEN hovercraft,
while RNLI lifeguards patrol 240
UK and Channel Island beaches.
EIGHT RNLI lifeboat stations operate
in Sussex at Brighton, Eastbourne,
Hastings, Littlehampton, Newhaven,
Rye, Selsey and Shoreham.

above: The last lifeboat horses working the capstan at Hastings
right: Self Righting Class James Stevens No 6 on trailer outside
lifeboat house taken from the Grahame Farr Lifeboat Archives

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March 2024

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Sussex Life

March 2024

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March 2024

PHOTO:BOLNEYESTATE

Cara Lee Dely, head of winemaking,
production and operations, Bolney Wine Estate

Sussex Life

FEATURE

WOMEN
in

When it comes to the local wine industry,
Sussex women are well and truly top of the
crop. We speak with eight who are leading the
way to help secure the county’s position as the
UK’s premier wine tourism destination
WORDS:

Rebecca Pitcairn

istorically the wine industry has been perceived
to be a male-dominated one. Globally, men still
outweigh women when it comes to masters of
wine and master sommeliers. According to a
report published last October by Curious Vines – an online
community connecting women in wine – three-quarters of
women working in the UK wine trade have said that sexism
and gender bias is still a major issue within the industry.
However, the percentage of women working in wine in
the UK is increasing year-on-year. And in the winelands of
Sussex, which represents a quarter of Great Britain under vine
and was designated Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)
status in 2022, we are leading the way with a huge proportion
of our 138 vineyards and their winemaking operations run
by women. ‘Since working in the wine industry I have been

H

Sussex Life

immensely encouraged by the number of women who are at
the forefront of the dynamic growth and creativity we are
witnessing,’ says Kirsty Goring, brand director of Wiston
Estate and board member of Sussex Modern, which, together
with the Sussex Visitor Economy Initiative, is spearheading
ambitious plans to grow Sussex’s wine tourism sector from
its current value of £25m to an impressive £283m by 2040.
‘Whether it is at established wineries like Ridgeview, organic
wineries like Oxney, or new wineries like Kinsbrook, you will
ind women driving the commercials, the sustainability,
the marketing, as well as establishing innovative ways of
linking vineyards and wineries with the wider tourism and
hospitality sector.’
Here we meet the Sussex women in wine putting our
county’s vines on the wine tourism map.

>

March 2024

19

FEATURE

America Brewer
Owner, winemaker &
viticulturist at Oastbrook
Estate Vineyard, Robertsbridge

PHOTO:HANNAHPATTERSON

Originally from Brazil, America bought Oastbrook,
a former Guinness hop farm nestled just a few miles
from Bodiam Castle, with her husband, Nick, in 2013.
The couple, has transformed the estate into a stunning
venue to visit and stay, with a quirky Vineyard Hollow,
Waterside Lodge and luxury glamping, alongside a
winery and rows of chardonnay, pinot blanc, pinot
gris, pinot noir and pinot meunier vines.
America, who is part of a working group to create
a new vineyard trail in Sussex, is extremely handson, leading the management of the vineyard and
winemaking, which she admits people are a little
shocked to learn when they irst meet her.
‘Sometimes when I’m buying equipment to use in
the vineyard, the salespeople automatically turn to
my husband to talk about the equipment, when I’m
going to be the one using it!’ she says.
‘It’s also taken time for people to understand that
it’s actually me physically looking after the vineyard
and making the wine.
‘I’m very hands-on but I also like to dress well,
so people have begun to realise that I’m going to be
driving my tractor with high heels on!’
oastbrook.com

Sam Linter
Wine director at
Plumpton Wine Division,
Plumpton College

PHOTO:HANNAHPATTERSON

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March 2024

Sam grew up on Bolney Wine Estate, the Haywards
Heath vineyard her parents, Janet and Rodney Pratt,
founded in 1972. At the time it was one of the irst
commercial vineyards in England but little-known.
Sam, 55, joined the business and took over the reins
in 1995, helping build it to one of the top 10 wine
producers in the UK. In 2022, the brand was sold to
sparkling wine giant Freixenet Copestick.
‘As head winemaker at Bolney Wine Estate,
transforming the brand with a phenomenal increase
in turnover of over 600 per cent in a decade was a real
achievement but the sweet spot has to be overseeing
the irst-ever sale of an English wine brand to a major
international sparkling wine group,’ says Sam, who
while at Bolney co-founded Sustainable Wines of
Great Britain and became director and chairwoman
of Wine GB, the national association for the English
and Welsh wine industry. Last year, after 28 years
at the helm as MD, she stepped away from Bolney
to join Plumpton College, where she imparts her
almost 30 years’ experience to the next generation
of winemakers as director of the Wine Division.
‘One interesting trend among the next generation of
women in the wine industry is their growing presence
and inluence in traditionally male-dominated
roles, such as winemaking, vineyard management,
and wine entrepreneurship,’ she says. ‘There has
been a notable increase in female representation
in wine education and certiication programmes,
as well as leadership positions within wineries and
wine businesses. Many young women are actively
challenging stereotypes. When we work together
these developments demonstrate a positive shift
towards greater gender equality and diversity in the
world of wine.’
She adds that the close-knit nature of the local wine
community and its emphasis on sustainability and
environmental stewardship makes Sussex special.
plumpton.ac.uk

Sussex Life

‘It’s been a challenge
striking a balance
between family
responsibilities
and the demanding
schedules of a
vineyard business’

PHOTO:TOBYADAMSON

Gail Gardner
Managing director, Ashling Park, near Chichester
Gail and her family have lived at Ashling Park, a 50-acre
estate that is situated in the hamlet of West Ashling, near
Chichester, West Sussex, for 30 years. However, it was after
Gail spent a few years in Switzerland and was seduced by
the romantic vineyards there that she convinced her family
to plant vines on their 25-acre hay meadow.
‘I lived in the middle of wine country, the Valais region,
which is the largest and most prominent wine region, and
fell in love with vineyards then,’ she explains.
Back home, the farmland was planted with 10 acres of
bacchus, chardonnay, pinot noir and meunier in 2018, and the
family also lease a 23-acre vineyard at Petworth to make their
sparkling wines, which have won multiple awards including
Best Sparkling Wine for both its classic cuvée and rosé at the

Sussex Life

Wine GB Awards. Gail, 50, has spearheaded the development
of the estate into a thriving tourist spot – there is now a
restaurant, gin-making school and luxury accommodation,
which was designed by Lewes-based architect and Channel
4 Amazing Spaces co-host, William Hardie.
‘It’s been a challenge striking a balance between family
responsibilities and the demanding schedules of a vineyard
business,’ says Gail, who has three children. ‘I had a little case
of imposter’s syndrome when I started but soon realised there
are some amazing women role models in the industry. Some
of the key players in the English wine scene are ladies from
Sussex; their entrepreneurial spirit, talent and innovation
has led the way and I’m in total awe of them!’
ashlingpark.co.uk

>

March 2024

21

FEATURE

Megan
Rayner-Ward
Assistant winemaker at
Wiston Estate, Pulborough

PHOTO:ADRIANLANDER

22

March 2024

PHOTO:KIRSTENSYLTEVIK

Megan, 31, began working in wine 12 years ago as
a sales assistant for Adnams in Sufolk. She moved
to Sussex to study for a degree in viticulture and
oenology at Plumpton College, where she achieved
irst class honours.
‘I didn’t quite believe I could do the course and
considered dropping out soon after starting, but I
put in an enormous amount of work and in the end
really found my place within the wine world,’ explains
Megan, who lives in Worthing.
Megan joined Wiston Estate in 2018, working her
way up to assistant winemaker, and her writings
on English bacchus – arguably England’s signature
still white wine grape – and the inluence of soil on
wine have appeared in books and trade publications.
‘Perhaps I am of a lucky few, or perhaps it shows the
fast progression of our new industry in the UK, but
apart from a few rude remarks when I’m on a forklift,
I’ve not ever felt marginalised or made to feel like I
was incapable of doing the job I wanted to do due to
my gender,’ she says. ‘I hope to continue to bring a
bit more diversity to a traditionally male sector and
encourage any person to consider jobs that perhaps
they thought they couldn’t do or shouldn’t do because
of their gender or other perceived social norms.’
wistonestate.com

Kristen Syltevik
Owner, Oxney
Organic Estate, near Rye
Norway-born Kristin has been a pioneering igure
in England’s production of organic wine.
She started Oxney Organic, the largest singleestate producer of English organic wine, in 2012
after a long career in public relations.
‘I started the vineyard after selling my PR agency
and thought a career change would be healthy,’ says
Kristen, 58, who has lived in Beckley since 2002 and
runs Oxney with her partner, Paul Dobson.
‘We’ve done pretty well on the wine awards
circuit and are becoming established as the leading
sustainable British vineyard and wine producer.’
The 35-acre vineyard, which produces around a
ifth of all organic grapes grown in the UK, forms
part of a wider organic farming estate, near the River
Rother just outside Rye in East Sussex, and has a
winery, cellar door and holiday accommodation in the
shape of a self-catering cottage, barn accommodation
and shepherd huts.
‘We’re a small team here and I am involved in most
things, from vineyard to winery, from marketing to
sales,’ Kristen explains. ‘I have found, being a woman
in wine, that the industry in itself – ie other wine
producers – are very open and gender, race, etc does
not play a role. However, the supporting industry,
which comes out of the agricultural industry, can be
very sexist – I haven’t got enough ingers on my hand
when a supplier I have invited turns to the nearest
man to “explain”! The Sussex wine community is
very supportive of each other though; I always know
that there is someone out there who will help with
questions and support where required.’
oxneyestate.com

Sussex Life

‘I certainly feel
respected and that
I have an equal
place at the table
with other English
wine producers’

PHOTO:ADRIANLANDER

Tamara Roberts
CEO, Ridgeview, Ditchling Common
Last year’s Sussex Business Awards CEO of the Year, Tamara
has overseen the running of Ridgeview in Ditchling for almost
a decade, following the death of her father, Mike in 2014.
Tamara joined her family’s business in 2004 after
working in inancial services. She has overseen the growth
of Ridgeview into a globally acclaimed business, producing
over half-a-million bottles of wine per annum.
As a CEO and mum of two, Tamara recognises the
challenges women face navigating the cultural expectation
and ‘norm’ that women are chief carers when it comes to
children and other family members, regardless of status in
the workplace. ‘I think the additional pressure this brings
can result in women being at a disadvantage to men in terms
of networking, building business relationships and wellbeing
as we are always juggling and having to rush from one thing
to another,’ she says.
‘However, it’s diicult to identify if there is anything unique
about being a woman in wine compared to a woman in any
other industry. I certainly feel respected and that I have an
equal place at the table with other English wine producers.’

Sussex Life

Tamara has relished opportunities to represent and inluence
the development of the wine industry by becoming a board
member of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association and Wines
of Great Britain and, in 2020, became the irst English wine
producer to become president of the International Wine &
Spirits Competition, the awarding body for wine and spirits.
However, one of her greatest achievements has been to
see Ridgeview awarded IWSC International Winemaker of
the Year in 2018 – the irst English producer in history to
win – on what would have been her father’s 75th birthday.
‘The IWSC attracts entries from over 90 countries and is
seen as a benchmark for quality with over 400 global experts
assisting with the judging. It is diicult to comprehend the
enormity of this award to Ridgeview and the family,’ says
Tamara. ‘It shows just what can be done when quality is at
the heart of everything we do. Our achievements will always
be tinged with sadness that Dad is no longer here with us,
but we take great comfort that we are living his dream and
that life really is for celebrating.’
ridgeview.co.uk

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March 2024

Sussex Life

FEATURE

Cara Lee Dely
Head of winemaking,
production and operations,
Bolney Wine Estate,
near Haywards Heath

PHOTO:ADRIANLANDER

Cherie Spriggs
Head winemaker, Nyetimber,
West Chiltington

Sussex Life

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Bolney Estate

PHOTO:BOLNEYESTATE

Cherie, 47, was born and raised in Canada and, after
completing a master’s degree at the Wine Research
Centre in Vancouver, she and her husband, Brad,
who is also a winemaker, moved to the UK to work at
Nyetimber in West Chiltington – believing that it was
one of the best sparkling wine producers in the world.
‘It was 2007 and the industry was so small here
in England that I only knew one other woman
winemaker, but in real terms I only knew about
ive winemakers in total in the whole country,’ says
Cherie. ‘In the old world sparkling wine regions –
France, Spain, Italy – I understand that the industry
is still extremely male-led but here, because England
is relatively young, the same type of barriers don’t
seem to exist.’
It appears global opinions are changing. In 2018
Cherie became the irst woman in the world ever
to win Sparkling Winemaker of the Year at the
International Wine Challenge – it was also the irst
time in history a winemaker from outside Champagne
had ever won the award.
‘I think that’s been the biggest challenge – not
necessarily being a woman in wine but, since joining
Nyetimber, which has been pioneering in paving the
way for this thriving industry, we’ve been up against
so many naysayers and, at the start, it really felt like
we had to justify our existence,’ says Cherie, who
would love to see networking initiatives that are
popular in the city, such as Women In Wine London,
branch out to Sussex.
‘Sussex felt like a bit of a black hole when I irst
moved here, you really had to head to London for good
food and wine, but now we have so many amazing
places even in and around Horsham, where we live,
including Michelin-star restaurants like The Pass
and Interlude,’ she adds. ‘I think Sussex is one of the
most beautiful places in the world and there’s so much
potential for it to become a global destination for
people to come for tourism, led by the wine industry.’
nyetimber.com

Cara grew up in South Africa, where she trained as a
pilot but, while training for her licence, her father, an
aviation photographer, passed away in an aeroplane
accident. ‘This naturally made me step back and
reassess my life. I was 20 years old and a bit lost,’ she
says. ‘During a holiday with my family, we visited a
wine estate called Packwood in the Cape Winelands
and that is where my childhood dreams changed
into my future one – winemaking was my calling.’
While in South Africa, Cara spent 10 years working
with Clayton Reabow, head winemaker at Môreson
in Franschhoek, and focused on sparkling wine
production, but with a British grandfather and
love of the UK countryside, always kept an eye on
developments within the English wine industry.
‘I had travelled to many parts of the UK throughout
my childhood and loved the countryside, the culture
and vibrancy. My goal was to work to a level where
I could make a diference to the winemaking here,’
explains Cara, who moved to Sussex and joined
Bolney Wine Estate near Haywards Heath, where
she heads up the winemaking operations, in 2021.
‘Women have led the charge in winemaking for
hundreds of years – most of the top Champagne
houses were, and are still, led by women and have
established the name for sparkling wine to be about
celebration and joy in all languages,’ she says.
‘I am proud to be the leader of my team but when
it comes down to our busiest time of the year, during
harvest when the grapes are inally ripe and come
into the winery, I will be on the forklift and loading
the presses with the best of them!
‘There are challenges everywhere for women in
business, but I have worked hard, perhaps sometimes
harder, to learn my trade in order to be taken
seriously.’ Cara has loved living in Sussex so much,
that she persuaded her mum to swap South Africa
for Sussex too.
‘I love living in Sussex; we have the best of all the
worlds – I can be paddleboarding down the River
Adur in the morning and wakeboarding on Hove
beach in the afternoon. I love that my mum is now
nearby, and she lew over our two Italian greyhounds,
who adore the Sussex countryside too!’
bolneywineestate.com

March 2024

25

INTERVIEW

A L E X A ND OLGA POL IZZI:

‘We have our
spats but they’re
over quickly’
The mother and daughter hoteliers have shared ideas and
mistakes while refurbishing The Star at Alfriston and
haven’t ruled out working together on another venture
WORDS:

‘H

onestly, there’s nobody I look
up to more,’ says Alex Polizzi,
renowned hotelier and star of
Channel 5’s The Hotel Inspector.
‘I judge myself by my mother every single day.’
Her mother is celebrated hotelier Olga
Polizzi, 77, deputy chairman and director of
design at Rocco Forte Hotels, a company she
helped to create with her brother, Sir Rocco
Forte in 1996.
‘Don’t believe her!’ Olga jumps in, before
Alex, 52, ires back: ‘I do, I do darling!’
adding: ‘She’s incredibly good at what she
does but also she does it with immense
charm and I think that is a really diicult
combination to pull of. To be really nice and
quite tough and really good at what you do
is the magic trio.’
Together the mother and daughter own
and run The Star, a 30-room boutique hotel
in Alfriston’s High Street. It is their irst
joint venture, though not the only time they
have worked together: Alex is a key cog in the
other two properties in Olga’s hotel group,
The Polizzi Collection: Hotel Tresanton in
St Mawes, Cornwall, and Hotel Endsleigh
in Tavistock, Devon. ‘It’s been fun,’ says
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Sam Murray

Olga about working with her daughter. ‘It’s
been nice to share things. It’s awful doing
something completely on your own. At least
we can bounce ideas of each other and Alex
has a lot more energy than I have.
‘It’s just so much more fun doing it as a
duo. Otherwise you always feel: “Should I or
shouldn’t I? Is this the right thing to do?” At
least we can share and share our mistakes
as well.’
To be honest, it doesn’t appear like they’ve
made too many mistakes at The Star. Their
Sussex property is a corker, housed across
recently updated 20th-century wings and
a Grade II-listed inn from the 15th-century,
which once served monks and pilgrims on
the trail to Battle and Chichester abbeys.
It was also formerly part of the Forte
hospitality empire, owned by Olga’s father,
self-made hotel and restaurant magnate,
Charles Forte, whose portfolio encompassed
more than 800 hotels, including Travelodge
and a major stake in The Savoy.
The Polizzis snapped it up in November
2019 with the intention of an extensive
refurbishment before a summer launch. But
they couldn’t have faced a more challenging

start. Covid, stay-at-home orders and a
temporary, but near catastrophic, collapse
of the hospitality industry shunted the open
date back.
Delays were unavoidable and service staf
increasingly diicult to source. Still, they
pushed on, turning what was a tired property
into a boutique hotel worthy of the Polizzi
name. Despite the intense pressures and
setbacks, many of which are captured in
Channel 5’s three-part documentary, Alex
Polizzi: My Hotel Nightmare, Alex insists
it was a time of enjoyment.
‘Mum has a house about ive miles away
in Friston. It was one of the lockdowns
so I moved in with my children – and my
children’s nanny, I hasten to add – so that I
could come in every day to run the builders.
It was just the most amazing, wonderful,
fantastic time.
‘Mum and I had a few little spats,’ she
laughs, ‘but not as many as you might think.
Right Ma?’
‘Yes, they were ine,’ Olga agrees. ‘They
were over really quickly.’
Alex adds: ‘And then, of course, we opened
the hotel and I had to deal with guests and it >
Sussex Life

PHOTO:PHILBURROWES

Olga and Alex share
ideas and mistakes

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March 2024

27

PHOTO:THEPOLIZZICOLLECTION

The mother and daughter’s
labour of love: The Star

became a bit harder because the renovations
side of it was just so, so fun.
‘Working with people we really respected,
we had a builder who we loved, and then
slowly seeing the place put together. This
was really the project that I’ve most enjoyed
in my life. I’ve loved it.’
The pair’s reinvigorated, refreshed and
reimagined hotel was inally re-opened on
June 14, 2021, around 18 months after they
bought the property.
A couple more years down the line and The
Star is a hit, regularly featuring in rundowns
of the ‘Best Hotels in Sussex’.
‘It’s doing very well,’ Olga admits. ‘We’re
happy with it. Obviously, our business is
continual and one’s always got to think of
new things and be on top of it all the time. I

think we’re now on our way. The restaurant
is starting to get a really good reputation.’
Alex nods. ‘It’s been an interesting few
years,’ she says. ‘We’re very happy with
our product and our guests seem to love
it. The thing that I’m proudest of is our
service, our team, which is made up of really
extraordinary members. So it feels like we
are heading for calmer waters.’
It helped, perhaps, that the Polizzis had
the support of the Alfriston community
from the beginning who were keen to see
the historic property reinvigorated – bar the
odd grumble about noisy building works and
sweary builders, that is. ‘They were incredibly
welcoming, which is not always the case,’ Alex
says. ‘Of Mum’s three hotels, this has been
the most pleasurable experience because

they [the Alfriston community] were really so
excited that The Star was going to be brought
back to life. They support us by coming in
and eating and drinking here, which is the
biggest compliment.’
‘It’s an amazing village, it’s full of
interesting people,’ adds Olga. ‘People who
are doing things. We’ve got lots of lovely
shops… it’s a nice group.’
And in the remodelling of The Star, they
also worked with many local businesses:
furniture is sourced by interior designer
Diana Kelly and lowers masterfully arranged
by Alfriston-based lorist Julia Marsden.
The restaurant loor is decorated with a
black-and-white Elizabethan design by local
artist Amanda Lawrence. ‘My mother would
have called her mani d’oro, hands of gold,’
Olga smiles.
‘I think working with local artisans gives
locals a sense of ownership,’ Alex says. ‘Very
rarely does a night pass without someone in.
I like the fact that people pop in for cofee all
the time, for example, or a drink. Possibly
not a meal all the time and clearly they don’t
always stay, but also it’s the kind of place
people recommend to their friends.’
So. A hit hotel. Local connections. A
supportive community. Might there be
another joint venture for the motherdaughter team on the way?
‘If anyone’s chomping at the bit, it’s me,’
Alex says. ‘My mother, who actually has a
real job working with my uncle, is possibly
less keen. I think what puts us of a bit is that
borrowing money now is expensive and we’ve
always got another something on the go. It’s
not like we’re sitting around on our hands.
‘This year, we’re expanding the terrace.
We’ve got a shop that we bought next door
that we have to rebuild, stock and open. I
would like us to be really, really busy here
and there’s no point in being greedy.
‘We want this to work, but I’m also
conscious of the fact that I want to possibly
grab my mother before she possibly feels like
she can’t be bothered to do another one.’
To book a room at The Star visit
thepolizzicollection.com

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March 2024

PHOTO:THEPOLIZZICOLLECTION

PHOTO:THEPOLIZZICOLLECTION

The loor was laid by an artisan
Olga calls the ‘hands of gold’

Alex was very hands-on
with the refurbishment

Sussex Life

PHOTO:PHOTOGRAPHERNAMEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Alex hopes her mother Olga will
want to do another hotel together

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PEOPLE & PLACES
The locations and personalities that characterise the county
NEWHAVEN

THE GILDED GARDEN

MOTHER NURTURE

Take a tour with
our photographer

How Henry James was
inspired at Lamb House

The Brighton group helping
desperate new mums

Nicholas Baker’s
sculpture Large Yellow
Protea is part of the art walk

NEW ART WALK OPENS AT LEONARDSLEE
A new sculpture art trail featuring 100 pieces by 40 diferent
artists from Sussex and Surrey has been opened at Leonardslee
Lakes and Gardens.
The Art Walk, which has been created in conjunction with the
Surrey Sculpture Society, runs throughout this year in the Grade
I- listed gardens at Lower Beeding, Horsham. The location of each

Sussex Life

sculpture and the design of the trail take advantage of the 240-acre
setting with its diverse range of trees and shrubs, many of which
are rare and threatened in the wild.
The walk winds down to the estate’s seven lakes and after taking
in the sumptuous views there is a return shuttle service. Entry
is included in the admission price. leonardsleegardens.co.uk

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ROUND OUR WAY

NEWHAVEN
Originally a Saxon ishing village called Meeching, it was developed during
the Middle Ages when the nearby port of Seaford began to silt up. The ferry
service to Dieppe is still the lifeblood of the town where Lord Lucan was last
seen and where Vietnam’s founder Ho Chi Minh worked as a pastry chef
WORDS AND PHOTOS:

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March 2024

Andrew Hasson

Sussex Life

SUSSEX TOWNS

HARBOUR ARM
The Harbour Arm at
Newhaven extends out
700m from the West
Beach. It has been
here since 1890 and,
considering the battering
it takes every winter from
the English Channel,
it’s amazing that it still
stands strong.

