Storm damage

 "One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken."
(Leo Tolstoy)

The storm that crashed against the south coast of these islands before ripping it's way upland on the 27th and 28th of October has inevitably left it's mark on Brighton. A local estate agent told me he'd been retrieving TV aerials, roof tiles and garden furniture from his rental properties from literally high and low across the city. Having previously walked the seawall at the marina, apparently the largest in Europe; I was staggered to see footage of the waves dwarfing the wall and the yachts, almost reclaiming the manmade enclosure to the open sea.
"Storm St Jude" was named after the patron saint of lost causes, arriving with a crash on the eve of his feast day. It certainly carved a desperate path; I'm respectful that tens of thousands of people across this county and others were left without power for days and that four people lost their lives in the UK. A further thirteen people have died as Storm Jude evolved into Cyclone Christian, wreaking destruction across northern and eastern Europe.
My little house is a hundred and fifty years old and full of leaks, creaks and gremlins on a daily basis. Faced with torrential rain and predicted gusts of more than eighty miles an hour, I brought in garden mirrors, lanterns, tree baubles and next door's cat and tied down everything else; including Noel the seven foot Christmas tree after even he was blown over in his ridiculously heavy pot. The house, Ginger Tom and I braced ourselves. I watched my tall pear tree appear to double over against the wind at around two in the morning, while the guardian angel sun-catcher in it's highest branches (I couldn't reach her without a ladder) was whipped about mercilessly.
As Monday opened up and the winds dropped to a manageable 60, I realised that my house and garden were largely intact. A section of guttering has loosened, but then Jonathan Seagull has been using it as some kind of high-rise latrine for a couple of years. All the paint above my bathroom window has ripped away, taking a layer of mortar with it, but I've never liked that stale buttermilk colour and intend to paint the house a zesty yellow as soon as possible. My windows seem spattered with every kind of seaside muck that could be airborne, but they're due a cleaning anyway.
In the garden, only one of a few marooned tree baubles didn't make it; even the tiniest, most delicately budded patio roses and fuchsias have only conceded some petals. The pear tree has uncurled to it's full height; the angel still miraculously spinning round at the top. I went round oohing and aahing, patting potplants and shrubs reassuringly, while Ginger watched from the safety of the kitchen step, clearly bemused that he'd spent a day and night sheltering with an idiot.
The BBC's southeast reportage seemed to focus on Brighton, with one hapless reporter stationed on the pebble beach in front of the skeletal West Pier. Blue-faced in his puffa jacket and woolly beanie hat, he flapped about a bit and spluttered that this type of weather was not uncommon on this windy little edge of East Sussex. Worryingly close to the waves himself, he stressed that the Sussex police had warned folk to stay away from the piers and indeed the sea for the next few hours, just as a hardy local family splashed past him while he struggled to stop his microphone from hitting him in the face.

I was thankful to see the West Pier still standing, albeit at a more precarious angle than ever before. The pier was built within a year of my little workmen's terrace and it's remains are Grade II listed, one of only two piers in the UK to be granted what should be a level of protection. Not that the West Pier has been shielded from outrageous fortune in any way in her long history. Yet, after three fires, the great storm of 1987 and several others, countless horrendous winters (including each one since I moved here) and even being crashed into by an RAF fighter plane in 1944, the West Pier has never been completely destroyed.
On several occasions, the structure has had to be partially demolished for safety reasons. Now completely severed from the shore, the pier is nonetheless increasingly part of this city. The remaining fretwork seems to float in the rising and falling tides; her fragility belies the Victorian engineering that keeps her cast iron legs firm in the seabed. Now frequently compared to am upturned fruit basket or burned out wedding cake, she was known as "The Pleasure Pier" in her heydays, I know some people find the pier a sorry sight. Technically, she's been terminally deteriorating since the 1970s; to those of us who love her and find her beautiful, the West Pier is constant to the point of persistence and embodies the spirit of the city of Brighton.
Walking down to the West Pier after St Jude, I wasn't surprised to see several others standing in the cracked sunshine and sea breeze, all there for the same reason. One very dapper middle-aged man with what I think was a French accent described her as "wretchedly lovely". I think the West Pier is a bit like a Bronte heroine; ageless and virginal but fatally bedraggled in sodden hooped petticoats. For every person who sees the old pier as an eyesore that should be completely dismantled, there will be many more who cherish her as an essential part of Brighton beach's skyline. Her iconicity has swelled as her original purpose built structure has diminished.

It's been weeks since I've posted on this blog. I almost wish I could say it's been due to sheer volume of work, being away with friends or even just doing possibly unmentionable, hedonistic things. Alas, I can't rely on any of these excuses.

