Eat your heart out, Danny Boyle

                   Our carnival queen makes her inaugural speech to an admiring audience

Never complain that life is dull.  On Friday night we watched the Olympics opening ceremony on our new giant TV (so gross it is tucked away in a television room on the top floor).  It was a truly astonishing spectacle.  Only the English could have put on a show for a worldwide audience that involved, among other things, Her Maj parachuting in to the Olympic Stadium with James Bond, and Rowan Atkinson subverting the London Symphony Orchestra's interpretation of the Chariots of Fire theme-tune.  Today, not to be left behind, Hastings Old Town put on its carnival procession as part of Old Town Carnival Week.  This was not quite up to Danny Boyle's level of inventiveness, but then the town didn't have £27 million pounds.  Undeterred, we did our best...Queen Ellie sat on a throne in front of the Neptune Fish and Chip shop and was crowned in a ceremony attended by the Mayor, our MP and other dignitaries.  Her first task was to award a prize for the best-dressed window in All Saints Street, after which she boarded her coach (a nicely-converted caravan with cut-out sides and a throne, towed by a Land-Rover) and followed the dignitaries in a procession down the front and then up the High Street, attended by a group of drummers in yellow T-shirts, a second group called the Iceni Tribal Dancers, who waved gauzy wings, and another lot of drummers in fierce make-up dressed in rather frightening Goth costumes in red and black (in case you hadn't realised from my account of Pirates Day, the locals love dressing up).  The Iceni Tribal Dancers were slightly surreal.  Although their name evokes Boadicea we had, instead of Anglo-Saxons in woad, half a dozen ladies of ample proportions out of the Arabian Nights, accompanied by a sort of not-very-grand Vizier.

I have to say it was brilliant.  I'm sorry we missed the display of dancing from the Iceni Tribal Dancers, but I'm sure they were great.  I don't know why Danny Boyle didn't include all the participants in his massive pageant: but his loss was our gain.

The Carnival Week has a full and diverse programme, and I shall report further over the next few days!

Antony Mair

PS you can see further pictures of the event by clicking here.

Gardening - the English passion

One of the differences between the French in the Dordogne and the English -whether in the Dordogne or elsewhere - is the attitude to gardens.  We were always amazed by the way in which newly-constructed pavillons remained surrounded by a desolate waste of land, edged with chainlink fencing: the new owners seemed to have no interest in cultivating the outside space.  When it occurred, gardening appeared to take one of two forms: either the cultivation of vegetables in immaculate plots, or the establishment of what was known as a parc - this being an expanse of grass with a series of specimen trees or shrubs dotted at intervals, without relation to each other.  The influence of Gertrude Jekyll - let alone Alan Titchmarsh - has not extended to Périgord.

In England, on the other hand - and I make a distinction between the English and the Scottish, Welsh and Irish - gardening is a passion that stretches across all classes and regions.  Nowhere is this more evident than at Wisley, the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, which I had occasion to visit today.  Admittedly Wisley is in the commuter belt of London, surrounded by the well-heeled.  But on a Friday morning at 11 am the car park was packed.  The entrance to the gardens, seen in the picture above, reminded me of Vietnamese temples we have visited - and in some ways the worship of the garden has taken over from other established forms of religion.  It has the advantages of blending nature with consumerism and - above all - avoiding any reference to God.  The closest you would get would be a statue of Buddha or some wind-chimes.

In Hastings we are about to embark on Old Town Week, which has a wide variety of events to cater for every taste.  Among them are a number of gardens that are opened to the public.  Hundreds of interested people will wander through these miniature Edens, making mental notes and returning to their own plots to make improvements.  The French in the Dordogne still live in the shadow of their country past, when ordinary gardens were places to grow food, rather than what are referred to as jardins d'agrément.  The English, on the other hand, largely buy their food in packages from supermarkets, and their gardens are small works of art, little temples to a nature that they have largely lost touch with.  As so often happens with comparisons between the two cultures, one is neither better nor worse than the other: they are simply diverse.  But I confess that my English side revels in this profusion of plants.  Our own garden is so tiny that a pocket handkerchief would seem vast by comparison.  But we are doing our best to make it a little Eden - pictures in due course!