HO CHI MINH
MEMORIAL
As unlikely as it sounds,
Ho Chi Minh – the founder
of modern Vietnam –
has links to this Sussex
coastal town. In the years
following the end of World
War I, he worked on the
Newhaven to Dieppe ferry
as a pastry chef.

CORMORANT
The Cormorant at the river
mouth of the port was
made by local sculptor
Christian Funnell in 2008.
It sits on the remains
of the old bridge. The
seabird is depicted
with its wings spread,
something they do to dry
their plumage.

Sussex Life

>
March 2024

33

FORMER
NATIONAL
WESTMINSTER
BANK (RIGHT )
The former National
Westminster Bank
building, at the bottom of
High Street, is a gorgeous
property – dating from
around 1900. It relects
the time when, in revenue
terms, Newhaven was the
sixth largest port in the
whole country.

THE BRIDGE
HOTEL (BELOW)
The Bridge Hotel, which
is at the bottom of the
High Street, was built
some time in the 1700s
as a Georgian residence.
After St Michael’s Church,
it’s probably the oldest
building in the town. It
became famous after
March 3, 1848, when the
deposed Louis Philippe
I, the last King of France,
landed at Newhaven with
his Queen, Maria Amalia.
They stayed overnight at
what was then called The
Bridge Inn before heading
to London after narrowly
escaping France with
their lives.

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March 2024

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SUSSEX TOWNS

LOCAL RESIDENT
CATHERINE GENNARO
‘Newhaven is very eclectic. It looks
slightly worn and uncared-for but
there’s a huge mix of different
types of people here. It has rakish
Brighton on one side and rather posh
Eastbourne on the other – and then
you’ve got Lewes, which is quite
intellectual. There’s a tendency for
people to ignore it because of the vile
traic system. They tend to go round,
which is a shame because it has an
interesting history. It just doesn’t get
any lifeblood into the centre so it feels
neglected. They should never have
done what they did with the road
[create a one-way system designed
to divert traic away]. It turned the
High Street into an island.’

DENTON ROAD
Denton still sees itself as
a village. The Manor of
Denton once belonged to
Harold Godwin, the father
of King Harold II, the lastcrowned Anglo-Saxon
King of England. He’s
the one who was killed
at the Battle of Hastings.
These beautiful Sussexlint fronted houses are
on Denton Road.

Sussex Life

>
March 2024

35

THE
BANDSTAND
Erected on Denton
Island in 2019, the
quirky Bandstand is
home to various summer
music events.

LORD LUCAN
The story of Lord
Lucan, the murder of his
children’s nanny Sandra
Rivett, the attempted
murder of his wife
Veronica and ultimately
his disappearance, is
one that has intrigued
the nation ever since the
whole drama unfolded in
November 1974. Norman
Road is where the trail
went cold, as this was
where his Ford Corsair car
was found. It was the last
trace of the man.

VICTORIAN LETTERBOX
A relatively rare Queen Victoria letterbox in
Ship Street. Probably fewer than 10 per cent
of the country’s letterboxes date from this
time. It’s identiiable by the letters VR.

CAT WALL
The self-styled famous cat wall
of Newhaven in Ship Street.

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Sussex Life

FEATURE

left: Henry James

fell hopelessly
in love with the
walled garden of
Lamb House in
Rye, East Sussex

The

GILDED
GARDEN
Lamb House in Rye, East Sussex,
became an ‘indispensable retreat’ to
the gilded age writer Henry James.
Although a New Yorker by birth, he
fell in love with this most English
of settings and created a magical
walled garden there, complete
with a sweeping lawn and brightly
coloured lower borders. It served
as a muse not only for James but for
his Lamb House successor, Mapp
and Lucia novelist EF Benson
ADAPTED BY:

Sussex Life

Angela Wintle PHOTOS: Richard Hasson

March 2024

39

FEATURE

amb House, in the Sussex coastal
town of Rye, was the home of the
transatlantic literary genius, Henry
James. The author of The Portrait
of a Lady and many more short stories and
novels, James discovered his ‘indispensable
retreat’ in the summer of 1897 and lived there
for the rest of his life.
A New Yorker by birth, James had been
settled in England for the previous 20 years.
His work had marked him out as a brilliant
chronicler of what happens when European
and American cultures collide, and he was
living a literary life in London.
He already knew the Cinque Port town
of Rye, perched high above its harbour and
the shingle lats that stretch to the English
Channel, because he had rented the vicarage
there for summer holidays.
But when he discovered a red-brick,
Georgian house, with a walled garden, he
was smitten. He stood in the street and made
‘sheep’s eyes’ at Lamb House (named after
the family who built it) but feared it would
never be his. Fate, it seemed, was on his side.
When the owner died suddenly, James
was able to lease Lamb House, and then buy
it outright in 1899. He loved it immediately,
and it appeared as Mr Longdon’s home in his
next novel, The Awkward Age.

L

known as ‘The Master’. With regards to the
garden, however, ‘The Master’ knew his
limitations. In 1898, just after acquiring
Lamb House, he admitted that he could
hardly tell a dahlia from a mignonette, and he
immediately sought the advice of artist and
designer Alfred Parsons. He had already made
a name for himself producing accomplished
landscape and garden paintings (including of
the gardens of plantswoman Ellen Willmott,
as well as a series of 132 illustrations for
her book The Genus Rosa) but had recently
turned to landscape design. The gardener
Miss Muir Mackenzie also advised James
on the borders.
Parsons proposed a new, sweeping lawn
area in the garden, which was just over one
acre, with espaliers around its walls – igs,
plums, apricots and pears.
He also suggested box-edged borders
containing bright lowers – tulips, fuchsias
and lupins – a layout that remains very much
unchanged to this day, even if the plants
themselves have inevitably changed. The
mulberry and walnut trees that Parsons
recommended have since come down in
gales. James was devastated by the loss of
the mulberry, which he thought was the
embodiment of the garden. A newly sourced
mulberry was planted in 2022.

Lamb House fulilled all James’s wishes
for a refuge from his life in London, where
he had been hurt by the critical failure of
one of his plays in the notoriously savage
theatre world. He intended to live at Lamb
House from May to October. It was, in fact,
the Garden Room (now gone – it was hit by
a bomb in 1940) that irst attracted James.
He had seen a watercolour by his friend,
the architect Edward Warren, of a red-brick
ediice built into the garden wall, its bay
window leaning out over the street and a
little green garden door beneath. This
room became his writing room, where he
would work every morning, walking up and
down dictating to his secretary (increasing
rheumatism meant that he could not write
longhand anymore).
He called the room ‘The Temple of the
Muse’, and so it proved. From Lamb House,
he produced three of his greatest novels: The
Wings of the Dove, The Ambassadors and
The Golden Bowl.
During that period, a circle of writing
friends had also settled in the Sussex
countryside, including HG Wells, Joseph
Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, and to this
group, as to the wider world, James became
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March 2024

James inherited his gardener, George
Gammon, to who he was glad to leave all
the work. Gammon won prizes at local shows
with his vegetables and lowers, which James,
very much the Anglophile, was delighted
with. One of the surviving trees that James
and his gardener would have known is the
large ornamental cherry which is about 120
years old.
Lamb House’s garden is also the sunny and
uplifting setting for the great comic series
of its time – the Mapp and Lucia novels by
EF Benson.
The young ‘Fred’ Benson met James and
greatly admired his iction; it was certainly
a factor in Benson taking over the lease
of Lamb House in 1919, three years after
James’s death.
The Garden Room, constructed in 1743,
which had been the ‘muse’ for James, also
inspired Benson in the 1920s, when he wrote,
in the preface to Miss Mapp: ‘I lingered at
the window of the Garden Room from which
Miss Mapp so often and so ominously looked
forth. To the left was the front of her house,
straight ahead the steep cobbled way … to the
right the crooked chimney and the church.’
The room, looking over the garden and the

PHOTO:GETTY

‘One of the surviving trees that
James and his gardener would have
known is the large ornamental
cherry which is about 120 years old’

Henry James relaxing in the garden at
Lamb House

Sussex Life

James planted a mulberry tree in the garden, although the original has been replaced

The view of Lamb House from the end
of a narrow cobbled street

Sussex Life

town, was the perfect place for observation
for both authors. Benson, like James, never
married and lived alone. He loved to take
long walks – as James had done before him –
down to the shingle lats around Rye harbour.
James and Benson had two other things in
common – their love of dogs and their talent
for writing ghost stories.
The dogs are buried in a little pet graveyard
in a dark corner of the Walled Garden,
perhaps the only corner of Lamb House
that gives a clue as to how such a solid, even
cheerful house could have been home to the
creators of two of literature’s most chilling
tales: James’ The Turn of the Screw and
Benson’s The Bus Conductor.
That will remain the true mystery.
Lamb House was given to the National
Trust by the widow of James’s nephew, and

since then has had a succession of literary
and artistic tenants including the biographer
H Montgomery Hyde, Rumer Godden (author
of Black Narcissus) and Sir Brian Batsford
(both an artist and the designer of the
Batsford travel books).
Its garden walls are clothed with sweetsmelling jasmine and roses, and in high
summer the borders billow with Shasta
daisies (Leucanthemum × superbum), fennel,
orange daylilies, Japanese anemones and
hydrangeas – a contemporary garden that
nonetheless relects the spirit of its previous
writers in residence.
This extract is taken from The Writer’s
Garden: How Gardens Inspired the
World’s Great Authors by Jackie
Bennett, published by Frances Lincoln,
hardback £30.

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Pulborough train station put
the village on the map

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EXPLORING SUSSEX

LET’S VISIT

PULBOROUGH
This charming and historic West Sussex village is
in the middle of the county’s wine country and has
the stunning South Downs on its doorstep along
with a very upmarket Oscar-winning resident
WORDS:

ith wisteria-draped cottages,
the South Downs as a backdrop
and Dame Maggie Smith as its
resident A-lister, Pulborough
looks like a set dreamed up by a Hollywood movie
director as the epitome of an English village.
In fact, it’s Petworth, just down the road,
that is the star of the small and big screen,
providing a luscious location for TV smash hit
Bridgerton and Ridley Scott’s epic Napoleon,
leaving Pulborough, and its tiny population
of 5,000, as West Sussex’s hidden gem.
But while it might not be on La La Land’s hit
list, this charming village is steeped in history
and surrounded by breathtaking scenery and
nature. Time your visit right and you can
glimpse community life from years gone
by watching the local duck race on August
Bank Holiday or at the September harvest

W

PHOTO:ALAMY

Sussex Life

Karen Pasquali Jones

fair which includes a retro-style fairground,
welly wanging and a scarecrow competition.
The reasons for Pulborough’s popularity
are myriad though. From its enviable position
nestled in the rolling green countryside
overlooking the Arun Valley, to its proximity
to the coast – Brighton is just a short 30minute drive away – visitors can see historic
houses, taste award-winning wines and get
up close to wildlife all in a day.
It’s this heady mixture of a rich history,
dating back to Saxon times, welcoming
community and picturesque scenery that
makes Pulborough so sought after – it is one
of the top 10 in-demand villages, according
to property experts Rightmove. You don’t
need to move here to experience all that
Pulborough has to ofer as it’s the perfect
location for a day out or a staycation with style.

A RICH HISTORY

SHOPPING

With its enviable location perched high above the Arun
Valley, the village has always been historically important.
The lood plain of the River Arun has been a hunting
ground for ish and wildfowl since Neolithic times, and
Saxon settlers named it Pulborough which roughly
translates to Hill by the Pool, where the pool could be a
tidal creek, or stream.
The Romans stationed a garrison here to guard the
route up Stane Street (which you can still see) connecting
London and the north to the coast and important ports
and trading towns.
The arrival of the railway in the mid-19th century
cemented Pulborough’s place on the British map, making
it possible to commute to London in less than an hour, and
connect up to the rest of the country as well as county.
It’s this varied past that makes a visit to picture-perfect
Pulborough seem like a walk through history. Saxon,
Tudor, Georgian, Victorian and modern houses are dotted
around the village, creating the charming character that
Pulborough is famous for.

Antique lovers will adore Pulborough which
has history running through its streets. First
stop has to be The Pulborough Exchange
(thepulboroughexchange.co.uk) on Lower
Street which sells everything from art to
musical instruments and has a veritable
library of Sussex books. Wolfe Antiques
(wolfe-antiques.co.uk) on Coolham Road,
specialises in out-of-the-ordinary pieces
including vintage fairground collectables,
old signage and amusement machines.
To snap up a vintage piece of treasure
at the right price, and have a memorable
outing, head to Tooveys auctioneers (tooveys.
com), a family-run irm that was set up in
1995 as a regional centre of excellence
for the valuation and sale of antiques,
collectors’ items and ine art in the southeast. Myriad pieces – from coins, militaria to
the inest of wines – go under the hammer here.

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Sussex Life

PHOTO:ALAMY

FOOD AND DRINK
Sitting on a south-facing escarpment,
Pulborough is in the heart of Sussex
wine country. The county’s warm
microclimate, and those slopes,
protected by the Downs, makes for a
perfect terroir – the same green sand
soil as the famous Champagne region.
Now with its own protected status,
just like champagne and bordeaux,
Sussex wine has proved it is world class,
and the vineyard owners are pushing
to boost wine tourism in the county.
There are plenty of nearby vineyards
to choose from including the awardwinning producer of sparkling
wine Nyetimber (nyetimber.com),
Kinsbrook Vineyard (kinsbrookvine
yard.com) and Nutbourne Vineyard
(nutbournevineyards.com) who irst
planted their grapes in 1980 and now
have 18-acres of vines in production.
Wiston Estate Winery (wistonestate.
com) has tastings, tours and events and
you can even stay at the self-catering
cottage there on an Escape to the South

Sussex Life

Downs’ staycation. Indulge in an Estate
Menu at the award-winning Chalk
restaurant where the set ive-course
dinner showcases produce grown,
farmed and foraged on Wiston Estate
and the Sussex coast.
If it’s hops you’re after, or a cocktail
or two, with a glass of Sussex, there
are plenty of cosy pubs in the area.
Head to the 16th-century coaching inn,
The White Lion (whitelion-thakeham.
co.uk), based in nearby picturesque
Thakeham, which serves delicious ‘pub
grub’ and has a beer garden for soaking
up the sun in the summer.
If it’s too early for a sundowner, pop
into Little Bean Café (littlebeancafe.
co.uk) which has all the favourites
from cappuccino, latte, to mocha and
macchiato, that are ethically sourced
and locally roasted – along with both
vegan and veggie breakfast options
(and your full English!), homemade
lunches, afternoon teas and even
private events and parties.

PHOTO:PARHAMPARKLTD

Pulborough is the epitome of a quintessential English village

MUST SEE
PARHAM HOUSE
Set in a 16th-century deer park, Parham
House has ancient art collections, antiques,
and award-winning gardens. Reopening
Easter weekend, stroll the Pleasure Grounds
or four-acre Walled Garden, try to spot a
fallow deer grazing or marvel at the Long
Gallery, which is the third longest in England.
parhaminsussex.co.uk

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PHOTO:BENANDREW

EXPLORING SUSSEX

FAMOUS RESIDENTS
Downton Abbey’s Dame Maggie
Smith bought a house in Pulborough
in 1981 and has been seen shopping in
Waitrose in nearby Storrington.
The Oscar-winning actress isn’t
the only famous resident though.
Comedian Harry Enield went to school
here and Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of
the greatest English Romantic poets,
lived in the Grade II-listed Champions
Farm in Pulborough, which was built
by either his grandfather or father in
the 17th century and recently went
on sale for £3.6m. Best known for

Ode to the West Wind, Shelley must
have found his home’s surroundings
inspiring as he looked out onto 111 acres
of rolling ields with views across the
South Downs.
Composer Edward Elgar, who wrote
the popular oratorio The Dream of
Gerontius, based on a poem by John
Henry Cardinal Newman, lived in
nearby Fittleworth.
He was made Master of the King’s
Music in 1924, directing the court
orchestra and composing music for
the monarch, George V.

MUST DO
RSPB PULBOROUGH BROOKS
PHOTO:ALAMY

Head to RSPB Pulborough Brooks for a
family-friendly day out at a nature reserve
with stunning views of the Brooklands and
South Downs that is home to wonderful
wildlife. The RSPB calls it: ‘One of the richest
areas for nature in the country’ and it has a
stunning landscape of wildlower meadows,
grasslands, pools and heathland.
Set in the sheltered Arun Valley, there are
hides and viewing areas to catch a glimpse
of some of the rarest plants and creatures
including the threatened little whirlpool
ramshorn snail. Bats, green tiger beetles
and a variety of birds and wildfowl can be
seen too, including the nightingale, teal, and
pintail and black-tailed godwits, along with
the rare brown hairstreak butterly.
rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/
pulborough-brooks

EDUCATION
Downton Abbey’s Dame Maggie Smith can be spotted in Waitrose

GOING OUT
From a leisurely walk, drinking
in the 360-degree views of the
verdant countryside, to soaking up
the history at Bignor Roman Villa
(bignorromanvilla.co.uk) and its
world-class mosaic loors and one of the
country’s inest Elizabethan manors,
Parham House (see previous page),
which reopens on Easter Sunday,
there’s plenty to do in Pulborough.
Wherever you go, you’ ll be
surrounded by the South Downs,
which has a charity dedicated to
protecting and preserving its beauty.
The Friends of the South Downs
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March 2024

( friendsofthesouthdowns.org.uk)
organises 200 walks every year, along
with conservation projects, talks and
campaigns to beneit the national park.
The entire family can travel full
steam ahead at South Downs Light
Railway (south-downs-railway.
com), a miniature steam train at the
Pulborough Garden Centre but can
you cut it at the 12-hour lawnmower
race? Each year the village hosts the
quintessentially British event, which
sees more than 50 teams competing
continuously to the (beautifully
manicured?) inishing line.

With a wealth of excellent schools in the area,
Pulborough is the perfect place to raise a
family. There is everything from nurseries
and pre-schools to primary and secondary
schools in and around the village along with
independent schools.
Bury Manor Pre-School teaches children
aged two to ive years old and recently
received an Outstanding Ofted rating, which
noted that the behaviour of the pupils was
‘exemplary.’ While the school is independent
of Dorset House School, it has access to the
grounds that Dorset House has to ofer and
works very closely with both the headmaster
and all the staf, enjoying a shared ethos.
Inspiring pupils to grow in conidence in
its high challenge/low threat atmosphere,
Dorset House School (dorsethouseschool.
com) provides what it calls a ‘magical prep
school experience.’ Aiming to promote
independence and make sure pupils are
happy, conident, but not arrogant young
people, Dorset House children often win
awards and scholarships to senior schools.