It's true that I've been working rather difficult hours, but the most complete story of my extended writer's block is that my heart just hasn't been in it. My heart has been scuttled away like a deflated little bird. Like the West Pier, it feels like it's had the stuffing kicked out of it. Aside from any continuing neighbourhood unpleasantness, beyond the bereavement, unemployment and upheaval of fortune of the past few years, it felt as though something had finally broken me. One gust just too harsh, one wave too fierce. Mark Twain once said that a broken promise was better than none at all; much as I admire Mr Twain, I've often thought him uncharacteristically, utterly wrong on that one. Promises hold both the recognition of long held wishes and our hopes for the future; a broken promise or dream damages who we've been and scars who we've yet to become.

A few people who actually read this blog but have never met me realised something was wrong and I'm grateful for their concern and wishes. My friend Lin put it quite bluntly: "Not blogging, not talking: not you! Sick??" My confidence in myself and my instinctive faith in others is obviously dented, but I find I'm still here, just as the West Pier is right where I left it. Sometimes, the strength isn't in holding firm against the break but in what you do with the broken pieces. In circumstances that I guess were quite different from Mr Twain's, Oscar Wilde noted that broken hearts allow God and love to seep in. And so you can either focus on what's tearing you apart, or on what's holding you together.

Storms like St Jude unleash the omnipotence of nature but also magnify the resilience of even the smallest plants and creatures. For some reason, "The Lightning Strike" has always been my Snow Patrol song: I have the expressed permission of Mr Lightbody to add it to this post that breaks my writer's block! I'm sure my little house, for all it's cracks and groans, will stand beyond the end of my years; I hope the West Pier might do the same. Even with feet of iron, that kind of fortitude feels as organic as that of my pear tree or the tiny buds on my patio roses. I guess it's all in the foundations.

 

*Especially at this time for Gill A, Luci, Marian and Stuart*

 

 

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

(Ernest Hemingway)

"Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is the glue."
(Eugene O'Neill)

The West Pier Trust:
www.westpier.co.uk
 
 

"The Lightning Strike (What If The Storm Ends)"  Snow Patrol

 

 "What if this storm ends
And I don't see you,
As you are now
Ever again?
Painted in flames,
All peeling thunder;
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless"

(Gary Lightbody)

"The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks."

(Tennessee Williams)

 

Flowering

"Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them."

(Lauren Kate)

(All photos: Gigi, album)

"Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith." 

(Franz Kafka)

I've already said that my posts are a little lagging on here at the moment. Last week, my first rose of the summer burst open in my little back garden. It's since been followed by other equally full,  brazenly yellow roses; then fuchsias  the strawberry plant (in it's third year) and other perky little bits and bods. The first rose was so gorgeous that I had to take a photo of it. Just a couple of weeks before, the rose bush was still skeletal and thorned. My roses are late this year, having survived another winter of prolonged wet and wind and then a reluctant spring, even wetter and windier.

A very lovely lady called Martina recently read some of my blog and asked me where I got my faith from. I was immediately silenced by this, which doesn't happen often, because my knowledge of my faith or anything "holy" is rather holed.  I just didn't have a ready answer. The following day, my rose unfurled. 
My favourite colour is red, but my favourite flowers are actually yellow, from daffodils to hypericum to sunflowers.  I love bright yellow roses and most of the roses in my garden are intentionally sunshine coloured. Dorothy Frances Gurney's assertion that one is closer to God in a garden than anywhere else has really resounded with me since I moved down to Brighton. My little house has many inherent faults and much work to be done, but it has a garden. The concrete and weed postage stamp out back probably sold the property to me. 
I think it's fair to say that the previous owner didn't extend much time or tenderness to the garden. It harbored untended jasmine, laurel and pear trees, and one very hooky and hard-headed rose tree (pink). These have been befriended and the whole area planted and populated. It's wild and quite willful and a work in progress. It's responded to my coaxing and determination with colour and a tenacity not bottled by B and Q or Homebase. It crackles with birds and bees, spiders and snails and now a toad; it has a life of it's own. I sit out there at night with a cuppa as the solar lights and lanterns flicker out. In a town that's struggling to come to terms with disillusionment and dilapidation, I'm lucky to have a roof over my head and totally blessed to have my back yard.
It's occurred to me that my fascination with the natural world and the wonders of science that baffle my little brain have strengthened my faith over the years. The prerogative of atheists to cite the big bang and the initial squib of evolution doesn't dilute my belief in God; the enormity and minutiae of the universe and beyond don't seem at odds with my idea of a greater design and a higher power. My roses come through snow and ice to meet each new summer; my pear tree was dark and woody and apparently barren but only needed a little clearing and encouragement to grow into the abundant fruit-bearer it was always intended to be.
Along the seafront towards the Peace Memorial, there's a streak of graffiti that confirms that "shit happened". And so it does; and often to good people. I'm trying to be a better person but I'm now comfortable and relieved with being ordinary. Along with so many other ordinary people, I've shed a lot of tears in the past three or four years; too many, not of joy. But smiling is a reflex that doesn't rust easily. I've also learned that it rains a great deal in East Sussex; folk greet the sun like a prodigal child. 
In fact, Martina and her husband Frank and their bright, tight family of siblings, babies and elders are hugely inspiring to me, and to others I'm sure. There's a tangible faith in their family and love for each other, their endless enterprise for business and their concern for community. So, people like me get some of our faith from people like you and yours, Martina.
I often say, whether anyone is still listening or not, that religions are cultivated by man but faith is naturally occurring. Our history bears the hopefulness of our future, seen and unseen. There's a world of infinite and resilient beauty beneath our daily dust. Ask any rose.