Antony Mair

East Hill and beyond

Buying a house is always a bit of a lottery.  We found our Hastings house in the depth of winter at the end of 2010.  There was snow and ice everywhere.  Hastings was fairly unknown to us, and the house was acquired on a slight whim in order to get back on the UK property ladder.  When we moved in, seven weeks ago, we discovered the special bonus of East Hill and the link to Hastings Country Park.  Just opposite the house is the beginning of a flight of steps (177 in all, so not for the fainthearted) that brings you up to a grassy plateau with spectacular views out to sea and over Hastings Old Town.  Our dogs are in seventh heaven - particularly because there is an abundance of rabbits munching contentedly away at the grace.  Dogs, of course, never learn that rabbits are virtually uncatchable, but it doesn't seem to stop them trying.

The grassy plateau rises gently and merges into the Country Park and Nature Reserve, an area of 267 hectares stretching along three miles of coastline.  The sheer grandeur of scale does wonders for the soul.  And I like looking out to sea and thinking "France is just over there!"

People say how crowded south-east England is - and they're right.  Nonetheless you can come across these unexpected areas of wild open space that make a wonderful contrast to the crowded roads and dense housing.  I've not won a lottery prize before - not even a raffle, as far as I can recollect - but this time it does feel as if chance has played into our hands.


Antony Mair
24 July 2012

Hastings Pirates Day

It doesn't take long for you to realise that Hastings is seriously wacky.  Not the self-conscious slightly up-your-own-backside wackiness of Brighton, but the real downright eccentric version.  Nothing typifies it more than the annual Pirates Day.  A hint of what was in store occurred yesterday, with the first Hastings Sea Shanty Festival, when a series of characters in black costumes appeared on a stage on the Stade - the open space beside the new Jerwood Gallery - and sang folk songs about pulling and heaving, with appropriate choruses involving words like "me hearties" and "ho boys ho".  It was all good fun and a lot of the audience - of all ages and classes - joined in the choruses with gusto.

But today was the real thing.  A challenge had been set.  In 2010 Hastings had set a world record for the number of "pirates" gathered in one place, when 6,166 people gathered on the beach dressed in pirate costume.  To their horror, the people of Penzance robbed them of the record in the following year, by getting over 8,734 people together.  So it was up to Hastings this year to regain the crown.

Conditions were stipulated by the Guinness Book of Records: a strict dress code was applied, and participants had to be corralled into a fenced-off pen on the beach.  We were all counted in, and hung around on the beach with eyepatches, cutlasses etc. for around an hour.  Someone said that there was to be an aerial photograph,  Three members of the Hastings Bonfire Society (I kid you not) were messing about round a cannon pointed at the sea.  After an hour the crowd began to break up, and we drifted off with the rest.  The Old Town was thronged with pirates of all shapes and sizes - Johnny Depp meets Moll Flanders by the sea.

News filtered through in due course that there had been 14,000 pirates on the beach.  Wackiness wins!

Antony Mair
22 July 2012

You can see more pirate-theme photos by clicking here. 

The Olympic Flame arrives in Hastings

The Olympic flame - one can't really say the torch, since there seems to be an infinite number of them - arrived in Hastings last night, as part of its tour round the country.  Neighbours had kindly given us a couple of tickets to the official ceremony on the Stade, which we attended with several thousand others.  The "ceremony" consisted of a series of acts put on by the sponsors - Samsung, Lloyds TSB and Coca-Cola - comprising hiphop/breakdancers, acrobats (appropriate enough, I thought, for representing one of our leading banks) and rappers.  The assembled crowd was encouraged to beat trays supplied by Coca-Cola, wave beribboned sticks supplied by Lloyds TSB and download an app supplied by Samsung.  I got the slight impression that the performers were flagging at this stage of their progress, but they did their best.  As the show went on the sun gradually disappeared, and threatening clouds loomed from the southwest.  Rain held off, however, and finally a rather unathletic figure ran in with the torch, backed up - slightly curiously, after all the trendy stuff we had been put through - by a substantial group of Morris dancers twirling their handkerchiefs.  After holding the flame on high as if he'd just won the FA Cup, our torchbearer lowered it above a copper cauldron, lighting a rather alarming fire.  I was hoping we would now get a bit of Wagner, but instead we had a community choir singing "Sussex by the Sea" followed by the Hallelujah chorus.  The blend of heavy-duty corporate flannel and local eccentricity said it all.  Later that night there was a fireworks display on the West Hill, which we could watch with ease from the house.