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Sussex Life

The mums support
each other

MOTHER
NURTURE
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March 2024

Sussex Life

REPORTAGE

henEllenBaldwinwasexpecting
her irst child she imagined
rocking it to sleep after busy
days, the scent of milk and baby
bubble bath enveloping them both.
The reality for the Brighton-based mother
was a shock. She was in a constant state of
high alert, her heart wouldn’t stop racing
and she felt panicky. Ellen, 46, found herself
checking her baby Eva endlessly and she
struggled to sleep. ‘I found my whole world
had been turned upside down,’ she admits.
Ellen was sufering from postnatal anxiety.
A trained counsellor herself, she knew she
needed to seek the help of a therapist.
‘She really saved me in those early days,’
Ellen says. The experience led Ellen to found
a charity in 2013 to help women navigate the
challenges of becoming a mother.
Mother Nurture, run under the umbrella of
Release Counselling and Therapy for Women,
has now helped around 1,000 new mothers,
organising 10-week courses in community
buildings across Sussex, as well as one-tocounselling over Zoom or in person in Hove.
Focusing on emotional wellbeing rather
than parenting advice, the groups create a
supportive space where women can come
together to be heard and to have their
varied, and often adverse, experiences of
motherhood validated. Everyone – and their
baby – is welcome, whatever their means. To
date, groups in Brighton, Hove, Peacehaven,
Worthing, Haywards Heath and Sompting
have all beneited from the pay-what-you-can
courses which always include one free place.
Some courses are more specialised.
Mothers of premature babies, mothers with
a history of sexual trauma, and mothers
from the LGBTQ+ community, for example,
have the option to join a group that sees
motherhood through a like-minded lens.
‘If you help mums at the start of their
transition to motherhood, everybody gains,’
Ellen says, who is now a mother of three. ‘I
see a lot of enjoyment in their babies.’
But ‘matrescence’, the process of becoming
a mother, she says, is also a huge identity
change that can bring unexpected challenges.
‘We change physically, emotionally, mentally,
and spiritually,’ she explains.
‘There’s a real myth or misconception about
being the perfect mother that puts so much
negative pressure on mums. Nobody really
talks about how hard the early periods are
and therefore it comes as such a shock to
mums and they think: “It must only be me”.’
At least one in ive mothers struggles with
their mental health at some point during
pregnancy, child birth or in their baby’s irst
year, Ellen explains. Intrusive thoughts and >

W

PHOTO:MOTHERNURTURE

Having struggled with her irst baby,
Brighton mum Ellen Baldwin began
a Sussex support group which has
helped 1,000 mothers, many of who are
now raising money to ‘pay it forward’
WORDS:

Deborah Nicholls-Lee

Sussex Life

March 2024

51

PHOTO:ELLENBALDWIN

Ellen Baldwin

strong feelings of sadness, anger, and fear
can afect our mental health.
‘All of these emotions are understandable
and normal,’ she says, but can be hard to
manage alone. Many ‘alumni’ have remained
friends, some taking part in sponsored events
to raise funds for Mother Nurture.
‘It’s so inspiring to see mums who, a few
months ago, might have been feeling a bit
wobbly in one of our groups and then they’re
out there running the Brighton 10k raising
money for the next intake of new mums in
Sussex,’ Ellen says.
‘It’s that sort of “pay-it-forward” idea.’

weekly sessions. ‘I experienced a really
amazing, warm, supportive environment
that encouraged me to be honest about my
experience after feeling so alone in my irst
few months of post-partum recovery,’ she
says. ‘It was the tribe I was looking for.’
The course, she says, was a place to share
birth stories, to articulate grief for their old
life, to discuss relationship changes and the
challenges of early motherhood and to grow
into this new role.
‘It was such a safe space to be able to be
honest, knowing that it doesn’t mean you
love your baby any less, it’s just really tough

When Holly asked her group if they would
take part in a photography project to tell
their stories of becoming a mother, she was
moved by how ‘incredibly open’ they were.
‘They were really willing to share it with me
and get the message out to other women that
it’s OK to say when you’re struggling,’ she says.
The photographs were exhibited in Hove in
October 2023 and Holly is currently seeking
new spaces to share the women’s stories with
new audiences.
Above all, she wanted to portray the
complexity of motherhood. ‘You go through
complete, unbelievable happiness and love

‘I wanted to show how multi-layered this
journey is by including these stories’
Holly Stone,34, a photographer from
Worthing, describes the support she received
from Mother Nurture as ‘life-changing’.
In 2021, a traumatic labour with her now
two-year-old son saw her develop postpartum depression and PTSD. Her health
worker pointed her in the direction of Mother
Nurture, but Holly was apprehensive.
‘At irst I was really nervous,’ Holly says. ‘It
takes a lot to walk into a room of strangers
and say you’re struggling with your baby.’
But Holly was in what she describes
as ‘a really bad space’, and the group, she
says, ‘was ofering me a lifeline’. Holly
soon found herself looking forward to the
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March 2024

sometimes,’ she says. ‘To be able to say that
with other women that are going through
the same thing was just so cathartic and
so positive and it really helped the healing
process.’ In time, Holly found her conidence
again, her symptoms eased, and she emerged
from her depression. ‘Motherhood was
painted as all sunshine and rainbows, and the
reality is actually very, very overwhelming,’
Holly continues. ‘It’s the hardest and most
incredible thing I’ve ever done. It is magical
and beautiful and all of those things. But it’s
also really complicated and can be really
scary and challenging, and I just remember
feeling like: why did nobody tell me this?’

and vulnerability and warmth. You have
moments when you’re laughing so hard and
moments when you’re crying so hard,’ she
says. ‘I wanted to show how multi-layered
this journey is by including these stories.’
However, when it came to posing for the
portraits (three of which are featured here),
there was a surprising commonality between
the women.
‘Every woman that I photographed smiled
for their portrait,’ Holly remembers. ‘That
was completely optional, but ultimately, there
was this message running through it all of
hope: that we can all do this and we will get
through this together.’

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Sussex Life

>

REPORTAGE

THE MOTHERS WHO’VE BEEN HELPED

Jen’s story
‘From the moment I gave birth,
I came undone. Due to Covid
policies and an under-staffed
ward, I was left to labour alone
for 10 hours – no partner to
hold my hand, no midwife to
administer pain relief. No one
came until I was ready to push.
My husband arrived 25 minutes
before our son was born. I left the

Sussex Life

hospital with PTSD. As I fumbled
through the early days of newborn
life, my father received a cancer
diagnosis and died three weeks
later. I spiralled with grief and
postnatal anxiety and struggled
to ind the joy that should have
accompanied my new life as a
mum. A weekly phone call with
a counsellor named Sue became

my lifeline. I never saw her face,
but I will always remember her
voice. At Mother Nurture I found
myself surrounded by women
who airmed my feelings and
experiences, and didn’t retreat
from my pain. In that little room
which held our bodies, our babies,
our tears and our innermost
thoughts, I had space to mend.’

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53

REPORTAGE

Amara’s
story
‘I have always dreamed of being a
mum. We sufered a miscarriage
in 2020 and so were so excited to
welcome our beautiful rainbow
baby. After a traumatic birth we
didn’t have the fairytale start to
motherhood I had hoped for, but
every day got easier and I now
feel I have found my happiness.
My husband says: “You have
always been a mum, you were
just waiting for Bonnie to arrive”.’

Gunes’ story
‘So alone but with so many. So
vulnerable but so strong, where there
is no time and space... I’ve never felt
such opposite feelings so strongly,
and at the same time, in my life.
‘I am becoming someone else as
many like me did before. And I feel
so much love and respect for those
who have gone through this before...
‘I am still becoming, it’s not
inished and probably never will be.
Every day brings something new and
I try to learn to navigate.
‘Sometimes I feel proud,
sometimes a failure. I think it’s part
of the process. Days are slow, weeks
are fast, and the parks, paddling
pools and people from Mother
Nurture are your best friends.’

Images and text
courtesy of Holly Stone
Photography as part of
her ‘Grow: A Journey
Into Motherhood’
series. hollystone
photography.com
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March 2024

Sussex Life

FIRST LADY of the LAW
She had to leave her Ovingdean school when her mother died to look after
her little sister, but Helena Florence Normanton went on to become one
of the most signiicant women in the history of the legal profession
WORDS:

Chris Horlock

n a corner of St Wulfran’s churchyard
in Ovingdean, east of Brighton, is the
neglected grave of an extraordinary
woman – Helena Normanton. She was
the irst woman to practice as a barrister
in England, a considerable achievement
considering the legal profession was totally
male-dominated in the 1920s. The fact that
she overcome patriarchy, her own family
struggles and society’s prejudices to reach the
top of her profession and ight for women’s
rights shows just how resilient she was.
Born into a working-class family in
London’s East End in 1882, Helen’s parents
separated when she was four, and her father,
a piano maker, was found dead shortly
afterwards in a railway tunnel, a possible
suicide. The family moved to 4 Clifton Place
in Brighton’s Montpelier district, where they
set up a grocery business, and let out rooms
in their home.
Helena was an academic child and went
to school in York Place, which would later
move and become Varndean School for Girls.
Helena realised she wanted to become a
lawyer – which was an impossible dream back
then for a woman – when she accompanied
her mother to a meeting with her solicitor.
Frustrated that the woman couldn’t grasp
the detailed conversation, the condescending
solicitor asked Helena if she understood what
he was saying. She said she did, causing the
solicitor to comment that she was: ‘Quite
the little lawyer.’
At that moment, the idea was ixed in her
head. Years later, in her book, Everyday Law
for Women, published in 1932, she would
write: ‘I still do not like to see women getting
the worst end of any deal for lack of a little
elementary legal knowledge which is the most
common form amongst men.’
But her ambition was dealt a terrible blow
when her mother died and she had to leave
school to look after her younger sister. It
wasn’t until she was 19, and moved to 11
Hampton Place, Hove, a boarding house
run by an aunt, that she could resume

I

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March 2024

PHOTO:WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Helena Normanton

Sussex Life

PROFILE

Sussex Life

PHOTO:CHRISHORLOCK

her education. Two years later she did a
teacher training course at Edge Hill College,
Liverpool, in 1903, then went on to the
University of London where she gained a
irst-class degree in modern history.
Helena taught in London and Glasgow,
but became increasing aware of the many
issues relating to women’s rights. In the early
1900s, women were still regarded as men’s
property. If a marriage broke down it was
usually assumed to be the woman’s fault and
divorce was fraught with diiculties. A huge
disparity between men’s and women’s pay
existed at every level. A tax act stated that
women who married were ‘incapacitated
persons,’ to be listed alongside infants and
lunatics. And, of course, women couldn’t vote.
Helena began campaigning for social
reforms and soon became a compelling
speaker. She joined the Women’s Social
and Political Union, led by Emmeline and
Christabel Pankhurst, but dissatisfaction
with their leadership led to a splinter group
forming, the Women’s Freedom League,
in 1907, which she joined. Helena began
writing and circulating pamphlets, mostly
highlighting inequality of wages. One,
titled Sex Diferentiation in Salary, argued
for equal pay for equal work. A later one,
in 1918, stated: ‘During and after the war
many soldiers’ wives and widows became
the breadwinners for families. Should they
be paid according to their sex or their work?’
She wanted to help women from inside
the legal profession but there was no female
role model to follow, the legal profession
being entirely populated by men – and most
wanted it kept that way. Women had tried to
enter the legal profession before, to no avail.
Her 1918 application to become a student
at Middle Temple, in London, one of four
Inns of Court whose members could practise
as barristers, was rejected out of hand,
purely because she was female. Her letter of
application pulled no punches: ‘I believe that
the sex-exclusiveness of the legal profession
is doomed. Women won’t stand it, and men,
who have been learning a great deal lately
about women’s capabilities, will not tolerate
it either.’ The rejection led to one of her most
spirited acts: lodging a petition against the
decision in the House of Lords.
While awaiting the outcome, she reapplied,
but was turned down again. It seemed
pointless to continue, but then luck suddenly
was on her side – 1919 saw the passing of
the Sex Disqualiication Act, which stated
women could now pursue careers previously
denied them, such as the legal profession.
A new application was accepted just hours
after the act was passed and Helena became
the irst woman to be admitted as a scholar to
the bar. Her student card was dated December
24, 1919. She sailed through her studies while
meeting Gavin Bowman Watson Clark, an
accountant, who she married in 1921.
The irst woman to qualify and be ‘called
to the bar’ was Ivy Williams, an Oxford

Clifton Place, Helena’s childhood home

academic, in May 1922, with Helena
becoming the second in November that year.
But as Williams didn’t become a serving
barrister (she went on to teach law), Helena
is regarded as the irst practising barrister
in Britain. Of course, it wasn’t plain sailing.
Other lawyers gave her the cold shoulder,
and she was forced, initially, to take on cases
others turned down, usually poorly paid and
‘deemed suitable for women.’

speaking and social campaigning came to be
seen as self-promotion, something forbidden
by legal protocol, eventually prompting
disciplinary proceedings. This may have
been why she never became a judge.
Helena retired in 1951, living in London,
but she never forgot Brighton . A reunion of
‘old girls’ at Varndean in 1947 saw her as guest
of honour. When an appeal went out to fund a
university in Sussex in 1956, she was the irst

‘She wanted to help women from inside
the legal profession but there was no
female role model to follow’
But Helena was a force to be reckoned with.
She became the irst woman barrister to win
a divorce for her client, the irst to prosecute
in a murder case, and the irst to lead a US
trial. She was the irst female consul in both
the High Court of Justice (civil cases) and
Old Bailey (criminal). In 1949, with Rose
Heilbron, Helena became the irst woman
to be appointed as King’s Counsel, becoming
one of the leading lawyers in the country.
During all these successes, she insisted
on keeping her maiden name. In 1924, when
travelling to America for a lecture tour, she
became the only married woman at that time
to be issued with a passport in her own name,
not her husband’s. She said: ‘Anne Boleyn
did not change her name even though she
married a king. He at least had the decency
to leave her with her own name even though
he took her head.’
She still maintained her interest in
women’s rights. In 1938, with Vera Britten
and others, she founded the Married
Woman’s Association. This sought a whole
a host of radical reforms, including absolute
inancial equality in a marriage and both
parents having equal guardianship rights
over any children. One blight on her career
was how her proliic writing output, public

to donate. On her death, the following year,
more funds were bequeathed to the project,
and the university was founded in 1961.
The struggle she initiated for equality
still goes on. While some 33 per cent of selfemployed barristers in Britain are women,
only 13 per cent are King’s Councillors.
About a third of court judges are women. In
the Supreme Court, three out of 12 justices
are women. Yet Helena’s personal legacy
continues. In 2017, Sussex University created
an international post-doctoral fellowship
in her name. In 2019, barristers’ chambers
at 218 Strand, in London, were renamed
Normanton Chambers. The following year
saw barrister Karlia Lykourgou, set up the
irst irm specialising in women’s courtroom
outits, with the business called Ivy and
Normanton – Ivy, from Ivy Williams, and
Normanton, from Helena. In a history project
of 2019, supported by the Law Society and
Bar Council, named First Hundred Years, it
stated that: ‘Normanton should be to women
lawyers what Neil Armstrong is to astronauts.
And this is no exaggeration’.
A blue plaque was unveiled on her Brighton
childhood home, 4 Clifton Place, in June
last year, following a campaign led by local
teenagers, Izzy and Sophia Kilburn.

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Sussex Life

BIRD LIFE
The RSPB’s ROY NEWNHAM tells us what species to look out
for around the West Sussex reserve, near Chichester

arch signals the start of spring
and the promise of warmer days
to come as plants start to emerge
from their slumber.
Slowly, sleepily at irst, the sunshine
persuades the lesser celandine to emerge in
bright yellow splashes. Around the ponds
here at RSPB Pagham Harbour, marsh
marigolds bloom an intense and bold yellow,
while primroses reveal themselves with a
subtler hue. As temperatures rise, spring
gathers momentum. Blackthorn bushes burst
with white blossom, the catkins of hazel trees
sway in the breeze, and the air around the
goat willows hum with the sound of spring’s
irst insects taking advantage of this early
source of nectar and pollen.
Having spent the winter hibernating,
queen bumblebees zig-zag low over the
ground, searching for old mouse or vole
burrows to make their nests in and peacock,
brimstone and comma butterlies are enticed
out by the sun.
Resident birds that stay with us all year
round now start to ind a mate and begin
rearing a family. Robins have been holding
territories all winter and are quick to attack
any rivals entering their patch. If you see
two robins happy in each other’s presence,
it’s likely they’re a pair. Blue tits and great
tits can be seen prospecting nest boxes and
cavities for their favoured des-res.
Bird species that visit Pagham Harbour
for the winter have now left. The constant
honking dialogue of brent geese and whistling
of wigeon ducks has faded. A silence has fallen
across the saltmarsh, broken occasionally by
the alarm calls of curlew and redshank.
However, the harbour won’t be quiet for
long as summer visitors are on their way.
Wheatears are touching down now. They can
be found along the shingle beaches and in
open farmland across both Pagham Harbour
and Medmerry. The males have black wings,
a grey crown and back, and an orange lush

M

Sussex Life

PHOTO: BENANDREW

PHOTO: BENANDREW

Barn swallow perched on a public footpath sign

A male robin singing

Spring has sprung at
Pagham Harbour
to the breast. Sporting a black patch through
its eye and a white stripe above, it lashes its
white rump as it lies ahead.
The smallest of the swallows and martins,
the sand martin, is close behind. Like the
wheatear it has spent the winter in Africa.
Its upperparts are brown and underparts
white, with a distinct brown band across its
chest. They zoom through the skies, fast and
agile on pointed wings, catching insects over
open ields and water. Sand martins nest in
colonies, digging burrows up to a metre long
in sandy clifs usually along rivers and over
open water courses.
Chifchafs arrive now too, although with
milder winters some do stay with us all year
round, but the majority arrive in spring.
Flitting through the trees and hedgerows,
they have an olive-brown back and dull
yellowish underparts. Their voice is the

easiest way to recognise them as they call
their name ‘chif-chaf, chif-chaf’, over and
over, as consistently as a metronome.
Next month another special bird will be
arriving and on a sunny spring morning I
like to sit on the beach at Church Norton,
look out to sea and wait.
There. Just a dot but getting bigger as it
comes closer. Racing over the waves, before
‘whoosh’ over my head and beyond. Swallows,
arriving before my eyes, back to spend the
summer with us. Their long tail-streamers
and reddish-brown faces help to distinguish
them from martins and their upperparts are
an iridescent blue-black.
It’s a joy to watch these speedy little rockets
coming in of the ocean.
To ind out more about visiting RSPB
Pagham Harbour, go to the website:
rspb.org.uk/PaghamHarbour

.

March 2024

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March 2024

Sussex Life

PETER OWEN JONES
The priest, author and ecological thinker on his deep love for the countryside

PHOTO:GETTY

An appearance by the brimstone butterly heralds the arrival of spring

The butterly efect
did not expect to see her. There was
barely any sunlight and a loose windbeckoning rain. It had been grey for
days. She seemed lost and so alone – the
only one of her kind to have been born now,
the others still in their chrysalis, gambling on
certainty waiting inside for warmth. Yet there
she was, unsteady in the air above the mud.
I watched her. I wanted to be sure that
she was real. When she landed, I put my
hand around her. As a boy I learned to be
gentle with butterlies; they teach gentleness.
Then I could see the shape of her wings,
like a harlequin, or a seashell, the outline
mimicking the outer edges of a leaf, and the
one orange spot on her lower wings. She was
barely yellow, one drop of lemon that is all,
completely demure. Not like the males, who
are visible from hundreds of yards away,
brilliant, the colour of sunshine, lying
buttercups. I thought maybe that is why they
were named ‘brimstones’ – the old name for
sulphur – it’s the exact colour of the male’s

I

Sussex Life

wings. And in March, on a grey day, yes, she
was alone.
Brimstones are the irst butterlies to ledge
– earlier than blossom, and even birdsong
they announce that spring is here. As our
climate warms these beautiful butterlies
make their way slowly northwards – a mile
or two a year. But it is not a safe journey into
the air in any way.
Butterlies are food for birds, lizards,
spiders, snakes and mice. I have seen
domestic cats catching and eating butterlies.
Probably the most gruesome predators are
small wasps. One species lays its eggs within
the cabbage white butterly, which is then
literally consumed from the inside.
Out of around 400 eggs laid by a female
butterly only eight will make it onto the
wing. Brimstones have an exceptionally long
life span from egg to butterly; some live for
well over a year.
But this female brimstone on this day
felt so vulnerable. When I opened my hand,

she didn’t ly for long. Maybe she had just
emerged and was inding her balance, her
bearings. She almost limped into the air
and then headed into the undergrowth and
crawled onto the underside of a leaf where
she hung upside down. This was a sure sign
that rain was on the way.
But it was her life force that was exquisite,
this fragile being wrapped in nothing, her
wings as thin as petals. Recently, I inished
reading The Observer’s Book of Common
Insects and Spiders. It’s more of a reference
book really but as I read it from cover to
cover, I became aware of the existence of
another realm of beings and the borders
of their worlds. Pondskaters, robber lies,
rose chafers, midges, musk beetles. Here
is a symphony of life, each one laced with
jeopardy and risk. I walked on, encased in
waterproofs, gloves, a phone in my pack, and
sturdy boots on my feet. And compared to
this female brimstone, no, I cannot match
her strength or, indeed, her dignity.

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March 2024

61

CULTURE
Inside our county’s lourishing arts scene
BRAIN TEASERS

WHAT’S ON

Can you solve our
tricky puzzles?