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

(Mother Teresa) 

"The Rose" Andre Rieu & Orchestra, with sopranos Suzan Erens, Carmen Monarcha and Carla Maffioletti.

The water is wide and a bit brass monkeys (really rather cold)

"Do you want to go to the seaside?

I'm not trying to say that everybody wants to go.

I fell in love at the seaside;

I handled my charm with time and slight of hand"

(From "Seaside" by The Kooks)

Photo: Gigi, album

Several years ago, when I was still a born and bred Londoner, The Independent published a short article about Brighton, coining it the latest destination for Londoners in "the demographics of disillusionment". Brighton has often been dismissed as "London-on-sea": to be fair, many of the folk I've encountered here in the past couple of years have escaped from The Smoke, only to find this gritty little corner of East Sussex has some of the most polluted air in the UK.
The article rattled on about Brighton's tarnished and tired reputation and the underbelly of wide-boy entrepreneurs and gold chain wearing gangsters. Yes, Brighton can be seedy, but I've found it's an almost cosy kind of seediness, a bit like our beautiful heron gulls strewing pizza and party poppers along the pavements. The article berated Brighton's people as the real problem, citing middle-aged punks, hippies and ravers and in particular the "lentil-munchers" who believe they're special. I appreciate that many people beyond East Sussex certainly feel that a lot of Brighton folk are somehow trying to evade or cheat their way out of maturity. I prefer to view our little quirks and eccentricities as a kind of die-hard innocence. Even our lopsided and crammed little terraced streets (now marketed as charming workmen's cottages but originally Victorian slums) are painted in clashing pastel shades, in defiance of whatever is thrown at the area, meteorologically, socially or economically.
I often say that Brighton is a rusty little place to live: there's something precious glinting beneath every layer of barnacles and grime. I've seen real poverty among people since I moved here, sometimes spiritual as well as physical; yet I've also witnessed both the gentleness and the tenacity of the human spirit. It is gritty here, but let's call it true grit. The ancient settlement Brighthelmstone dates from before the Doomsday Book. The Brighton of the Regency Set and recent day-tripping has literally raised itself up from the ashes. Brighthelmstone was sacked and burnt to the ground by French raiders in 1514, leaving only part of St Nicholas' Church (the area's Mother Church) and the skeletal street pattern of The Lanes. By the 1740s, Brighton had reinvented itself as a spa and resort. I've no doubt Brighton will emerge from the current recession and any era of disillusionment with that spirit and sense of irony intact.
The Independent concluded that Brighton was "the capital for people who can't handle London", with nearby Lewes the choice for those who can't handle Brighton. It conceded that Brighton could be extremely useful: "as a dump for London's moaners". Again, I agree that many of us who are self-exiled Londoners have a bag of chips on our shoulders about constant comparisons between the two cities. "It's actually very different from London " we say earnestly,  " for one thing, we have the sea..." And the one thing about Brighton that will never be urbanised or easily dismissed is that it is unequivocally, unapologetically and un-subtly Seaside, with everything that implies. It has the green gentility of the Downs to ease back against, the Little London shot of hustle and bustle to keep it on it's patched up toes, but it is essentially a fishing village that made good and remains on the lookout and on the make to do so again. Even our beautifully gaudy and slightly incongruous royal palace, The Pavilion was once just a re-hashed farmhouse with a sea view.

 

 2013 New Year's Day swim at Brighton Pier and Saltdean, East Sussex

Traditionally, every Christmas Day since 1860 and more recently each New Year's Day, hardy Brightonians take to the sea for an obviously very chilly and apparently rejuvenating dip. This year, they were disappointed after the council closed the beach because of bad weather. With the usual high tide and burgeoning winds being taunted by the forecast of an unusually heavy sea swell it was considered too dangerous, even for experienced swimmers. The early morning temperature also fell below five degrees. Yet yesterday morning, the New Year dippers were back in force, at the pier beach and further along the stony Brighton coast. 
It was a quiet day in the city, although the pier was still lit up and winking from Christmas; like a favourite auntie after a few festive sherries, all dressed up in the hope the family are taking her out. With many restaurants closing at 6 pm, there seemed to be quite a few people wandering around hopefully, looking for somewhere to be and something to do. I ambled home last night from a lovely day out and about, with the reassuring feeling that it could only be a matter of time before they find them.

The Christmas Day swim at Brighton Pier, 2009.

"Beyond the Sea" was a favourite song for both my parents; almost instinctively it's become one of mine.

"Beyond the Sea"  Bobby Darin

"It's a good world if you don't weaken."
(From "Brighton Rock", Graham Greene)