The flame moved on this morning, after a good night's sleep.  The locals don't rise very early, so I gather schoolchildren were bussed in for the occasion, to speed it on its way.  I confess we were torched out, but wish it well on its journey!  

Just the other side of the water!

Our new neighbours have a habit of asking us whether we're settling in.  "Yes," says Paul promptly.  If I hesitate, it's because I take longer to settle in.  "Do you miss anything in France?" they also say.  Of course we do: I miss our house in Ribérac and the garden I'd created there;  I miss the friends we made over the seven years; I miss the daily opportunity to speak French.  On the other hand, it's wonderful not to have to deal with two tax authorities; to be free from French bureaucracy; and, I have to say, to live by the sea.  So everything's a trade-off!

Gradually we're getting settled.  Even supermarket shopping took some getting used to: everything seemed to be in such small quantities and overpackaged.  But I'm slowly learning my way around.  Car insurance has been a bit of a trial: most insurers were not prepared to recognise my French no claims bonus, and those that did seemed to be the more expensive ones anyway so the first year of our return is a bit expensive on the insurance front.  House insurance proved another headache: I thought it was great to have a Grade II listed property, but hadn't realised that this takes you out of the scope of most web-based insurers.  There are times when I feel like a foreigner in my own country!

And the bonus has been today's article in the newspaper saying that the government is bringing forward some infrastructure spending on projects that include the Hastings bypass and work on widening the A21, which links us to the M25.  So Hastings is definitely on the up!

Antony Mair
12 July 2012

Greetings from Hastings

Our house is the one with the blue wall peeping over the rooftops

It's just over a month since we moved to our Shoebox in Hastings from la France profonde.  It has been a double culture shock, coping first with the return to the UK after seven years abroad, and then with a move to Hastings in East Sussex, a town we had little knowledge of.  "Why Hastings?" people ask us constantly.  The answer is, as so often: happenstance.  We found a house that clicked with us at the right time, and the decision was made.

After living for seven years in a spacious town house in the centre of a small French town, we have moved to one that has 40% of the previous space, with two small rooms on each of four floors.  This is taking a little getting used to.  "Why did you do it?" I hear you ask.  The upside, gentle reader, is the view and the light.  After seven years of looking out on the central square of Ribérac, which is essentially a car park with a public lavatory on one side, we now look out to the northwest over the jumbled roofs of Hastings Old Town and the Regency houses on the hillside opposite, and to the southwest over the neighbours rooftops to the sea.  Lots of people mention the social problems of Hastings, but few mention the superb architecture of the Old Town or - the greatest surprise to a newcomer - the glittering light. 

Hastings is a curious amalgam of hairy folksingers; refugees from London - known as DFLs (Down from London); local fishermen; immigrants who have found their way here by chance; retirees and - almost, it appears, a small minority - the usual population of a British seaside town who quietly mind their business and try to earn a living.  The town itself is equally curious, with three distinct elements along the seashore.  The Old Town in the east nestles between East Hill and West Hill.  Beyond West Hill is the town centre - a featureless shopping centre just behind the front.  And to the west of this lies Saint Leonard's, the historic core of which is the group of streets established by Decimus Burton in the first part of the nineteenth century as a fashionable seaside resort.  Behind this sequence the land rises sharply, with layers of terraced houses or subsequent developments, terminating in what is known appropriately as The Ridge, a sort of ring road running along the crest of the highest hill to the north.

More to follow, shortly!

Antony Mair