The best events across
Sussex this month

PHOTO:FROMAPRIVATECOLLECTION

KALEB COOPER
‘Jeremy Clarkson reminds
me of a chicken’

BLOOMSBURY PORTRAITS ON DISPLAY
Some of the earliest known works by Bloomsbury Group artists
Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant are going on display for the irst
time at Charleston for just 10 weeks until April 14.
They are part of The Faces of Bloomsbury exhibition
being held at the couple’s modernist home and studio in
Firle and made up of 10 seldom-seen portraits featuring
members of the radical group on loan from private collections.
The exhibition ofers a glimpse into the intimate lives and artistry

Sussex Life

of some of the most celebrated artists, writers, and thinkers of the
early 20th century.
One of the highlights is a life-sized portrait of Vanessa
(pictured right) by Duncan recently rediscovered in America
that was painted on an old door or table and likely created at
Charleston during World War I. There are also two paintings
by Duncan of his lover David ‘Bunny’ Garnett (pictured left).
Admission is included with entry fee to house. charleston.org.uk

March 2024

63

Cotswold farmer, TV star and
author Kaleb Cooper

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March 2024

Sussex Life

CELEBRITY

‘JEREMY
CLARKSON
really should

LISTEN TO
ME MORE’
Country bumpkin Kaleb Cooper – who
made Jeremy Clarkson famous in the hit TV
documentary series Clarkson’s Farm (or was it
the other way round?) – has written a second
book and is about to embark on a live theatre
tour. Katie Jarvis drops in on muck-spreading

aleb Cooper is sitting in his oice.
Obviously – what I mean is, he’s
sitting in the middle of a ield.
‘I do apologise if you can hear any
sort of tractor or loud beeping,’ he says, in the
exemplary manner of someone apologising
that the boardroom is currently occupied.
‘We’re out muck-spreading today and I’ve
just jumped out of the loader to come and sit
in a ield so I can do this interview.’
‘Do you not think I’m absolutely thrilled
with where you are?’ I ask, feeling absolutely
thrilled with where he is; taking in – over
our Zoom connection – his checked shirt
and green leece. (I’ve Googled ‘What do
farmers wear?’ and this is bang on the money
– though dungarees and overalls equally
acceptable. My big disappointment – and I
must be honest here; it’s a blow – is that his
hair lacks perm. More on this later.)
‘I’ll turn the camera round. There you are
– look,’ he says.
There’s stubble (not his; he has a beard)
almost as far as the eye can see; seam-ofgold ield fraying into treeline-of-black under
white-out sky.
As he pans out, horizontal jeans and one
boot swing into view.
He’s in Great Tew. ‘Near Soho Farmhouse.
I’m making it very smelly for them people
coming from London – they love that.’
Obvious question because this is Kaleb:
‘Are you a member of Soho Farmhouse?’
Obvious answer because this is Kaleb: ‘I’m

K

not a member. I’ve been once for a meeting
with Amazon.’
Course he has. This is Kaleb Cooper, who
got home about half-past midnight last night
after working on ields all day (that’s an early
night, actually). Then up at ive this morning
because there’s rain due later in the week and
they need to inish up.
This is Kaleb Cooper – one of the few men
capable of telling Jeremy Clarkson his tractor
is too big – TV star, author, and (soon-to-be)
touring entertainer.
KALEB COOPER HAS a new book out –
Britain According to Kaleb; The Wonderful
World of Country Life.
This is speciically lunatic Country Life.
The world of the World Gravy-Wresting
Championships (August; in Lancashire);
the world of World Gurning Championships
(September; in Cumbria).
It’s most impressive that all these world
championships are held in the UK. On the
other hand, it’s just possible Qatar hasn’t
applied to host yet.
And not just international events; there’s
interplanetary too.
Who knew that Slaithwaite had a biennial
Moonraking Festival?
Rather changes the dynamics of the new
Space Race, methinks, hmm? Russia, China,
the US, and Huddersield.
Thing is this. Even Kaleb admits that
the success of his irst book – The World >
March 2024

65

CELEBRITY

According to Kaleb – took him by surprise.
The zenith was World Book Day.
‘I see them young kids dress up as me and
go into school – it was a proper: “You know
what? I’ve made it” moment.’
I can see that. No one has ever dressed up
as me. Even I try to avoid it.
‘I thought: “This is amazing!” They’re all
getting their… well – they’re not getting their
hair permed as they’re normally quite young
so they’re getting wigs.’
He got the idea of the ‘Kaleb perm’, by
the way, from a Simmental cow. (Why do
hairdressers never include bovines in their
style books? Mystery.)
‘But I hope one day the kids will get their
hair permed.

loony. Though he did get injured, simply by
watching it.
‘Me and my brother went for a day out to
Cooper’s Hill. And this stone came down the
hill, went through my brother’s legs.
‘“Watch that stone!”
‘I’ve got it all on video. It hit me in the leg
and cut my leg open.’
Talking of dangerous sports, what’s this
I hear about him about to embark on a live
theatre tour?
Ah, yes, he says.
He was researching Scotland – World
Stone-Skimming Championships (Easdale
Island); St Margaret Hope’s Boys’ Ploughing
Match, both of which look quite normal.
Neither’s going to impress a contender for the

‘I’ve never been on a plane; never
been on a boat; never been on
a train; never caught a taxi’

Kaleb’s boss (of sorts) Jeremy Clarkson on his
Chipping Norton farm, Diddly Squat

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March 2024

World Stinging Nettle-Eating Championships
(in Dorset).
‘And it got me looking up passports.
‘I didn’t know if you needed a passport for
going to Scotland.’
Spoiler: you don’t. ‘I’ve never been on a
plane; never been on a boat; never been on
a train; never caught a taxi. I’ve been in a
helicopter, thanks to Jeremy. But that is when
I went: “Kaleb, you’re looking at a passport
to go to Scotland”.
‘And then I went: “Why don’t I go on
tour, and then I can have a look at all these
diferent places, and see all these diferent
farmers, if they turn up”.’
Umm.
You do know you can do this via B&Bs,
right, Kaleb? As in, see Scotland, etc, through
cottages4you without having to get up in
front of an audience?
‘I know, but then I thought: “I can go out
there and I can teach people around Britain
about farming, but in a really, really fun way”.’
AND THERE YOU have the nub. Or a nub,
at least.
Because Kaleb Cooper is also deadly
serious. He was serious at the age of 13,
growing up in Chippy, dad a carpenter, mum
a dog groomer.
‘I had my own chicken-egg company: I was
selling eggs round Chipping Norton. I had
my own sheep; I was working a full-time job.’
He remembers the day well – even earlier;
must have been eight or nine – helping his
dad with his work. Supposed to be passing
him nails on demand.
‘But behind that building where I was
working, there was a tractor ploughing.
And I was so hooked on watching that
tractor. My dad was getting very annoyed
because I wasn’t getting his hammer and his
screwdriver – know what I mean? I was so >

PHOTO:PLANKPR

PHOTO: BLACKBALLMEDIA/PAMEDIA

‘And I can see it happening because them
curls will look good on everybody.’
In case you’re wondering who’s sending
up whom, he is hilarious.
Straight-faced hilarious.
‘I don’t mean to be funny, but it just
happens,’ he says, in a way that isn’t meant
to be funny but happens.
Anyway. He began researching his next
book – the one I’m on about – looking at
British traditions. The mad rural ones.
‘The Carry your wife competition! [In
Dorking.] Who knew that about that? I didn’t
know. Now I do and I want to get involved!’
*Backtracks*
‘…I don’t know if I do want to get involved
now because I know what’s going to happen.
My other half, who’s not my wife just yet; I
know for a damn fact, we’ll go there, we’ll
have a race and we’ll lose.
‘And that’s what I’m most scared of. Not
having to carry my wife all the way round
this circuit but getting home and getting a
rollocking because we didn’t win.’
He hasn’t actually cheese-rolled in
Gloucester because he’s not that much of a

Kaleb’s unorthodox form of transport to his irst
show – and he’s had his passport checked

67

PHOTO:SOVISUAL

CELEBRITY

Kaleb decided to go on tour to
see a bit more of the UK

hooked on watching that tractor. That was the
day I went: “I’m going to become a farmer”.’
He’s never looked back. Fame came his
way when he got a job on Jeremy Clarkson’s
farm and became a star of the subsequent
TV documentary series.
Since then, he’s acquired millions of fans,
‘four chest hairs’, and he’s still only 25. It’s a
life he loves.
His aspiration – although don’t doubt
his perm-aspirations; you can have several
aspirations at once – is to persuade kids they
can also become farmers.
So in amongst the Christmas-TreeThrowing Championships and the World
Bog-Snorkelling, the real stars of Kaleb’s
Britain-book are events such as the Cotswolds’
own Moreton-in-Marsh Show.
‘I was at an agricultural show a couple of
weeks ago and there were 10 young girls in
an arena with their own sheep they’ve reared
since they were kids.
‘I just know, the day before they went out
there – they don’t get paid for this stuf –
they washed their sheep; they made it all
show-ready.
It was tipping down with rain, but they all
had a smile on their faces, in their white coats,
walking their sheep down the arena. Even if
they didn’t win, they were just as smiley as
when they went in there.’
He might want to extol the farming
industry. But does he also worry simply that
children’s lives are too online? That they’re
missing out on the mental-health beneits of
68

March 2024

nature and the big outdoors? ‘One hundred
per cent. Get out there. Go and enjoy life just
as much as I have since I was a very young age.
‘I can’t wait to wake up the next day and
go: “Right: what am I doing today? I know,
I’m going to sort them cows; I’m going to
jump on a tractor and I’m going to go and
muck-spread. Yes, I’m going to smell and it’s
going to stink around the area. But do you
know what? I’m going to do it with a smile
on my face”.’

‘No matter what age
you are; no matter
what background
you’re from, you
can go and get
into farming’
He’s currently working with Cirencesterbased Royal Agricultural University,
championing a bursary to encourage young
people into farming.
‘I want to show people out there that you
can. No matter what age you are; no matter
what background you’re from, you can go and
get into farming. There’s a job role for you.
‘You don’t have to just get As and go: “I’m
too brainy to be a farmer”. No, no, no, no.
‘If you want to be a techie, go and be a
techie in farming – the GPS; the science

in farming is unreal. There is a job in the
farming industry for everybody.’
Don’t ask him what he’d have been in
another life.
‘I honestly cannot physically answer that
question – I don’t know. There are people out
there – nurses, doctors, dentists; there are so
many important jobs. But for me, personally,
it’s to put food on people’s plates.’
Interesting.
Does he think the country supports
farmers enough?
Do we spend enough on the food farmers
such as Kaleb are putting on our plates?
Do we put our money literally where our
mouths are?
Put it this way, he says. When the
Government tells farmers to diversify: ‘Well,
why should we?
‘Why shouldn’t we get paid the right amount
for the stuf we do incredibly well – and that
is produce really good standards in terms of
British food for people.’
(Not sure if that’s aimed at you, Jacob
Rees-Mogg.)
So, let’s ask the million-dollar question…
(Actually, the £4m-plus Cotswold question
if you browse Savills’ website.)
If Kaleb had his own farm instead of
working – as he currently does – as contractor
on other people’s, how would he do things?
‘That’s a tricky question. I’ve always said I
don’t like thinking about it too much because,
if I don’t ever get that dream, it’s a let-down.
In my head at the moment is: “What I can do

Sussex Life

now to get to that point?”’ Okay – message
sensitively, and poignantly, received.
‘As soon as that paperwork’s done, I can go:
“Right – I want to plant wheat in that ield; or
I can grow cattle”.
‘In the 1950s/1960s, everybody had a cow;
everybody had a sheep; everybody had a
goat. You know.
‘So why are we just farming one thing?
Every single farmer out there should be a
mixed farm; they should have some cattle;
they should have some sheep.
‘Because they all work together.
‘If the price of wheat drops one day, maybe
the beef price will come up and the farm
will be safe.’
Sounds to me like the sort of common
sense Jeremy never listens to.

‘Every single farmer
out there should be
a mixed farm; they
should have some
cattle; they should
have some sheep’
Speaking of which.
Quick-ire round.
So, Jeremy Clarkson – owner of Diddly
Squat Farm. The would-be farmer who
employed Kaleb as his right-hand man and
got far more than he bargained for.
One piece of advice Jeremy should take
from you?
‘Listen to me.’
That’s cheating.
‘No, if he took that and said: “I’m going to
do that from now on, Kaleb”, we’d get very
far. That would be ine.’
If Jeremy were a farm animal, he’d be…
‘Umm. A mixture – yes – of a sheep, yeah;
and a chicken.
‘Because sheep are very stupid and it’s so
hard work with him when he doesn’t listen.
‘Sheep don’t listen to anybody. But chickens
are very intelligent, and that man knows how
to make television.’
A 50/50 diplomatic answer.
He shakes his head.
Might never be the same again.
‘I’m weirdly now thinking of Jeremy
looking like a chicken and half a sheep.
‘Traumatising.’
Britain According to Kaleb: The
Wonderful World of Country Life
by Kaleb Cooper is published in
hardback by Quercus, £20.
The World According to Kaleb theatre
tour, starring Kaleb Cooper, will be
at Congress Theatre, Eastbourne,
on Friday, March 8, 7.30pm, from
£29.50. Tickets are on sale at kaleblive.
com or direct from the theatre at:
eastbournetheatres.co.uk

Sussex Life

PHO

.

According to Kaleb if Jeremy
Clarkson was an animal he would be a
combination of sheep and chicken

COMPILED BY:

Duncan Hall

PHOTO:MARKMATTOCK

WHAT’S ON
Guide to
THE BEST
events in
March

MUSIC

Bananarama
To mark the release of a career-spanning best-of collection,
Glorious, Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward are making a series
of personal appearances in HMV stores across the country,
starting with Brighton. HMV, Brighton, Friday, March 8, noon,
free entry with preorder of Glorious, hmv.com/live/bananarama

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Sussex Life

EVENTS

PHOTO:JIMHOLDEN

EVENTS

Easter family fun
Stuck for something to do in the Easter
fortnight? The National Trust has a few
suggestions – such as a Jungle Book trail
at Rudyard Kipling’s old Sussex home
Bateman’s, a lamb trail (naturally) at Rye’s
Lamb House and a dragon eggs-travaganza at
Bodiam Castle. Outside of the trust there are
more family days out at Leonardslee Gardens
with an Easter trail and the launch of a new
art walk featuring more than 100 works
organised by the Surrey Sculpture Society;
preschoolers’ favourite Bluey is taking over
Wakehurst; Borde Hill has a pirate adventure
courtesy of Bertram Bunny; and Arundel
Castle is launching its 2024 season with a

EXHIBITION

Community Programme
Fundraising Exhibition
Having a creative life isn’t just
reserved for people who can
aford private studios or airy
loft spaces in big cities. Pallant
House’s Community Programme
gives up to 250 people access
to both the gallery and creative
workshops. This exhibition will
display works for sale donated
by those taking part in the
programme, with 100 per cent
of proceeds being match-funded
and donated to Partners in Art
plus future community work.
Pallant House Gallery,
Chichester, until March 31,
free, pallant.org.uk
MUSIC

Alison Goldfrapp
The eponymous frontwoman
of synthpoppers Goldfrapp
has struck out on her own
with debut album The Love
Invention, hoping to build on
her band’s phenomenal success
– having boasted nominations
for Mercury Music, Brit and
Grammy Awards, alongside
bagging two Ivor Novellos.
Brighton Dome Concert
Hall, Saturday, March 2,
doors 7pm, from £39.50,
brightondome.org
COMEDY

Joe Wells: King of
the Autistics
There are 700,000 autistic
people in the UK – so perhaps,

Sussex Life

Medieval Weekend. See websites for tickets.
Bateman’s, Burwash, March 23-April
14, 10am-4pm, Lamb House, Rye,
March 24-April 2, 11am-4pm, Bodiam
Castle, March 29-April 14, 10am-4pm,
nationaltrust.org.uk; Leonardslee
Lakes and Gardens, Lower Bedding,
near Horsham, from March 29,
9am-5pm, leonardsleegardens.co.uk;
Wakehurst, March 27-April 14, from
10am, kew.org/wakehurst; Borde Hill,
Haywards Heath, March 23-April 14,
10am-5pm, bordehill.co.uk; Arundel
Castle, Good Friday-Easter Sunday,
arundelcastle.org

understandably, two years
ago Joe Wells decided to put
himself forward as their king.
Unfortunately, it all went wrong,
as is detailed in the YouTube
star’s follow-up to his acclaimed
I Am Autistic.
The Old Market, Hove,
Saturday, March 2, 7.30pm,
£15, theoldmarket.com
MUSIC

Anna Mieke
Nostalgia, family, memory,
death and dreaming are all
explored in Wicklow vocalist
and multi-instrumentalist Anna
Mieke’s surreal soundtrack,
mixing lyrical folk and a dreamy
acoustic sensibility.
The Folklore Rooms,
Brighton, Saturday,
March 2, 7.30pm, £14,
meltingvinyl.co.uk
FAMILY

The Sooty Show
Considering he’s celebrating 75
years in showbiz, Sooty doesn’t
seem too threadbare. Now on his
third helper – Richard Cadell,
who took the troublesome bear
on from creator Harry Corbett’s
son Matthew – the birthday
celebration will also feature
juggler Michael Jordan alongside
Soo and bone-brained Sweep.
Also at The Hawth, Crawley, on
April 6.
Pavilion Theatre,
Worthing, Saturday,
March 2, 11am and 2.30pm,
from £20, wtm.uk

Wakehurst bluebells

EXHIBITION

The Society of Sussex
Painters, Sculptors
and Printmakers
When it launched in 1924 The
Society of Sussex Painters,
Sculptors and Printmakers
was a contemporary of the
Bloomsbury Group. The society,
which stretches across East
and West Sussex, held their
inaugural show at Worthing
Museum and Art Gallery, so it
seems itting that the 20-strong
group has returned there for this
centenary show.
Worthing Museum and Art
Gallery, March 2-June 2,
10am-5pm, Wed, Fri and Sat,
10am-8pm Thurs, 11am-3pm
Sun, free, wtm.uk/museum
COMEDY

Connor Burns: Vertigo
A chance to catch an upcoming
comedy star in an intimate space
as Scot Connor Burns heads
out on his debut national tour.
Among the topics covered in this
Edinburgh Fringe hit are coping
with the cost-of-living crisis with
a big family, his fascination with
accents and why he won’t drink
with Millennials.
Komedia Studio, Brighton,
Saturday, March 2,
7.30pm, £12.50,
komedia.co.uk/brighton

by Anthony Schafer – made
famous on the big screen by
Laurence Olivier and Michael
Caine. In the director’s chair
is Rachel Kavanagh, whose
work has been seen at the RSC,
Chichester Festival Theatre and
Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre,
making this a top-light night
of tense double cross as a young
man is unwittingly drawn into
a mystery writer’s real-life web
of deceit.
Devonshire Park Theatre,
Eastbourne, March 4-9,
7.45pm, 2.30pm matinees
Wed and Sat, from £23.50,
eastbournetheatres.co.uk
STAGE

Macbeth
English Touring Theatre brings
Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy to
the stage in the irst of two new
productions coming to Sussex
this month. This contemporary
version sees an ambitious couple
spot an opportunity for power as
a divided nation tears itself apart.
Sound familiar?
Connaught Theatre,
Worthing, March 5-8,
7.30pm, 2pm matinees Wed
and Fri, from £16, wtm.uk
CLASSICAL

Brighton Philharmonic
Orchestra: Mighty River
– Celebrating Women

STAGE

Sleuth
Todd Boyce and Neil McDermott
star in this classic two-hander

To mark International Women’s
Day, BPO musical director
Joanna McGregor has selected a
programme of female composers, >
March 2024

71

23 March – 14 April
Petworth House and Park
Gardening talks, creative workshops and family activities.
Makers Market 23rd & 24th March.
nationaltrust.org.uk/petworth

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March 2024

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EVENTS

PHOTO:ROSYCARRICK

including British/Jamaican
Eleanor A lberge’s Clouds,
Errollyn Wallen’s exploration
of slavery and freedom Mighty
River and the Mississippi
River Suite by the irst AfricanAmerican symphonic composer
Florence Price.
Brighton Dome Concert
Hall, Friday, March
8, 7.30pm, from £13,
brightondome.org
COMEDY

Tom Houghton:
It’s Not Ideal
His dad, General the Lord
Houghton, was the ex-Chief
of Defense Staf, so Houghton
senior must be delighted with
the career path his son has
taken. Tom broke through last
year by starring in Netlix hit
The Circle and hosting both Very
British Problems: Live and the
Bad Manors podcast. Also at
The Hawth, Crawley, on Friday,
March 8.
The Forge, Brighton,
Thursday, March
7, 8pm, from £14.50,
forgecomedyclub.co.uk
COMEDY

Geof Norcott:
Basic Bloke

MUSIC AND SPOKEN WORD

Vivid: A Reigning Women Celebration
Arguably the centre piece of The Old Market’s
Reigning Women season is a showcase of new
female talent, from soul vocalist Scarlett Fae to
spoken word artist AFLO.The Poet. More shows in
the season this month include Rosy Carrick (above)

Life as a self-confessed Tory
comedian can’t be easy when the
party he supports is making such
a laughing stock of themselves.
This new tour sees the star of
Have I Got News For You and
Eight Out of 10 Cats try to make
sense of the current cultural and
political scene by exploring how
they afect the average bloke.
Also at The Hawth, Crawley,
on April 5.
Connaught Theatre,
Worthing, Saturday,
March 9, 8pm, from £19,
wtm.uk

something she shouldn’t have.
Stars Landi Oshinowo in the lead
role, with Coronation Street’s
Sue Cleaver as Mother Superior
from Thursday to Saturday.
Theatre Royal Brighton,
March 11-16, 7.45pm,
2.30pm matinees Thurs and
Sat, from £13, ATGTickets.
com/Brighton

MUSICAL

Keith Jack, star of Any Dream
Will Do, is joined by performers
from Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat for
a night of beloved musical
favourites, drawn from Les Mis,
We Will Rock You, Hairspray
and Jersey Boys, alongside the
show which made him famous.
Congress Theatre,
Eastbourne, Friday, March
15, 7.30pm, from £24,
eastbournetheatres.co.uk

Sister Act
The Olivier-nominated stage
version of the Whoopi Goldberg
movie features original music
from Disney favourite Alan
Menken taking inspiration
from the Motown hits favoured
by Sister Deloris – a nightclub
singer on the run from the
mob in a convent after seeing

Sussex Life

MUSIC

Dreamcoat
Stars

getting musclebound on March 3, comedy from
Jessica Fostekew on March 22, and a performance
by Ceyda Tanc Dance on March 16-17.
The Old Market, Hove, Thursday, March 7,
doors 7.30pm, from £10, theoldmarket.com

TALK

Ronnie, Reggie and
Me – Fred Dinenage
He may be better known today
as the host of How and as the
retired anchor of Meridian’s
nightly news, but when the twin
gangsters who shook the East
End, Ronnie and Reggie Kray,
wanted to tell their story in the
1980s, it was Fred Dinenage that
they turned to as their ghost
writer. He shares the gangland
tales he uncovered from the
1960s with host Alex Dyke.
Devonshire Park Theatre,
Eastbourne, Friday,
March 15, 7.45pm, £27.50,
eastbournetheatres.co.uk
MUSICAL

Jesus Christ Superstar
The rock opera that launched the
careers of Andrew Lloyd Webber
and lyricist Tim Rice returns in
the revival production which
won an Olivier in 2017. Taking
the lead roles are West End

stars Ian McIntosh as Jesus,
Shem Omari James as Judas
and Hannah Richardson as Mary.
Comes to Congress Theatre,
Eastbourne, April 15-20.
The Hawth, Crawley,
March 18-23, 7.30pm,
2.30pm matinees
Wed and Sat, from £35,
hawth.co.uk
THEATRE

Cluedo 2 – The
Next Chapter
Cosy crime has become
something of a genre in itself
post-Richard Osman, and it
doesn’t really get cosier than
taking part in a board game
about a murder. Taking its
inspiration from the family
favourite Cluedo 2 is a sequel
to the original hit play penned
by Birds of a Feather writers
Laurence Marks and Maurice
Gran, starring Casualty’s Jason
Durr as Colonel Mustard and
Coronation Street’s Strictly
star Ellie Leach as Miss Scarlett

March 2024

73

>

EVENTS
PHOTO:N’FAMADYKOUYATE

in a whodunnit set during the
swinging 1960s.
Theatre Royal Brighton,
March 19-23, 7.30pm,
2.30pm matinees Thurs
to Sat, from £13,
ATGTickets.com/Brighton
COMEDY

Reginald D Hunter:
The Man Who Could
See Through S***
Reginald D Hunter isn’t just sick
of the contradictory answers the
media are shoving at us every
day – he’s sick of all the questions
that are being asked too. Expect
to be taken to the very edge of
comedy by this supercool legend
of the stage.
Brighton Dome Corn
Exchange, Wednesday,
March 20, 8pm, £26,
brightondome.org
CHARITY

Rockinghorse Children’s
Charity Glitter Ball
Raise vital funds for babies,
children and young people in
Sussex by getting dressed up
to the nines and experiencing a
little Hollywood-style glamour
on the Brighton seafront. Last
year’s Glitter Ball raised £59,000
for Rockinghorse, and they’re
hoping to better that with the
assistance of headline sponsor
The Agora Clinic.
The Grand Hotel,
Brighton, Saturday,
March 23, 6.15pm-midnight,
£1,095 for table of 10,
rockinghorse.org.uk/
event/the-rockinghorseglitter-ball
MUSIC

Yard Act

MUSIC

N’famady Kouyaté
A chance to see the winner of the 2023 Glastonbury Emerging Talent
Competition in an intimate setting, as he combines the music of his
West African heritage with indie, pop and jazz sensibilities.
Green Door Store, Brighton, hursday, March 21,
7.30pm, £15, thegreendoorstore.co.uk
74

March 2024

This Leeds indie band’s debut
album The Overload was not
only one of the best releases
of 2022, it also got nominated
for the Mercury Music Prize.
Their debut album combined a
spiky post-punk guitar-driven
backdrop with frontman James
Smith’s idiosyncratic and selfdeprecating lyrical style. Its
follow-up Where’s My Utopia?
is eagerly anticipated.
Brighton Dome Concert
Hall, Monday, March
25, doors 7pm, £26.25,
brightondome.org

Sussex Life

PHOTO: NATASHAPSZENICKI

THEATRE

Macbeth
Launching a new production arm,
with the aim of inspiring the
next generation of theatregoers,
Ambassador Theatre Group is
creating a new afordable touring
version of The Scottish Play by
Hove-based company Out of
Chaos, with only two actors
playing all 20 roles.
Theatre Royal Brighton,
Tuesday, March 26, 1.15pm
and 6.30pm, from £8,
ATGTickets.com/Brighton
COMEDY

Ed Gamble: Hot
Diggity Dog
The Taskmaster champion,
Great British Menu judge and
co-host of foodie podcast Of
Menu with James Acaster, Ed
Gamble goes back to his irst
love – stand-up – although food
is bound to play a part... Also at
Brighton Dome June 13.
The Hawth, Crawley,
Thursday, March 28,
7.30pm, £29, hawth.co.uk
MUSIC

Tom Ball
West Sussex teacher turned
Britain’s Got Talent star Tom Ball
is back on the road, performing a
mix of self-penned originals and
classic covers. Earlier this year
he ran a competition to ind a
rising star choir to accompany
him both on his debut album
Curtain Call and on the road.
The Capitol, Horsham,
Good Friday, 7.30pm,
from £32.50,
thecapitolhorsham.com
FAMILY

Paddington in Concert
Enjoy a screening of Paddington’s
ilm debut, starring Sussex’s own
Hugh Bonneville and Nicole
Kidman, accompanied by a live
soundtrack from the London
Concert Orchestra. Based on
Michael Bond’s beloved books,
the 2014 movie tells the story of
the Peruvian bear’s arrival in the
big city, and his attempts to stuf
himself – and not get stufed by
Kidman’s taxidermist.
Brighton Centre, Easter
Sunday, doors 2pm, £34.95,
brightoncentre.co.uk

Sussex Life

COMEDY

Fiona Allen: On The Run
Smack the Pony star Fiona Allen is on the road for her debut tour
following a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, exploring family,
marriage (to Sir Michael Parkinson’s son Mike), supermarket
dress codes, sex robots and passive-aggressive school mums.

.

he Forge, Brighton, hursday, March 7, 8pm, £17.72, forgecomedyclub.co.uk
March 2024

75

LITERARY LIFE
Angela Wintle takes a look at what’s new in the Sussex book world

magine yourself lost in a hilly woodland,
knowing that also on the loose in
the same spot were a paranoiac, a
depressive, an obsessive eater, an
aggressive perfectionist and an unpredictable
mood-swinger. You may well be out of there
rather fast.
Yet how else could we describe the
characters so many of us happily spent
childhood hours with in the Hundred Acre
Wood? Many psychologists have had a ield
day with them. Or are they wrong, and are
Piglet, Eeyore, Pooh, Rabbit and Tigger just
cuddly toys? As with so much in the life of
Christopher Milne – best known to readers
as Christopher Robin – it depends on how
you look at it.
There’s the little boy whose mother wanted
a girl, whose father entered the mind of a
child when he wrote, but hardly seemed to
understand his own son. That father breathed
charming life into battered toys, though he
was himself battered by the trenches, jumpy
and rather withdrawn for the rest of his life.
And at the heart of all these distorting
mirrors is Christopher Robin saying his
prayers at the foot of his bed and growing
into a non-believer who was alienated from
his father, the Winnie-the-Pooh author Alan
Milne (better known as AA Milne), and
visited his widowed mother Dorothy just
once in 15 years.
Cotchford Farm, his childhood home in
Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, was similarly
left in the cold quarter of his memory,
never visited after his father’s death. It is
to Cotchford where Kevin J Last, author of
Remembering Christopher Robin, keeps
returning. He wrote an earlier book about
the Young farming family, who lived there
in the 19th century, and he hopes to bring
out another, about the Rolling Stone Brian
Jones, who died there in the 20th.
Last has combed Christopher Milne’s
autobiographies for nuggets that allow him
to philosophise and expatiate upon the world,
and he cuts and pastes from Milne rather too
often. The book would also have beneitted
from tighter proof-reading. Still, the story of
the boy and his bear draws our attention as
adults, just as it did when we were children.
The underexplored character once stalking
the wood, though, is AA Milne. He came
from the Somme via the propaganda-writing
desks of MI7 to his Galleon’s Leap, which
he peopled with those soft toys and their
troubled minds. It’s only Owl who seems
really content. And he, as the book points
out, has memory loss. Christopher Milne,
who died in 1996, was ambivalent about his
family and his upbringing, choosing to set

76

March 2024

PHOTO:ALAMY

I

Author AA Milne with his son Christopher and Edward Bear, who inspired Winnie the Pooh

Escaping Hundred
Acre Wood
A new biography about Christopher Milne –
the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh’s friend
Christopher Robin – reveals a troubled man
eager to escape the sufocating environs of
Hundred Acre Wood, as Jill Parkin reveals
up a bookshop in the West Country to escape
those characters roaming the Hundred Acre
Wood and perhaps still roaming his head,
yet writing two autobiographies and other
memoirs. Perhaps he could never resolve
it – that question of whether he was loved
or exploited. Or both.

.

Remembering
Christopher Robin:
Escaping Winnie
the Pooh by
Kevin J Last
is published by
Unicorn at £30.

Sussex Life

BOOKS

Th

I
s

H
e
m

ectives with the
race, the creation
me writer Peter James.
us book, the Brightonve inspector became an
p ntings in his bid to track
s ious and ruthless criminals
r s orld.
teeped himself in the world
e gs, as he tackles the villains
g millions from selling the
i l ally.
chooses a topical subject
r s. This time, he moves from
o s.
s i estigation pits him against
t most sinister people he has
ered – people who will kill
h et in their way.
ers will be relieved to know
c s still accompanied by a loyal
es.
l a family man, on the rare
ets home, and the villains
l e
ed in international crime
’ a beguiling mix and
s
remains very much top
n ri
writers.

n li

White Rabbit, £35
Back in the 1980s, Crawley’s The Cure
cultivated a devoted fanbase among young
music lovers tired of Top of the Pops. This
labour of love, by Brighton-based music
journalist Simon Price, is a testament to
that devotion.
For Curepedia, he has undertaken a
granular level of research, exploring every
album and single release, inluence, side
project (including founder Robert Smith’s
tenure with Siouxsie and the Banshees)
and band member – even down to ‘Martin’
who once mimed keyboards with the band
on French television.
Sussex plays its part. It’s unlikely any
local tourist board will quote what Smith
has to say about his home town, but in
interviews the band do not deny Crawley’s
inluence on its music. And it turns out
66-year-old Rye isherman John Button
was the cover model for the band’s 1986
singles collection, Standing on a Beach.
Shot through with insight and irreverent
humour, Curepedia’s alphabetical essays
are designed to be dipped into, but are
perfect for both the casual fan and the
devotee to get lost in.
Duncan Hall

,
Bestselling Sussex
continues the B
series with this sevent
magician Max Mephisto
Superintendent Edgar Step
numerous colleagues and fa
Max is surprised when Te
The Great Deceiver), a fell
he hasn’t seen for years, s
asking for help because Ted’
just been found murdere
boarding house and he fears
prime suspect.
When a second magician’
killed, several other membe
time’ variety shows come u
Naturally, Edgar is
investigation, but his priv
wife and her partner are als
It takes all four of them, plu
Meg Connolly, to solve the pu
Set in 1966, in the boar
theatres of Brighton and Lon
read will help crime-lovers
of the winter blues.
Engaging characters a
enliven the tale. Just do t
too seriously.
Anne Hill

,
e

.

s
b
a

t
e‘ l

e
l

s

BOOKS

MY LIFE IN BOOKS
PHOTO:GEMMADAY

Ruth Ware
East Sussex-based
novelist Ruth Ware
is the international
bestselling author of
nine crime novels,
i nclud i ng
The
Woman in Cabin
10 and the Richard
& Judy pick, The It
Girl. Her new thriller,
Zero Days, is out now
(Simon & Schuster, £16.99)
The book I loved as a child
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M
Boston. I desperately wanted to live in a house
as haunted and magical as Green Knowe, but
had to make do with a two-up, two-down
terrace. Not quite so romantic.
The book that inspired me as
a teenager
Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were
None. It’s a masterclass in plotting and
probably set me up for a life in crime writing.
The book I’ve never inished
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I keep trying, but
the characters seem to have at least three
names. I get them hopelessly mixed up. Some
day I will make a spreadsheet and try it again.
The book that moved me most
I’m not a big crier but the ending of The Time
Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Nifenegger had
me sobbing on the bus.
The book I’m reading now
The List by Yomi Adegoke. It’s a thoughtprovoking ‘what if’ about social media and
internet justice. I’m fascinated to see how
it ends.

BOOK OF THE MONTH
THE SAFE HOUSE
by Cameron Ward
Penguin, £9.99
Chichester-based Australian author Cameron Ward
takes readers deep into the bushire-threatened outback
with this second thriller.
Craving solitude and peace after a deeply traumatic
experience, Aussie ex-police analyst Jess escapes
London to house-sit a luxury mansion in a remote
part of Victoria state. Barely three days in, the irst
78

March 2024

stranger turns up seeking refuge from the distant, but
fast-moving, bush ires.
Soon, Jess has seven uninvited guests, none of whom
seem to be quite who they claim.
As the ire nears and communications go down, a
death signals another danger closer to home and Jess
must choose who to trust. This tense, claustrophobic
thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat, but it’s
best avoided by the pyrophobic.
Anne Hill

Sussex Life

Sussex Life

March 2024

79

AN EYE

ON
THE

PAST

A monthly miscellany of Sussex history, anecdotes and folklore
COMPILED BY:

Chris Horlock

PHOTO:COURTESYOFTHEARGUSARCHIVE/BRIGHTONANDHOVESTUFF/ANDYGARTH

The remains of Dutch trading ship The Amsterdam, which ran aground near Hastings in the 18th century

SHIP WRECK AHOY
A Dutch trading ship, named The Amsterdam,
ran aground near Hastings, in January 1749
but still reveals itself intermittently during
extremely low spring tides 275 years later.
When it does, it attracts many visitors and
is much photographed.
The ship was on its third attempt at a
maiden voyage, which should have lasted
about eight months, travelling from the Dutch
island of Texel to Batavia, a settlement in the
East Indies, via the English Channel when it
got into trouble. It was a fraught trip to say
the least, where 50 of the crew died from
yellow fever and a mutiny broke out when the
80

March 2024

vessel encountered storms of Beachy Head
and the men demanded the voyage should
be abandoned. Then the rudder broke of,
meaning the ship lost steerage and ended up
stuck on a huge patch of quicksand at what is
now Bulverhythe Beach. Locals were quick
to make of with the more valuable cargo,
which was considerable, but the ship rapidly
sank, going down 25ft in just a few months,
coming to rest, all but buried.
Amazingly, the 157ft wreck wasn’t
discovered until 1969, with the upper part
virtually washed away, but about two-thirds
of the remaining timbers intact, preserved

remarkably well by the muddy clay and peat
the vessel lay in, a similar scenario to the
Mary Rose of Portsmouth.
Most of what was salvaged went on display
in Amsterdam’s Maritime Museum, where
today a full-sized replica of the ship is
anchored alongside. Some of the discoveries
are in the Shipwreck Museum, founded in
1986 by Peter Marsden in Hastings’ Old
Town. These include wine glasses, buttons,
pewter cups, and somewhat chillingly, the
leg bones of the ship’s 16-year-old cabin boy,
Adrian Wegevaren, discovered in the stern.
It’s believed he was killed in the mutiny.

Sussex Life

OLD SUSSEX
WORDS
We bring you a piece
of Sussex dialect from
Shaun Cooper, who helps
run Sussex Dialect and
Folklore Facebook Group
with Geofrey Fitch

‘as thick as
itchells’
This phrase was used to
describe a mass of small
things clustered together.
For example, if somebody
who had chickenpox had
lots of spots on their arms,
they would be described as
being as thick as itchells.
A lock of starlings in light
would be as thick as itchells.
Or a mass of weeds in the
garden might be as thick
as itchells. The phrase was
used in Sussex and Kent,
and variant spellings include
itchels or itchulls. Back in the
time when lax-making was a
cottage industry, the hackle
used to comb the lax was a
sort of small bat-like handle
which had lots of pins or
sharp bits of metal clustered
together on it and these were
known as itchells.
from A Dictionary of
the Sussex Dialect by
Helena Hall

The Duke of York’s Picturehouse on its 1910 opening day

THE LAST PICTURE HOUSE?
Which is the oldest cinema in Sussex? Several
vie for the honour, but the Duke of Yorks at
Brighton, seen here on its opening day in
1910, heads the list. It was owned by Violet
Melnotte, who named the building after the
London theatre in St Martin’s Lane, which
she and her husband built in 1892. A longlasting slogan of the cinema was: ‘Bring her
to the Duke’s – it is it for a Duchess.’ Today,
the cinema still operates with just a single
screen, with nearly 300 seats for patrons.
Not far behind is the Dome cinema in
Worthing, of 1911, which began life as a
health and entertainment venue, known
as the Kursaal (from the German, ‘cure
hall’). Run by a Swiss impresario, Carl Adolf
Seebold, ilms were shown in an ‘Electric
Theatre,’ housed in the building. At the
start of World War I, a number of Worthing

residents objected to the German name and
after a competition (the prize was £1!) the
building was renamed the Dome in 1915.
It operated fully as a cinema three years
later. Today it has three screens and 650
seats overall.
The Picture House at Uckield also dates
from the time of World War I, 1916, starting
originally an entertainment venue for
servicemen stationed in the area, when the
seating capacity was nearly 500.
In 1920, the irst public screenings took
place. Today, despite being small, it’s a triplescreen cinema, with a total of 360 seats.
All these cinemas would have started with
black and white, silent ilms, with music and
efects supplied by a small orchestra, organ
or just piano. Sound ilms wouldn’t arrive
until 1927.

NOT HAVING YOUR CAKE…

.

Sussex Life

ILLUSTRATION:CHRISHORLOCK

In 1797 a Cuckield lax-dresser agreed to
eat what was described as ‘a square foot
of plum pudding’ in a fortnight for a bet.
It weighed about 42lb, the equivalent of
a small sack of potatoes.
A week into the bet the man started
feeling somewhat bilious, so added
mustard and vinegar to the pudding to
make it taste less sweet. However, he was
comfortably getting through about 4lbs a
day, when for some inexplicable reason,
his jaws seized up and actually stopped
working, so he couldn’t inish what was
left. The bet was lost... a case of having
your cake and not eating it (or pudding
in this instance!).

Read more
Chris Horlock’s latest
book – Brighton History
Tour – is published this
month by Amberley. A
tour of the Old Town area,
with a map for guidance,
detailing its many historic
buildings and amenities.
Available from local
bookshops or online.

March 2024

81

Highlight
your
brand
To advertise your
business contact
the magazines
team today

greatbritishlife.co.uk/advertising

82

March 2024

Sussex Life

TAKE A BREAK

PUZZLE CORNER
CROSSWORD

SET BY:

Puzzler

When the grid is complete, rearrange the letters in the highlighted squares to spell
out the name of the people from whom the county’s name is derived

ACROSS

1 MasterChef copresenter (5,7)
8 Rene ___,
actress (5)
9 From old
Thailand (7)
10 Class for boxers
between 63.5-67kg (12)
12 Cumbrian town
south of Penrith (6)
14 City of northern
Italy (6)
17 Our archipelago (7,5)
21 Chemical element,
one of the transition
metals (7)
22 Mexican empire
before the Spanish
conquest (5)
23 Puccini opera based
on a novella by Antoine
Prévost (5,7)

DOWN

1 First name of late TV
chef Mr Rhodes (4)
2 Beverage made from
frozen grapes (7)

3 ___ Rider, 2007
superhero ilm starring
Nicolas Cage (5)
4 ___ Person
Singular, Alan
Ayckbourn play (6)
5 Colombian
cowboy (7)
6 Surname of Deputy
Prime Minister of the
UK from 2010-2015 (5)
7 Based on a written
source (7)
11 Decorative Japanese
lower discipline (7)
13 Emperor of Japan
1989-2019 (7)
15 Iphigenia's sister in
Greek mythology (7)
16 White crystalline
compound used as
a lavouring and
preservative (6)
18 Italian town near
San Marino (5)
19 Betelgeuse, KW
Sagittarii and KY
Cygni, for example (5)
20 Caledonian (4)

SUDOKU
Here’s how to solve our Sudoku puzzle.
Place a digit from 1 to 9 in each empty cell, so that each row,
column and 3x3 outlined box contains all the digits from 1 to 9.
Look out for the solution next month.

LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS:
HIDDEN WORD:
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR
Across: 1 Bar billiards, 8 Lanza,
9 Braille, 10 Sexagenarian, 12 Lusaka,
14 Walken, 17 Michelangelo,
21 Needles, 22 Umami,
23 Prince Edward.
Down: 1 Bale, 2 Rangers, 3 Ivana,
4 Lib Dem, 5 Atacama, 6 Dalai,
7 Tennant, 11 Fleming, 13 Kremlin,
15 Kolkata, 16 Maisie, 18 Clear,
19 Gould, 20 Kind..

Sussex Life

SUDOKU:

March 2024

83

LIFESTYLE
Find out how to make the most of your Sussex life
KAFFE FASSETT

BLOOMING BEAUTIFUL

Making quilts by
the Hastings sea

Use bulbs to create a stunning
garden big or small

PHOTO:NEILJONES

EASTER TREATS
The ultimate chocolate
egg cake

A DARK SKY FULL OF STARS
Explore a sky full of stars on a new Dark Sky guided walk in the
South Downs National Park while staying at The Beachcroft Hotel in
Felpham. The two-hour walk for up to 12 people is led by a qualiied
local guide with Pied A Terre Adventures. Walkers will learn about the
vast open skies, the natural history and geology of the West Sussex

Sussex Life

park, night-navigational skills and be taught to listen for nocturnal
wildlife. A one-night Beachcroft Dark Sky stay for two people with
breakfast, a ish and chips dinner, and a Dark Sky Walk, staying in a
seaview room is £125pp or £225pp in a beach hut or the penthouse.
beachcroft-hotel.co.uk/special-breaks

March 2024

85

EASTER EATS
With taste and table appeal, these enticing
Easter recipes are sure to be crowd-pleasers
COMPILED BY:

86

March 2024

Kelly Rose Bradford

Sussex Life

RECIPES

Italian stufed bread
with baked eggs (serves 10-12)
This lavoursome bread makes the perfect starter or accompaniment.

INGREDIENTS
180ml warm water
28g active dry yeast
1tbsp sugar
180ml milk
80ml olive oil
1tbsp sea salt
500g bread lour, plus more for dusting
1 large egg
1tsp water
4 eggs

Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a large baking
sheet with parchment paper. Make an egg wash by
whisking the egg and 1tsp of water, and prepare a
large square of parchment to shape the bread on.
Lightly lour a work surface, turn out the proved
dough and cut it into three equal pieces. Use a
lightly loured rolling pin to roll out the irst piece
to a 12in/30cm square and 3mm in thickness.
Use a spatula to scoop a third of the pesto
onto the dough and spread evenly, leaving a
border uncovered on the edge closest to you.

For the pesto:
Leaves and soft stems from 85g watercress,
roughly chopped
5 cloves garlic, peeled and grated
150g grated parmesan or other hard cheese
Zest of one lemon
55g pine nuts, toasted
120ml extra virgin olive oil

Brush the exposed border with egg wash, then
roll the dough into a tube from the furthest edge
towards you as tightly as you can, then pinch seam
closed with your ingertips. Gently roll the tube back
and forth over the work surface until it spreads
lengthwise to about 20in/50cm long. Cover with
cling ilm. Repeat with remaining dough and pesto.

METHOD

Line up the tubes on parchment paper and
make a lengthways slash in each roll, cutting a
deep slit halfway down the depth of the tube,
taking care not to cut all the way through.

In the bowl of a stand mixer itted with a
paddle attachment, combine the warm water,
yeast and sugar. Mix at a low speed until just
combined (about 30 seconds). Leave to stand
for ive minutes or until the mixture is frothy.
Heat the milk in a saucepan over a mediumlow heat until tiny bubbles form at the
edge of the pan. Do not allow to boil. Set
aside and cool to room temperature.
Once cooled, add to the mixer along with the
olive oil and salt. Mix at a low speed until just
combined. Add the lour a quarter at a time, mixing
after each addition on a medium-low speed.
Change the paddle attachment over to the
hook, ensuring any dough is scraped off, and
put back into the bowl. Mix on low speed for
one minute, then increase speed to
medium for ive to six minutes, or until
the dough is smooth and elastic.
Lightly oil a large mixing bowl and place the
dough inside. Lightly oil a piece of clingilm, and
cover the dough, oiled side down. Cover this with a
cloth and put in a warm place to prove for around
one hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.
Make the pesto by adding the watercress,
garlic, cheese, lemon zest and pine nuts to
a processor. Pulse until puréed, then blend
continuously while adding the olive oil. Scrape
down the sides and blend for another 30 seconds
to make sure everything is combined.

Sussex Life

Roughly measure the centre point of the tubes and
working towards you from the centre, plait the tubes
by crossing one of the outer tubes gently over the
middle one, then cross the other outer tube up and
over the new middle one. Repeat, working your way
down to the end so that half the tube is braided.
Then turn the parchment around and plait the other
side from the centre to the end. Carefully join up
the ends so that the plaited dough forms a ring.
Pinch irmly together to complete the circle. Use
the parchment paper the dough is resting on
to transfer the whole thing to your lined baking tray.
Make four equally spaced dents for the eggs
in between the strips of the plait. Gently
position the eggs one by one, pressing down
carefully to avoid breaking them. Lightly
oil a piece of cling ilm to cover the bread.
Allow to prove for around 30 minutes.
Uncover and brush with the remainder of the
egg wash. Place in the centre of the oven and
bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven
temperature to 180°C and bake for an additional
45 minutes, or until the bread is a warm brown
and sounds hollow if you tap the bottom.
Remove from the oven, cool for 10 minutes on the
baking tray, then transfer to a cooling rack and allow
to come down to room temperature before serving.
Recipe courtesy of watercress.co.uk

March 2024

87

Maple lamb pie (serves four)
This rich pie is a tasty alternative to roast lamb.

88

INGREDIENTS

METHOD

3tbsp olive oil
500g diced lamb
1 red onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
500g potatoes, peeled, cubed
2 carrots, peeled, sliced
2tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 glass of red wine
3tbsp pure maple syrup (preferably
dark syrup for its robust taste)
3tbsp tomato paste
4tbsp gravy powder
1 cube of beef stock
1 litre water
2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper
2tbsp cornlour
2tbsp cold water
1 puff pastry sheet, ready rolled
1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

March 2024

Grease a 4cm to 5cm deep,
20cm (base) pie dish.
For the illing, heat 1tbsp oil in a
large saucepan over medium-high
heat, add the lamb and cook, stirring
occasionally, for ive minutes or
until browned. Transfer to a plate.

Add the wine, maple syrup, tomato
paste and gravy powder.
Return the lamb to pan then add the
stock cube, water and Worcestershire
sauce. Increase heat to high. Bring
to the boil then reduce to a simmer,
cover, and stir occasionally for two
hours or until the lamb is tender.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Heat the remaining 2tbsp of oil in
a pan over medium-high heat.

Combine the cornlour and 2tbsp of cold
water. Add to the mixture. Simmer for
one minute. Remove from heat and cool.

Add the chopped onion and garlic.
Cook for three minutes or until soft.

Pour the lamb mixture into the dish and
place the puff pastry sheet on the top.

Add the chopped potatoes,
carrots, rosemary and thyme.
Cook for ive minutes or
until browned.

Brush the pastry with the beaten egg,
then bake for 20 minutes.
Recipe courtesy of:
maplefromcanada.co.uk

Sussex Life

RECIPES

Easter chocolate nest cake
The perfect centrepiece for your Easter table.

INGREDIENTS

METHOD

For the cake

Grease and line a 20cm
loose-bottomed cake tin with
baking parchment. Preheat
your oven to 180°C.

100g unsalted butter
275g Tate & Lyle light brown sugar
2 eggs
175g plain lour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
200ml full-fat milk
50g cocoa powder

For the icing
25g cocoa powder
5tbsp boiling water
175g unsalted butter, softened
at room temperature
300g Tate & Lyle icing sugar
6 Cadbury Flakes
3 Cadbury Creme Eggs
A handful of Cadbury Mini Eggs

Sussex Life

Cream the butter and sugar until
soft, then beat in the eggs.
Mix the lour, baking powder
and bicarbonate of soda
in a separate bowl.
Mix the milk and cocoa powder
together, whisking as best as
possible. The cocoa powder will
likely create a ilm and sit on
top of the milk, but that’s ine.
Sift the lour mixture into the wet
ingredients, then add the milky
cocoa in. Using a rubber spatula,
fold all the ingredients together

until you get a smooth batter,
then spoon into the prepared
tin. Bake for approximately
one hour until a skewer inserted
into the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave
to cool for 10 minutes in the tin,
before turning out onto a wire rack.
To make the chocolate fudge
icing, mix the cocoa powder
with the boiling water to
make a smooth paste.
Cream the butter to soften it, then
sift in the icing sugar, beating until
light, well combined and smooth.
Add the cocoa paste, scraping
down the sides of the bowl to
ensure everything is incorporated.
Whisk until uniform in colour
and smooth enough to spread.

Once the cake has cooled
completely, use a sharp serrated
knife to slice it widthways in half.
Turn half upside-down so you
have the smooth bottom on top,
and the crumby inside facing
downwards on your cake plate
or stand. Add about a third of
the frosting to the bottom half,
spreading well to the edges.
Top with the second half and
spread the remaining buttercream
over the top and sides.
Break up the chocolate lakes
and scatter over the top of the
cake, pressing lightly into the
buttercream. Add the mini eggs
and Creme eggs.
Recipe courtesy of:
wearetateandlylesugars.com

.

March 2024

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90

March 2024

Sussex Life

TRAVEL

A place for

rest & relaxation
This Austrian medical health resort is loved by
everyone from celebrities to students, thanks to its
innovative health and wellbeing programme
WORDS:

his is how it must feel to be back
in the comforting, nurturing
environment of the womb. I had
stepped down into a warm water
indoor pool to loat into the arms of Ursula,
a strong and caring lady, and discover the
soothing pleasures of watsu, a form of
Japanese shiatsu (massage). Ursula gently
cradled me in her arms, my head nestling
snugly on her shoulders, before moving me
across the water while gently stretching
and massaging me. An extraordinarily
pleasurable treatment, one of the most
intimate and unusual I’ve ever experienced.
It took place during my stay at the worldrenowned Mayrlife medical health resort in
Austria, on the shores of Lake Altaussee. This
beautiful clear stretch of water – which is so
pure that it is served in the clinic’s restaurant
– is surrounded by breathtaking mountains
and a glacier.
It’s a stunning setting in which to relax
and take the ‘Mayr Cure’, the programme
which teaches that the key to our health and
wellbeing starts in our guts.
The ethos of Mayrlife is driven by the
legacy of Dr Franz Xaver Mayr, an Austrian
who opened his irst clinic in the spa resort
of Karlovy Vary in Czechoslovakia in 1906.
His pioneering work and research helped him
to understand the vital importance of good
nutrition in developing a sound digestive
system. Dr Mayr’s principles for a healthy life
endure, but over the years the organisation
that takes his name has adapted them for
a modern age and continues to improve
diagnoses and develop even better treatments
to enable its guests to lead healthier lives. It’s

Eileen Wise PHOTOS: Mayrlife

T

Sussex Life

a stunning setting and as Mayrlife’s chief
executive Dr Dieter Resch told me: ‘The
beauty of our surroundings is so important
to our guests and are as important as our
treatments and regime – we want people to
unwind, relax and enjoy the natural beauty
of nature.’
I stayed at Mayrlife for one week and was
put on their detox programme. It wasn’t
as bad as it sounds as we were allowed to
eat some delicious food for breakfast and
lunch, albeit in small portions; dinner

above: The world-renowned
Mayrlife medical health resort is
on the shores of Lake Altaussee
far left: Mayrlife is a stunning
setting in which to relax and
take the ‘Mayr Cure’ their health
and wellbeing programme

>
March 2024

91

LA LABEL (RIGHT)

however did consist only of vegetable broth.
Thankfully the broth was also on ofer all day,
which was vital because, other than that, all
that was on the menu was still water.
I was surprised how quickly I adapted to
such a limited diet. I also underwent tests
to ind out what food intolerances I might
have that were afecting my gut and overall
health – and discovered I was intolerant to
eggs, tomatoes and gluten, the latter two a
great surprise to me.
Guests are assigned a personal doctor for
the week and mine, a lovely lady called Ingrid,
was a delight to work with – gentle, calm,
reassuring and always cheerful.
Each day she gave my tummy a massage
to determine how things were developing
with my digestion. She advised me on the
basic principles of exercise and a healthy
diet, urging me to eat smaller portions and
to chew very slowly, as much as 40 times per
mouthful – tough for a hasty eater who loves
her food. All the while she instilled in me
the resort’s mantra of the digestive system:
Detoxiication and regeneration.
I took advantage of 7am classes in yoga and
Pilates, but my favourite exercise activities
were swimming in the crystal-clear lake,
and taking the long 4.5km walk around it,
enjoying the beautiful forest, lowers and
fauna, and its abundant bird life.
I relished the chance to read proliically,
and also enjoyed the company of the resident
house cat!
During my stay I had a range of diferent
treatments – most of them pleasant, some
not so. The former included a delightful 50minute detox massage which was deep and
strong but left me feeling relaxed and full
of energy. The hilarious experience of ariel
yoga – yoga movements and poses performed
in a hammock hanging down from the ceiling
was something in which I didn’t excel, but
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March 2024

it did make me laugh! I enjoyed regular
electrolysis footbaths, and a couple of times
I had nasal relex therapy which consisted of
having deliciously scented cotton buds stuck
up my nose. Not a great experience but my
breathing did seem clearer afterwards.
The Mayr attracts many high-proile
people – you could quite easily bump into
politicians, captains of industry, an oligarch
or two, and according to media reports quite
a few Hollywood actors and the likes of Kate
Moss and Elizabeth Hurley are apparently
return visitors.
All are attracted to the discreet atmosphere
of the place – where they are looked after
just like anyone else and left alone to relax
and unwind.
Guests come from all over the world. I had
some really interesting chats with a couple
of students, couples there to support each
other in their eforts, a father and son who

only lived a short drive away from me back
home, a retired hedge inancier from Dallas,
and a fashion photographer and his mother.
Now that I am back home I am trying
hard to keep to the regime, and although
I ind myself rushing my food and forgetting
my chewing I pull myself up pretty quickly.
On the weight front I have lost a couple
more pounds in addition to the 4.5lb I lost
after my stay, which I put down to everything
I learned at Mayrlife and my determination
to make some of the healthy lifestyle changes
Dr Ingrid suggested.
Whether you want to relax, lose weight,
de-stress, recover after an illness or merely
rest, you would be hard-pressed to ind
somewhere more special than this magical
place on a glittering lake amid the beautiful
Austrian mountains.
For more information visit:
mayrlife.com

.

top: The warm-water indoor

pool has spectacular views
above: Food may be limited on the
programme, but is delicious
left: Eileen’s favourite exercise activities

were swimming in the crystal-clear lake,
and taking the 4.5km walk around it

Sussex Life

TRAVEL NEWS
From the famous tulips in Amsterdam to a luxurious Arabian beachfront
hotel in Ras Al Khaima, there is plenty to see and do now spring is here

PHOTO:MARKMEDIANA

PHOTO:ASHDOWNPARK

HEIGHT OF LUXURY

Paws for a cause
cause: transforming Lives with Hearing Dogs
overnight stay during February for bookings
until December 31.
The three-course dinner, bed and breakfast
package – which you can share with your
furry companions – is from £280 per
room per night at The Grand or from £388
at Ashdown Park Hotel. Elite Hotels will
not only match the £5 package donation
by the guest but will double it to £10 per
reservation, making a total donation of £15
per reservation. Guests can also add a £5
donation on all online overnight bookings.
elitehotels.co.uk

FLOWER POWER

PHOTO:GETTY

Tiptoe – and cruise – through the tulips on a luxury
Scenic cruise of The Netherlands and Belgium that takes
in windmills, sleepy towns and canal houses. The eightday tour starts and ends in Amsterdam, cruises through
Veere and Hoorn and explores Antwerp. The highlight is
the world-famous tulips laid out in patterns and rows at
Keukenhof Gardens. The Windmills, Tulips and Belgian
Delights itinerary, on April 17 or 24, starts from £2,175pp
including return business class lights. scenic.co.uk

Sussex Life

PHOTO:ANTONIOBUSIELLO

Guests staying at Elite Hotels can now
help those with hearing diiculties after
The Grand, in Eastbourne, and Ashdown
Park Hotel and Country Club, in the heart
of Ashdown Forest, have collaborated with
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
The charity trains dogs to transform the
lives of those with hearing diiculties by
alerting them to important and life-saving
sounds such as an alarm clock, smoke alarm,
or even a baby’s cry.
Guests can give back with an invisible
doggy-themed £5 Gift Aid side dish of
Pawtatoes or donate with the Paws for a

Normally the preserve of families
wanting fun in the sun, a new range
of signature suites has been launched
for the discerning traveller to
Florida. The Tower Suite Collection
at The Boca Raton, the iconic resort
and private club in Palm Beach
County, north of Miami, combines
contemporary coastal design with a
luxurious ‘at home’ vibe. Guests also
gain entry to the Top of the Tower – a
private lounge on the 27th loor with
ocean and Intracoastal views. From
$2,150 per room, per night.
thebocaraton.com/towersuite-collection

ARABIAN ADVENTURE
The Waldorf Astoria has reopened its
doors in Ras Al Khaima after a multimillion dollar transformation. The
resort has unveiled 149 guest rooms
and 54 suites with breathtaking
views along with the Middle Eastern
resort’s golden masterpiece, the sixmetre clock in the heart of the lobby.
Relecting the rich history of grand
clocks at Waldorf Astoria properties
around the world, it features a domed
glass dial with a striking aquamarine
centre. The clock also has rotating
prayer rings for precise prayer times
and an ancient Bedouin inscription.
waldorfastoria.com

March 2024

93

Les Roses vintage print,
from £13.50, inkanddrop.com

Boxed ‘mum’ greeting card with earrings,
£15.95, crumbleandcore.com

Geranium & Camomile Delicate Moisturiser,
£18.95, shaloahskincare.co.uk

Bergamot and Honeysuckle Hand
Care Kit, £33, arran.com

Poppies High Summer cushion,
from £27.99, perkinsandmorley.com

Mismatche
ed lower stud earrings,
£65, screampretty.com

MUST
HAVES
Say it with lowers this Mother’s Day
with our pick of the loral crop
COMPILED BY:

Kelly Rose Bradford

Half-leather journal,
£27.50, penheaven.co.uk

Daisy kimono,
£68, onehundredstars.co.uk

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March 2024

Russet auricula jug,
from £29.95, annabeljames.co.uk

Flower headband,
£59, queenmee.com

Sussex Life

SHOPPING

Midsummer slim make-up bag/pouch, £22, jenniefynn.com

Kew Gardens wild loral oven glove,
£22, puretabletop.com

Stately Bouquet scented candle,
£52, libertylondon.com

Jonquil daffodil plate set,
from £45, reimaginedbyannastark.com

Flower writing paper gift box,
£17.50, makingmeadows.co.uk

Gardening apron,
£32.99, perkinsandmorley.com

Mini faux lavender plant,
£10, pagazzi.com

Gertrude’s Garden silk scarf, £120, roryhutton.co.uk

Sussex Life

Laura Ashley duvet set,
£65, next.co.uk/laura-ashley

March 2024

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March 2024

Sussex Life

FASHION

SHADES
of spring
Get ready for brighter days with an array of
fresh neutrals and subtle pops of colour
COMPILED BY:

Beth Windsor

3
2
1

5

6
4

Main image: Margaret midi dress, £129, barbour.com 1. Dazzling cardigan, £3,995, shop.brunellocucinelli.com
2. Spring Gardens hand-beaded bag, £65, joebrowns.co.uk 3. The Hemley fedora in cream, £79, hicksandbrown.com
4. White Greta trousers, £950, connollyengland.com 5. Fakenham shirt in pale pink, £79.95, schoffelcountry.com
6. The Finchley trainer in white leather, £145, fairfaxandfavor.com

Sussex Life

March 2024

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March 2024

Sussex Life

PHOTO:SOFIAZHURAVETS/ISTOCK/GETTYIMAGES

WORDS:

1. For when your hair needs a little more TLC,
the K18 Biomimetic Hairscience Leave-In
Molecular Repair Hair Mask (15ml), reverses
damage caused by colour and bleach, chemical
processing, heat, and mechanical styling.
£27, justmylook.com
2. Made with natural ingredients, alott creates
products that are not only good for your hair
but are also better for our planet too. Their
Moisturising Shampoo Bar and Nourishing
Conditioner Bar, help protect and rehydrate
your locks. They also commit one per cent of
their sales to 1% for the Planet too. Shampoo
bar, £14, conditioner bar £16, alott.co

2

1

3. Award-winning and a cult-favourite, Bond
Builder Split End Remedy, helps protect and
strengthen existing bonds in your hair and
repair broken ones, while instantly sealing
split ends for a stronger, visibly healthier mane.
£27, phillipkingsley.co.uk
4. A styling hero, O&M Project Sukuroi,
delivers a silky smooth inish to hair in need
of repair, while the keratin strengthens it. Your
locks will thank you.
£38, sbs-hair.com
5. For healthy hair, it’s important to also look
after your scalp. The Clarifying Scalp Scrub
and the Nourish and Stimulate Scalp Mask,
work hand-in-hand to rejuvenate your scalp and
prime it for healthier hair growth.
Scrub, £48, mask £53, monpure.com

5
4

.

Sussex Life

March 2024

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March 2024

Sussex Life

A picture paints

a thousand
words
As we celebrate International Women’s Day on
March 8, we discover what young women want to
show the world through creative, visual storytelling
WORDS:

102

March 2024

Kelly Rose Bradford

he Girls’ Schools Association’s 2023
photography competition, with
the theme ‘Now You Know’, was
an invitation for girls to show the
world what they wished others knew about
their life in just one photo.
Head judge Ed Kirwan is a photographer
and ilmmaker, and also the founder of
Empathy Week (empathy-week.com) a global
schools programme which uses photography
and ilmmaking to teach young people the
power of empathy.
Ed says he feels the theme of the competition
really gave the girls the opportunity to
open up and share their thoughts and
vulnerabilities through their submissions.
‘It gave the young women permission to
express whatever they wanted. For them to be
able to say: “I want to show you this” and that
it is potentially going to be something you
have no idea about,’ he says, continuing that
as they sifted through the hundreds of entries,
he and his fellow judges often couldn’t guess
the age group of the girls from their photos.
‘Even the youngest students were so good,’ he

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Sussex Life

EDUCATION

SOFIA, 10

SHAGUN, EIGHT

Headington School

Northwood College for Girls GDST

Disabilities are not limitless

I will ly

Now you know... I have an older sister with a
disability. She gives me joy when she is riding
her horse. Emilia doesn’t speak and only walked
when she was seven years old and still needs
her wheelchair for long-distance walking. She
has taught me you can do anything in life.

Now you know... I will ly, to ly is my passion.
I will ly, to be a pilot is my dream.
I will ly around the world.
I will ly across the seven seas.
I will ly through many sunsets and sunrises.
I will ly through luffy clouds and the blue sky.
I will ly through the starry night in the
moon light.
No rain, no thunder, no storm can stop
me lying.

ANNA, 15

St Francis’ College
Between two worlds
Now you know... Who I am, but do I
know who am I?

says. ‘Not just the pictures themselves, but
also how they captioned them.’
Ed was particularly impressed that so
many girls not only chose to engage with the
project, but decided in many cases to produce
work that gave a very personal insight into
their lives. ‘That they were brave enough
to do it and put themselves out there was
incredible,’ he says. ‘In doing so, they risked
a little bit of their vulnerability by opening
up their world to other people.’
‘So many of the pictures were not just
straightforward images of their families or
their hobbies – things that people already
knew about them, but photos that went
beyond the surface to really show “now
you know that I’ve struggled”, or “now you
know why I love doing this”. And it is very
powerful when you are a young person to
share those things.’
The judges found each piece of work to be
entirely individual, bringing its own story
and emotion. ‘Some of them were comedic,
some of them were very sad,’ he says. ‘Many of
them were extremely moving, and a large part

Sussex Life

of that was down to the written contribution
that went with them.’
One image that Ed says particularly
stuck with him was 10-year-old Headington
School pupil Soia’s, titled: Now you know...
disabilities are not limitless.

‘The theme of the
competition gave
the girls the
opportunity to share
their thoughts
and vulnerabilities’
Her horse-riding shot of her older sister
Emilia, who has a disability, was, he explains,
very poignant. ‘The picture was great, and
how she described what her sister meant to
her in the caption was just so moving. It was
such a strong and powerful combination.’
And although technical skills, or having

access to high-end equipment, was not a
consideration in the judging the process, the
panel was impressed by the entrant who
mentioned in her captions how much she
enjoyed working with double exposure and
demonstrated it in her entry.
‘One of the entrants in the eight to 11 age
group talked about how she really enjoyed
photography and using diferent techniques.
Her entry showed me she really thought about
the composition as well as the style, and the
emotion of it, too,’ says Ed.
Indeed, when it came to judging the
entries, it was the story it told that the panel
– which was made up of photographer and
visual artist Rich McCor, content creator
Jade Beason, and ilm-maker Daisy Gaston
– rather than what it was shot with that
was important.
‘It really didn’t matter what camera you
had,’ Ed explains. ‘We were not looking for
how high the resolution was but: “What’s
the story? Can you tell it with your picture?”’
And by telling those stories, Ed hopes that
the girls feel empowered by the work they >
March 2024

103

EDUCATION

‘This
competition
was an
opportunity for
young women
to feel seen,
heard and
understood’

FAATIMAH, 14

Withington Girls’ School
Through the gate

MIA, NINE
Northwood College for Girls GDST
created, and more conident in sharing their
thoughts and letting others know what is
important to them at this life stage.
‘This competition was an opportunity
for young women to feel seen, heard and
understood. And that’s exactly what it
achieved,’ he says.
‘But it was just that – an opportunity. The
girls didn’t have to take it, and there was
no pressure to enter, but hundreds of girls
did take it. And that’s what we need to do
more of in education; create opportunities
for young people to express themselves in
diferent ways.
‘And even for those who didn’t submit an
entry, the competition was still a way to
include everyone because they would have
learned a little bit more about their fellow
pupils, and perhaps would have been left
feeling that they could put themselves out
there and try new things too.’
Ed also believes the competition was a
brilliant opportunity for teachers to see the
work and creative talents of girls from schools
other than their own, and celebrate them too.
‘And I really don’t think there’s anything
better than that, is there?’ he says.
‘Celebrating the work of others.’

The best of two in one
Now you know... I love my culture. I am Nigerian
and Indian which makes me Nigidian and
I love photography.

Now you know... My relationship
with my religion always gives
a warm and pleasant feeling,
refreshing my thoughts and letting
me lay content, so I appreciate
going to see Islamic historic
places, such as the one in the
photo, known as The Haram Sharif.
Going to these places gives me
a sense of euphoria, and I will
forever treasure that feeling.

.

AARYA, 13

GOOD TO KNOW
With ‘inclusivity’ the theme of International
Women’s Day 2024, we’ve chosen entries from
the GSA competition that really sum that up;
from challenging stereotypes, to breaking down
barriers, and championing other young women.
To see all the short- and long-listed entries
and winners visit the Girls’ Schools Association
website: gsa.uk.com

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March 2024

Withington Girls’ School
They’re always here
Now you know... Sisters are
always here no matter what,
they have your back, every step
of the way. They have all the best
advice, and only want the best
for you. Love them now, even
when you have a ight, love them
before it’s too late.

FLORRIE, 11

Wakeield Girls’ High School
The night light
Now you know... We’re better together. I’ve
found that to make friends and to see everyone
come together despite their differences is a
sight worth seeing.

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March 2024

105

JANE TOWNSON OBE
CEO of the Homecare Association, who has extensive experience
in the social care, health, housing and technology sectors

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March 2024

PHOTO: DAISY-DAISY/GETTYIMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

A

dmission to hospital can be
diicult, especially for frail older
people. Wards are noisy and it’s
hard to sleep. Being stuck in
bed in an unfamiliar environment for long
periods can lead to a loss of physical ability,
privacy, and conidence. There’s also a risk
of developing hospital-acquired infections.
Evidence suggests that hospitalisation
can lead to worse outcomes for this group,
including higher mortality, readmissions,
and loss of independence compared to the
general population.
Hospital at Home, where specialist medical
teams provide hospital-level medical care
in the comfort of a person’s own home, is
gaining traction in the UK as an innovative
model of care. So how does it work?
Specialist teams of doctors, nurses and
allied health professionals treat people
24/7 at home, instead of in hospital, and
typically refer to the home as a virtual
ward. Medications, therapies, intravenous
treatments and patient monitoring
continue round-the-clock under medical
supervision. This includes urgent access to
hospital-level diagnostics and interventions,
such as endoscopy, radiology, cardiology,
point-of-care blood tests, and ultrasound.
Technology solutions play an increasingly
important role in enabling efective and safe
Hospital at Home services. For example,
clinicians track each patient’s progress by
checking readings such as oxygen saturation,
blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate,
via remote monitoring devices. Abnormal
results trigger early interventions. Video
consultation links between home patients
and medical specialists augment in-person
visits. They can also share photos of wounds
for virtual evaluation. Home patients may
use automated pill dispensers, tracking
apps or video-observed therapy to improve
adherence to treatment regimens when not
under direct supervision. Ideally, software
platforms tie together patient health data
from the Hospital at Home team with primary
care doctors and inpatient records into one
view, to enable continuity of care and uphold
safety and quality standards.
It is important to clarify what Hospital
at Home is not. Hospital at Home is
not outpatient care; enhanced primary
care; intermediate care; chronic disease
management; admission prevention; solely
virtual care or remote health monitoring;
community nursing or standard skilled home
healthcare. It is an acute clinical service
that takes staf, equipment, technologies,
medication, and skills usually provided in

Virtual wards
hospitals and delivers that hospital care
to selected people in their homes or in
care homes.
In October 2023, NHS England announced
that local NHS teams have now introduced
10,421 virtual ward beds for patients who
can get expert treatment for illnesses such
as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD), heart failure, or frailty conditions
at home. More than 240,000 patients
have now received treatment on virtual
wards. Stays can last from 24 hours to a
fortnight, depending on illness severity and
recovery progress.
The results so far show similar or faster
recovery and several wellbeing beneits
compared with inpatient stays. To date,
evidence suggests there is no compromise in
the level of medical care. Patients report lower
stress levels plus improved diet and sleep
quality by avoiding hospital environments.
For those more vulnerable to infections, it
also reduces exposure to nasty superbugs.
With NHS capacities currently stretched
to their limits, Hospital at Home has more
appeal. Not only does it free precious hospital
beds, but provides care at a reported lower
cost than conventional admission.
Patients best suited to Hospital at Home
services typically meet the following criteria:
1. Their condition is stable enough to
be safely and efectively managed at
home, with no complex co-morbidities

or risk factors. This includes many acute
infections, COPD exacerbations, cellulitis,
deep vein thrombosis etc. Unstable
cardiac or surgical cases are less suitable.
2. Require hospital-level treatment but
not intensive monitoring. Hospital at
Home doesn’t replace critical or highdependency care, but can mirror general
wards. If a person may need complex
equipment or emergency intervention,
hospital admission may be more suitable.
3. Social support networks are available
at home. Caregivers or relatives should be
available to assist with certain activities,
like medications. Information about
virtual wards is available for family carers.
4. Living relatively near the hospital base.
Though lexibility is a beneit, Hospital
at Home teams still need to conduct
in-person visits one to two times per
day. Hospitals need adequate staing
and eicient roster planning for this
model to remain afordable. Proximity to
emergency facilities also provides backup.
In the right circumstances, Hospital
at Home can beneit both patients and
healthcare providers. Patient selection is
key. When applied correctly, Hospital at
Home represents an innovative new care
model, which can lead to better experiences
and outcomes for people compared with
conventional hospital stays.
homecareassociation.org.uk

.

Sussex Life

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PROMOTION

650 WORDS | DPS

COFFEE AND
FINE DINING
Nadine Bezros successfully grew her
humble coffee shop into a Michelin star
restaurant focused on healthy eating
Make a list compiling
all the things you
need to store, use
and include in
your office space.
This could include
components such as
printers, telephones and file storage.
If you use various screens, then make
sure to choose a desk that has space
for your cables and ample room for
you to spread your monitors out.
Starting with the essentials, like a
comfortable desk such as the ‘Corridor
6521’ and a matching ergonomic
chair from the BDI range, will help you
bring the space together.We can offer
recommendations to help you design
the perfect office.
Your home office should promote
efficiency and productivity by
integrating technology into the
furniture design.
Maybe you dislike sitting down all
day and prefe
e the fl
flex
x bility to mov
ve
around. We offer standing desks
such as the ‘Stance 6650’, ‘Sequel 20’
and ‘Centro 6452’ models which are
electrically adjustable with position

COFFEE WITH CONSCIENCE
You can choose from a range of
innovatively designed furniture that’s
tailored to your tastes whilst fulfilling
your practical needs. To help you find
only the best home office furniture,
BDI offers a range of designed,
luxury home office products that
stand out for their ease of access,
cable management, ventilation and
manoeuvrability.
A quality workspace creates a quality
work ethic – designing a dedicated
home office space is important for
creating a happy working environment,
so it’s worth the investment. To excel
and perform to your usual office
standard, you need to equip yourself
with reliable furniture that is enjoyable
to use.
Most BDI products come already
assembled, saving you time, effort and
stress. BDI furniture is durable and
Your home office should be
so
omew
w erre yo fe
eel comforrtab
ble a d
relaxed. People tend to work better
when they enjoy the environment
that they’re in – so think about your
preferred colours, aesthetic and style.

We provide a broad selection of
modern and contemporary furniture,
across the different ranges, with a
choice of colours to ensure you have a
cohesive style and theme throughout
your interior decor.
It’s important to consider your
storage requirements to help you keep
your desk clear and your office tidy.
Perhaps consider having matching
mobile filing cabinets from the
Cascadia ranges which provide greater
flexibility.
FOUGHT FOR FOOD
For a fully functioning and effective
working space, everything needs to
have its place to ensure you remain
organised. Component systems are
an ideal solution for this, allowing you
to combine work surfaces, file storage
and supply cabinets to customise your
office needs.

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March 2024

We offer an advice service from
our experienced team of BDI experts
to help you design the perfect office
space and organise delivery.
NOT EVERYONE’S A CRITIC
We offer an advice service from our
experienced team of BDI experts to
help you design the perfect office
space and organise specialised
delivery. Make a list compiling all the
things you need to store, use and
include in your office space.
For a fully functioning and effective
working space, everything needs to
have its place to ensure you remain
organised. Component systems are
an ideal solution for this, allowing you
to combine work surfaces, file storage
and supply cabinets to customise your
office needs.
This could include components
such as printers, telephones and file

storage. If you use various screens,
then make sure to choose a desk that
has space for your cables and ample
room for you to spread your monitors.
Starting with the essentials, like a
comfortable desk such as the ‘Corridor
6521’ and a matching ergonomic
chair from the BDI range, will help you
bring the space together.We can offer
recommendations to help you design
the perfect office.
Your home office should promote
efficiency and productivity by
integrating technology into the
furniture design. Your home office
should promote efficiency and
productivity by integrating.
It’s important to consider your
storage requirements to help you keep
your desk clear and your office tidy.
Perhaps consider having matching. n
website.com

Sussex Life

Kitchen

MAGIC
A new kitchen stays with you for a long
time, so be sure to make decisions you
can live with and love forever
COMPILED BY:

Kate Houghton

POOCH WASH
As a nation of dog-owners, it seems incredible that
this clever dog shower wasn’t designed earlier, but
luckily one mum to many hounds inally brought
a clever idea to fruition, saving countless loors
from muddy paw prints and grubby pooches
– especially those who run a little close to
the ground.
Dog shower, POA,
incredibledogshower.co.uk

IF WISHES CAME TRUE...
Wish you’d added an island when you had your kitchen itted? Here’s a clever
solution – add a freestanding one, and a mobile one to boot, so you can shift it to
the most convenient spot – whether you’re cooking or entertaining.
Zinc-top kitchen island, £1,300,
peppermillinteriors.com
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March 2024

Sussex Life

INTERIORS

sm l
ne
ar

s
e

rming
r

e
e
tf lly
e s d fen e ce nt
r.co.

COME DINE WITH US
Now we all know the joy of the modern dining kitchen,
but how do we make it work in more restrictive spaces?
Benches that slide neatly under a table keeps the space
neat, and its more diners for supper. Simple.
Gosforth long dining table and benches,
£1,035, funky-chunky-furniture.co.uk

TOP RATED
Wooden chopping boards are more hygienic
than plastic, being inherently antibacterial,
and when they’re this attractive, why not
advertise your hygiene rating, rather than
hiding them away? Having your boards on
display is also very much on trend right now,
too, which is handy.
Wooden chopping board with female
igure design, £40, craft-with-memolly-bee.myshopify.com
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March 2024

MIX IT UP
Going colour-conident in your kitchen has become something of a trend, with paint
options stepping well away from the creams and greys and into whatever makes you
happy. We love this bold, colour-blocked kitchen, in shades of emerald and pistachio,
in a traditional farmhouse style.
Ashton kitchen, from £10,000, crown-imperial.co.uk

Sussex Life

INTERIORS

GO FOR GOLD
We rather love this combination of green and gold, but the
real win here is the solid splashback meaning no tiles to
clean (or that pesky grout). Using a metallic splashback
provides pops of light even on a dull day, and makes the
space really rather special.
Ladbroke kitchen, POA, nakedkitchens.com

DO IT ALL
If you’re going to update your kitchen,
you absolutely need to update all the
necessary extras too – and what
better way than with new latware
that’s bang on trend? How pretty.
Bobble collection, from £8,
puretabletop.com

IN THE PINK
From the drama of darkness more
and more kitchens are stepping into
the light of pastels. Really, white is
so last year. It’s actually a scientiic
fact (honest) that pink lifts the spirits
and triggers feelings of kindness and
compassion, so if your cooking’s not
up to much, this may be the way to go.
Plus, it’s just plain pretty.
Houghton kitchen, from
£18,500, nakedkitchens.com

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Sussex Life

March 2024

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Sussex Life

DESIGN

Fisherman’s
boats are
the perfect
accessory

MAKING
QUILTS
byy the
SEA
Kaffe Fassett has been dazzling us with his

vibrant textile designs since the late 1960s. Here,
he reveals how the faded charm and seaside
palette of Hastings, where he has a weekend
home, has inspired his latest quilting patterns
WORDS:

Angela Wintle PHOTOS: Debbie Patterson

afe Fassett is to patchwork and
knitting what rainbows are to dull
and dreary days. He exploded onto
the textiles scene in the late 1960s
like Joseph’s amazing technicolor dreamcoat
and has been showering handicrafters with
a kaleidoscope of many colours ever since.
Equally celebrated for his love of riotous
pattern, he took a pinch of Flower Power,
a dash of ‘the Beatles hippy thing’ – and
mixed it with a smidge of the experimental
Portobello Road.
He’s 86 now, but still in huge demand.
When we speak, he has just returned from
a talk in Bath and is packing his bags for
Stockholm. Kafe is also publicising the
landmark 25th book in his patchwork
and quilt series, this time celebrating the
‘nostalgic mix of heightened, vulgar colour
and pastel tones’ of Hastings, where he has
a weekend retreat. He moved to the seaside
town in 2001, plumping for an imposing

K

Sussex Life

Victorian villa high on a hill in the old town.
‘I love Hastings,’ he says. ‘It isn’t chi chi and
commercialised like Brighton. I also like the
fact that it’s a bit down at heel.
‘There are still crusty old boats and great
tumbledown houses painted in sky blue, rust
pink and yellow.
‘And I adore those big, black witches’ huts
where the ishermen dried their nets, which
might have come straight out of a scene from
David Copperield.’
Kafe was introduced to Sussex by the
ilm director John Schlesinger. Years later,
he and his partner, Brandon Mably, were
fruitlessly looking for an afordable second
home when Kafe remembered his many
visits to Schlesinger’s home in Rye, which
he’d found ‘very charming’.
They bought a cottage there, but Kafe
began to ind the cinque port ‘too precious’
and started casting around for a more
Bohemian stamping ground. He was drawn >
March 2024

125

DESIGN

to Hastings because of the ‘gypsy-like’ way
the residents painted their terraced houses
in bold, clashing colours.
‘I liked the fact that the people there were
unashamedly their own person and painted
their own colour combinations on their
houses,’ he says. ‘Since then the town has
become a lot more beige. Everything is in
such good taste and a lot more grown-up. It
was childlike and fun in the old days.’
Nevertheless, he still inds plenty to inspire
him, evidenced in his new book, Quilts by
the Sea, which features patchwork designs
inspired by the local topography, as well as
vibrant location photography by long-time
collaborator Debbie Patterson.
His quilts are photographed pinned to
eye-popping beach huts, draped like brightly
coloured washing over the sides of barnacled
boats and even suspended like psychedelic
windbreaks across the rusting underpinnings
of Hastings Pier.
He has always been drawn to old seaside
towns and says Hastings has a particularly
good mix of ‘the fun and the faded’ that
makes it the perfect showcase for his designs.

many one-of designs for them which were
modelled by the likes of Barbra Streisand,
Shirley MacLaine and Lauren Bacall. But
it is through his lectures, talks and how-to
books that he has proved most inluential.
His irst book, Glorious Knitting, became a
set text for every aspiring knitter in 1985. His
six-part Channel 4 series, Glorious Colour,
has been repeated three times since its irst
airing in 1988. And that same year he doubled
attendance igures at the Victoria and Albert
Museum when he became the irst living
textile artist to stage a one-man show there.
In 2013 his reputation was cemented with
a follow-up exhibition at the Fashion and
Textile Museum in London.
It’s hard to understate his revolutionary
approach to the staid and traditional world
of knitting when he irst burst onto the
handicraft scene. ‘You had little sweaters
with a white yoke and some details knitted
into it, but that was the only Fairisle pattern
around,’ he says.
‘In contrast, I was looking at the wonderful
patterns to be found in museums, the things
you could see in the old world, as well as

‘While crafters went crazy for
his patterns, he claims he was
overlooked by the British art
establishment for decades’
‘Rows of jauntily painted beach huts are
just the right doll’s-house size to suit my
quilts, along with the old boats on the beach
with their distressed, rusty charm, and the
splendid pier with its funfair and its silvered
wood,’ he says.
‘The particular light that seems unique to
this seaside town similarly never fails to lift
my spirits as I stroll through the Old Town
or along the shoreline. Many of my designs
relect the dark, rich colours of Hastings but
I had just as much fun with the high pastel
tones of the lighter seaside palette.’
Californian by birth, Kafe moved to
London in 1964 and started out as a painter.
His Damascene moment came in 1968 when
the fashion designer Bill Gibb took him to a
Scottish woollen mill. Kafe was blown away
by the subtlety and richness of the old tartans
there, which echoed the natural hues of the
landscape, so he snapped up 20 Shetland
yarns and asked a fellow rail passenger for an
impromptu knitting lesson on his way home.
His irst sweater design was a complete
mess, he says. But he was commissioned
by Vogue Knitting to design a Fairisle
cardigan on the strength of his lair for colour
alone. Vogue then asked him to design a
long, woollen coat, which caught the eye of
Missoni, the Italian fashion house famed for
its unique and colourful knitwear. It was a
marriage made in heaven and he designed
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March 2024

tiles, mosaics and old Chinese artefacts, and
putting them all into knitting.
‘I got everybody excited. And then,
suddenly, out of the woodwork, came other
knitters like Sasha Kagan and the founders of
Toast, Jamie and Jessica Seaton, and all of us
were suddenly doing these patterned knitting
designs that caught people’s imagination.’
While crafters went crazy for his patterns,
he claims he was overlooked by the British art
establishment for decades. ‘I had to educate
the world that it was worth their snooty time
to have a look at textiles.
‘But it took a long time for them to
realise there’s as much poetry and depth
of perception to be had through colour
and pattern as there is through watching
a Shakespeare play. For years, what I did
was just considered “happy hands at home”.’
This view appears to have been shared by
the late Queen who was introduced to Kafe
at a reception at the American Embassy in
London for ‘all the American big achievers
in town. She sailed in and went round to
talk to all of us,’ he recalls. ‘I was introduced
with the words: “Ma’am, this man has had
an exhibition at the V&A.” She said: “Oh yes,
what of?” And I said: “Knitting.”
‘“Knitting?” she frowned. “Why, I can do
that,” and just turned on her heel.’
These days, he works almost exclusively in
patchwork, designing patterns for patchwork

above left to right:

The rusty pier legs make a
wonderful backdrop
The designer loves the black
isherman’s huts on the beach
His work is so vibrant
below:

Kaffe embraces colour
in his work and life
right:

Kaffe loves the colour and
creativity of Hastings

Sussex Life

fabrics and creating patchwork designs for
quilts. ‘Ideas come from the darndest places.
I once did a book based on the geometry you
ind on drainage systems and manhole covers.’
His latest book showcases 21 designs,
each cherry-picked from one of his previous
books, and revived or reinvented with upto-date fabrics. ‘I’ve always been fascinated
by how colour can transform a print or quilt
layout so it becomes quite unrecognisable,’
he says. ‘Sometimes I chose favourites from
a particular book, but at other times it was
exciting to rejig a quilt that hadn’t been such
a success to see if diferent colours and fabrics
would breathe new life into the design.’
Kafe may be still travelling the world as he
approaches 90, but one suspects he owes at
least some of his undiminished enthusiasm
to his husband, studio manager and fellow
designer, Brandon, who quietly manages his
life in the background. ‘He plans everything
and then we face the world and give lectures
together,’ he says.
They met at a bus stop in north London.
‘Brandon said: “What do you do?” And I said:
“I live around the corner. Come round and look
through the window and you’ll see the things

Sussex Life

that I’m working on.” He came straight over,
knocked on the door – he wasn’t going to
just look in the window – and immediately
understood what was going on. He had no art
education, but he just absorbed it all. He had
this amazing intelligence.’
Over the past 30 years, they have
transformed their main home, in Kilburn,
into four loors of freewheeling colour.
Barely a corner is untouched by a Fassett
print or textile. Armchairs are upholstered
with vibrant needlepoints, walls hung with
bold tapestries or hand-painted wallpapers,
and surfaces littered with Chinese ceramics.
It’s like William Morris on steroids.
After Kafe’s day, the house will become
a museum. ‘Visitors will be able to see my
archive, my sketchbooks and everything else
I have created for this house,’ he says.
In the meantime, you can create your
own little piece of Kafe Fassett magic by
replicating his quilt designs at home.
Failing that, you could take up knitting.
Well, if it’s good enough for the late Queen.
Kafe Fassett’s Quilts by the Sea is out
now published by Taunton Press, £30.
For more visit: kafefassett.com

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March 2024

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Sussex Life

PROMOTION

THE BUYER’S AGENT
Jennie Cole, regional partner at Garrington Property Finders,
shares some top tips for securing your next Sussex property

iving in a town provides a delightful
combination of community spirit and
practicality and plenty of Sussex
‘gems’ ofer a wonderful lifestyle,
replete with a broad spectrum of facilities
and impressive homes.
For many, transport links are crucial – both
rail and road – as are increased educational
options for families.
Conversely, for downsizing, perhaps
while transitioning into retirement, the
closeness and diversity of local services and
conveniences can be particularly appealing.
The following towns are some of the most
sought-after in Sussex and here we highlight
the many reasons why they are in such high
demand with our clients looking to buy in
the area.

L

WADHURST

LEWES

Just 15 minutes from Brighton and around
an hour from London, Lewes is very well
connected, but people who move here will
rarely need to go elsewhere for entertainment
or amenities.
This medieval town has grown in
popularity year-on-year, and it is easy to
see why. The local people are keen to uphold
the heritage of the town, with numerous local
festivals, markets and parades, culminating
in the largest bonire night in the country.
The South Downs envelop the town,
providing incredible views as well as beautiful
hikes and bike trails. The 11th-century castle
is fascinating and there are plenty of shops,

Sussex Life

PHOTO:GETTYIMAGES

Wadhurst is oicially the Best Place To Live
in the UK according to the Sunday Times last
year. So what attracts people to this small
market town, with a population of just 5,000?
Firstly, a great sense of community, maybe
because there is enough going on here, that
locals can be entertained easily without
having to travel to one of the larger towns
nearby. There is a good variety of independent
shops along the busy high street, a selection
of popular cofee shops which are also open
on weekend evenings, and various clubs and
activities for all age groups.
The town is surrounded by stunning
countryside and has retained a ‘village’ feel.
Residents support local businesses, and the
high street pub is the hub of the community.
You will ind a wide variety of beautiful
property here, whether you seek a country
house with land or a chocolate box cottage
on the high street!
Wadhurst also has a mainline station, with
fast trains to London in 54 minutes.

Arundel is an incredibly pretty town

My kind of
(Sussex) town
pubs and restaurants too, but less tourists
than some of the coastal towns in the area.
Culture vultures will enjoy the art house
cinema, comedy and live music nights, and
the local art gallery and the opera house at
nearby Glyndebourne.

ARUNDEL
Arundel’s large Norman castle and Roman
Catholic Cathedral create an impressive
skyline which can be seen for miles around.
It is an incredibly pretty town, centred
around the market place, with beautiful
architecture including prominent Georgian
houses and lint cottages tucked away down
cobbled streets.
Residents enjoy the variety of restaurants
and pubs, tea rooms and independent shops.
Other forms of entertainment include the
theatre, museum, lido, farmers’ market and
the jazz and comedy nights.
Nearby Worthing and Chichester are also
wonderful places to live in Sussex, each with
unique attractions such as the seaside and

foodie scene in Worthing, and the pastoral
charm and ine dining in Chichester.

TOWN LIVING
The benefits of town living all extend
beyond the tangible; they encompass a
sense of belonging, a network of support,
and the opportunity to be part of a thriving
community. It’s recommended to consider
personal lifestyle preferences and visit these
towns to get a sense of which might be the
most desirable for you.
As with any more densely populated area,
certain neighbourhoods are typically more
in demand than others when it comes to
searching for a property to buy.
While there are likely to be more properties
available in a town compared to a smaller
village setting, these in-demand pockets will
experience greater competition, meaning
buyers may have to be proactive and
persistent in their search for a home.
To talk to Jennie about your property
search get in touch on 01892 882892.

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March 2024

129

Take me
to church
This charming converted 19th-century
chapel is surrounded by the South Downs
and comes complete with an orangery

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March 2024

Sussex Life

DREAM HOME

WATERSFIELD CHAPEL, London
Road, Watersield, near Petworth
What: This 1823 brick chapel,
in a hamlet surrounded by the
South Downs, has original
details galore but has been
recently renovated to create a
cosy home with state-of-theart as well as quirky features.
Inside: Arched and oriel
windows belie this home’s
heritage – as do the dining
chairs and table that look
like they’ve been hewn out of
pews – but the sympathetic
restoration has resulted
in a stylish two-bedroom,
two-bathroom house. The
outstanding room is the oak-

Sussex Life

framed orangery with a vaulted
glass ceiling to let in the light
and views of the garden.
Outside: There are two
of-road car spaces and a
garden with mature yew trees,
winding gravel path lanked by
raised decorative beds and low
period stone walls.
Guide price: £550,000
Contact: Comyn & James’
Pulborough oice,
01798 888111;
comynandjames.co.uk
property@comynandjames.co.uk

March 2024

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SPRING BOUQUET
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Sussex Life

GARDENING

Be inspired
at Pashley
Manor’s Tulip
Festival with
planting ideas

Use bulbs to paint scenes and vignettes on your garden canvas – even the
smallest garden or container can display gorgeous combinations
WORDS AND PHOTOS:

Sussex Life

Leigh Clapp

March 2024

133

Spring brights with
a swathe of tulips
and potted Pheasant
Eye narcissi

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March 2024

Sussex Life

GARDENING

GET THE LOOK
Be bold with combinations.
With such a wide range of colours
you can really play with tones.
Bulbs look stunning by themselves
but even more breathtaking in
colourful combinations.
Choose what you like best – rich,
bright, contrasting, harmonious,
subtle, pastel – it’s up to you.
The trick for combinations is
choosing ones that lower together.
Combine bulbs that lower
before, during and after each
other for a succession.
Consider how you will hide the dying
foliage as the bulbs inish lowering.
Spring bulbs to look out for – narcissi,
jonquils, crocuses, anemones,
ranunculi, tulips, hyacinths, freesias,
scillas, chionodoxa, muscari, aconites,
ipheion, bluebells, puschikinia, alliums.

Mixed bulbs fringing a path

ulbs are little energy powerhouses,
lying dormant below ground and
then bursting forth in an array of
colours and forms.
And nothing can beat bulbs for maximum
colour impact in spring. Dafodils are the
best-known, most adaptable and at their
peak now.
Bulbs can create vibrant vignettes in
the garden or containers with very little
efort. Combine a mix of bulbs together or
intermingle them with annuals, perennials,
shrubs and trees that feature in spring, the
possibilities are vast.
Flowering bulbs are very adaptable and
give attractive efects. Some work well
naturalised, such as narcissi, anemones
and fritillaries, others such as tulips, need
to be lifted and replaced each year. All can
be used in large or small gardens as well as
pots and containers.
Clumps work well for impact: bulbs can be
popped in among plants as bright accents, a
container can be all the same bulb en masse,
or you could use a dainty mix of tiny varieties.

B

The only limitation is your creativity and
imagination. Are you aiming to lighten a dull
corner with pale cream and white narcissi, be
bold and bright on the patio, create a natural
look with drifts or harmonise the tones for
a pretty efect?
You may be after a succession of blooms
with bulbs popping up at diferent times,
creating a new look as one inishes. Keep
in mind that the bulbs suit your conditions.
Some do well under deciduous trees in part
light, such as snowdrops, muscari and scilla,
others like full sun, including irises and
alliums. As bulbs get most of the sunlight,
they need to appear before trees are in leaf,
but they can be planted almost anywhere in
the garden. In general, bulbs need a welldrained, sandy loam soil, which is not overly
rich. You can improve heavy soils by adding
sand and well-rotted organic matter to make
them more friable. Remember after lowering
to allow the leaves to die back naturally as
they need the energy from the foliage to the
bulb to produce next year’s lowers. Plan to
have foliage from accompanying plants cover >

Try lime green heucheras, such as
‘Green Spice’ or ‘Lime Marmalade’
with ‘Spring Green’ tulips. The foliage
also covers the dying bulbs.
The silver leaves and dainty blue
lower of Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’
look stunning with the tulips ‘Blue
Amiable’ and lavender ‘Gwen’.
Plant frothy ground covers, such
as erysimum, Bellis perennis,
forget-me-nots and violas, with
tulips for pretty displays.
Bright orange and purple tulips look
stunning together as does lamed
orange Tulipa ‘Princess Irene’ with deep
blue-purple hyacinths and muscari.
You could go all pink shades with
peony shaped Tulipa ‘Angelique’, pink
chionodoxa, hyacinths and scillas.
In containers think of it as creating
a spring bouquet.

‘As bulbs get most of the sunlight, they need to
appear before trees are in leaf, but they can be
planted almost anywhere in the garden’
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March 2024

135

LA LABEL (RIGHT)
TOP TWO BULBS
DAFFODILS
• Daffodils come in a variety of shapes
and colours, from the common yellow
to whites and pinks, with singles,
doubles or split-coronas.
• There is great diversity in
daffodils – from the antique to
the latest developments.
• Bulb, lower and foliage are poisonous
so this is one plant the rodents and
deer leave alone.
• Buy from a reputable supplier.
• Likes well-drained soil, sun or
light shade.
• If your soil is heavy, mix grit into the
base of the planting hole.
• August and September are the best
months to plant.
• Plant at depth three times the bulbheight in beds, borders or containers.
• Don’t plant where ground can
be waterlogged.
• Flowers will always face the sun.
• For small daffodils look out for
dainty miniature narcissi such
as ‘Tete-a-Tete’ and ‘Minnow’.

Forget-me-nots will cover the dying foliage

DID YOU KNOW?
the bulbs as they die back. Many bulbs grow
to perfection in tubs, troughs and pots. You
can move them into prominence when ready
to lower, whether tucked into garden beds in
their containers or grouped for displays, and
then removed when at the dying back stage.
Once inished, plant out into the garden
for next year. Layering or lasagne planting
is very popular so there are bulbs popping up
to lower at diferent times. This works well
with snowdrops, crocus, dafodils, hyacinths,
muscari and tulips, for example. You can
even bring small containers indoors when
in lower. Containers need draining holes, to
be at least 15cm deep and use a bulb potting
mixture. Garden centres at this time of the

year have potted combinations ready to take
home for a spring feast or you can gather
ideas and then wait for autumn to plant the
bulbs. Keep the soil moist but don’t overwater.
Spring bulbs have an array of beautiful
lowers; the challenge is working out from
research which will lower together if you
want to paint particular scenes and vignettes
on your garden canvas.
Visiting gardens and garden centres locally
this month is sure to inspire and aid your
knowledge. When visiting gardens take lots
of photos of combination ideas to inspire
your own planting for next spring. Even in
larger gardens you can translate ideas for
combinations on a smaller scale.

.

GOOD TO KNOW
Some of my favourite
gardens for bulb displays
THE OLD VICARAGE
Washington, RH20 4AS
Frequent openings,
see website.
Some elegant
border combinations.
ngs.org.uk
KING JOHN’S LODGE
Etchingham, TN19 7AZ
Saturday, March 23 (10am5pm). Gentle combinations
with white and cream.
ngs.org.uk

136

March 2024

PENNS IN THE ROCKS
Groombridge, TN3 9PA
Sunday, April 14 (2pm-6pm)
Colour combinations of tulips
with annuals and perennials.
ngs.org.uk
47 DENMANS LANE
Lindield, RH16 2JN
March 30-April 1 (1pm-5pm).
Enjoy brightly
coloured combinations.
ngs.org.uk
SANDHILL FARM HOUSE
Rogate, GU31 5HU
April 27-28 (2pm-5pm)

Home of garden designer
Rosemary Alexander.
Thoughtful combinations.
ngs.org.uk
BATEMANS
Burwash, TN19 7DS
Displays in the walled garden.
nationaltrust.org.uk
PASHLEY
MANOR GARDENS
Ticehurst, TN5 7HE
Tulip festival –
masterclass of colour play.
pashleymanor
gardens.com

Our native British daffodil, which
inspired Wordsworth’s poem, is
under threat due to crosspollination
with larger varieties we plant nearby,
so take care where you plant your
daffodils. English Heritage has
mass-planted native daffodils at
some of their sites and is encouraging
home gardeners to plant more native
and historic cultivar bulbs too.

TULIPS
• Available in a wide range of colours.
• Early tulips from March, to later
varieties, May.
• Different types include singles,
doubles, fringed, parrot.
• Grow in pots, beds or
naturalistic settings.
• Do best in fertile, well-drained soil
in sunny spot.
• Protect from excessive moisture and
strong winds.
• Plant bulbs late autumn.
• Water when buds are rising.
• Watch out for slugs.
• After lowering lift and store bulbs in
dry place.

An elegant, moveable
spring display

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ONE MORE THING...
Bruce Fogle considers the brutal power of the sea of the West Sussex coast

y personal stretch of Sussex
coastline runs from Worthing
to Bognor – although that’s not
the coastline I irst met when I
came to England. My wife Julia was born in
Lewes, had grandparents in Seaford and was
raised in or near Brighton, so that stretch of
East Sussex clif, shingle, dunes and sand was
my introduction to the sometimes austerely
bleak and other times bubblegum pretty
Sussex shoreline.
Before I even arrived in the UK, I knew
about the Sussex coast. In history lessons
at high school in Toronto I learned that
during World War II the Canadian Army
was responsible for the coastal defences from
Newhaven to Worthing.
I knew that the Royal Winnipeg Riles
and the Cameron Highlanders, also from
Winnipeg were stationed here. So too were
the Calgary Tank Regiment, Les Fusiliers
Mont-Royal, the Lake Superior Regiment,
the Van Doos (the 22 Regiment), the South
Saskatchewan Regiment, the Royal Hamilton
Light Infantry and the Algonquin Regiment.
Sussex was a vast Canadian military camp.
There was a Canadian military hospital
in Shoreham and the Canadian army had its
headquarters in Stanmer Park in Brighton.
Sussex beaches became a training ground for
the future landings in Europe. And defences
needed building for Germany’s anticipated
invasion of Britain.
The stretch of shoreline I know best is from
Elmer beach, just east of Bognor, to Ferring
beach, just west of Worthing.
In the relatively short length of time I’ve
walked this shoreline it has changed beyond
recognition. The power of the sea has undone
what we built over centuries and especially
during World War II.
Walking east from Elmer Sands there was,
until a few years ago, a long lint wall, a lint
and brick rectangular building with low walls
abutting the beach, and hundreds of antitank blocks in perfect rows.
In the arable ield by the beach there was
the rusting hulk of a Victorian steam engine,
probably the remains of one of the irst steam
threshers in Sussex.
A great storm in 2017 destroyed the lint
wall and in the following years the massive
anti-tank blocks dropped down onto the
beach. By 2020 the loor of the rectangular
building lay isolated on the shingle and sand
and now it too is gone.
In 2021 the ground beneath the steam
engine was eroded by storms and the great
cylinder, topped by its 4ft smoke stack,
washed onto the beach. In the following
years the daily cycle of tides buried the

M

March 2024

PHOTO:BRUCEFOGLE

138

My dog Bean standing by the exposed timbers of the lost village of Atherington

History eroded
cylinder until now only the very top of the
stack is visible. A storm just before Christmas
undermined the last of the anti-tank blocks
at what was until a year ago Climping
beach’s private car park. These tumbled,
like weightless children’s wooden blocks,
onto the beach.
The Environment Agency is busy, as it has
been for the last 10 years, building temporary
bunds, protecting the homes at the shoreline
end of Climping Street. It reminds me of the
story of the little Dutch boy putting his inger
in the dyke.
This part of the beach is now unrecognisable
to how it looked even two years ago. The antitank blocks are strewn higgledy-piggledy
everywhere. The groins are gone but their
loss has revealed remnants from the vanished
village of Atherington that existed here until
the 1700s. A map of Atherington from 1606
shows that half of what existed then is now
part of the beach. This part of coastal Sussex
has sunk at least 16in since the map was

made but more important, coastal erosion has
been relentless. Last spring, with the groins
removed, erosion on the beach revealed what
I’m told is one of Atherington’s four known
wellheads. The morticed beams look like
they were hewn last week. That’s my elderly
dog, Bean, last year, standing by the exposed
timbers. As the sand and shingle ebbed and
lowed, the wellhead was covered over but last
month part of the wellhead became visible
once more.
Just east of where this wellhead appears
and disappears there was until recently a
curved 5ft high, 18in-thick concrete wall with
four gun loopholes in it. Eighty years ago,
soldiers, perhaps from Canada, manned this
site. The year before last I took spring photos
through the gun holes of the lowering ield
of oilseed rape behind it.
The sea has destroyed the wall, and
salinated the ield. The sea is relentless.
Awesome and brutally powerful. And it makes
each walk on the beach a new discovery.

.

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March 2024

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March 2024

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