Homes for Hastings

Hastings Council leader Glenn Haffenden has welcomed new affordable houses coming on stream with the first residents moving into new homes at Orbit’s Levett View development in Harrow Lane, St Leonards.

The council says that in June alone, 24 affordable rented homes were tenanted. A total of 140 homes will be delivered at Levett View, with 86 of these for affordable rent or social rent. These homes are capped at Local Housing Allowance rates – the amount likely to be paid in housing benefit. The remaining homes are available for purchase through Shared Ownership to help local people take their first step onto the property ladder.  Cllr Haffenden said “The mix of affordable housing will help meet local housing needs and give more people the opportunity to access a safe, secure and affordable home. I welcome Orbit’s continued investment in the town and the positive impact this development will have for local residents.” However, according to the council’s own Housing Strategy report from January this year, Hastings faces “acute housing challenges, including relatively high levels of deprivation, low household incomes, and a shortage of truly affordable homes.”

George Street Action

The long delayed work to improve the derelict appearance of 39-41 George Street in The Old Town following an extensive fire in January 2023 has continued after discussions between council officers and the private developers and contractors. The council says this has included cutting back vegetation, stabilising the side fencing and covering the exposed side walls, which is due to be completed by next Tuesday. There has also been a “site-wide general tidy up”.

New gates and information boards have been ordered, and will be installed “when they have been delivered”. Council officers say they will continue to monitor progress closely and remain in direct contact with the contractor. The aim is to secure visible improvements as quickly as possible while the legal agreement linked to the wider redevelopment is completed. Local residents and traders have previously criticised ‘inordinate’ delays over action to improve the appearance of the highly visible site at the end of an important and busy pedestrian and tourist street. At the close of last year the council promised swift action which has taken more than half a year to materialise.

Custody Visits Praised

The Sussex Police Commission headed by Katy Bourne has been “recognised nationally for the outstanding quality of its work” for its independent custody visiting scheme (ICV). Under the Scheme, trained volunteers from local communities make regular, unannounced visits to police custody suites across Sussex to check on the welfare and dignity of detainees. Their findings are reported to Commissioner Katy Bourne who, the Commission says, uses this “independent scrutiny information to hold Sussex Police to account and help ensure that those detained are treated fairly and respectfully by custody officers and staff.”

A number of protesters arrested in the Hastings area have previously complained to HIP about long delays and unnecessary bureaucracy over their detention, as well as “heavy handed” actions by police in arresting them in the first place.

Progress on Castle Visitor Centre

Planning permission has been granted for a landmark new visitor centre at the West Hill Café site, which, according to the council, marks a significant milestone in the delivery of the Government-funded Hastings Town Deal project.

Approved by Hastings Borough Council’s Planning Committee on 8 July, the proposals will see the existing West Hill Café replaced with a modern visitor centre, café and restaurant. The development will improve the visitor experience while supporting the long-term conservation and sustainable future of one of Hastings’ most important historic landmarks. The new visitor centre will become a key part of the experience of visiting the West Hill, Hastings Castle and the West Hill Lift.

According to deputy council leader Julia Hilton: “It will help safeguard one of our most important heritage assets and put it back at the heart of our history as a town as well as attracting more visitors to enjoy everything Hastings has to offer.”

Knife Crime Reduction

The number of knife-enabled crimes committed in Sussex dropped by 15 per cent last year and almost £3million of funding was secured to tackle the issue, according to a report to Sussex’s Police and Crime Panel. Sussex Crime Commission Chief executive Mark Streater acknowledged that a lot of offences are underreported, but he said the Violent Reduction Partnership Board has dedicated analysts and looks at things like the National Crime Survey to get a clearer picture of the issue and that the partnership board worked closely with the NHS to capture incidents where possible victims or offenders have attended hospital with injuries. Concerns were raised by the Panel that knife-enabled crime statistics did not include online knife crime where weapons are brandished to intimidate and cause fear, and they remained concerned about the bigger picture of knife related crime.

TOBY BULA-EDGE

The ever-popular Summer Reading Challenge returns this month for children aged four to eleven. This year the theme is Read to the Beat and explores the connection between music and storytelling. The Challenge – to read six books during July and August – aims to ignite imagination and creativity. It will also be great preparation for the under-16 social media ban.

The Challenge, organised by The Reading Agency, is backed by Universal Music Group UK. There will be activities in libraries across the county that celebrate the connection between storytelling and sound, including African drumming, making instruments from recycled materials, producing stop-motion animation and soundtracks, and interactive storytelling sessions.

There will also be claymation filmmaking sessions guided by experts from Press Play Films, as well as a chance to take part in set designing.

The Challenge is free to enter. Children taking part can read any library book of their choice, including fiction, non-fiction, picture books, or books they share with parents and carers. If your child struggles to not look at a screen for five seconds, don’t worry, because eBooks, eAudiobooks and CD books – if they know what a CD is! – also count.

Those taking part will receive special stickers and other rewards. Those who complete six books in the timeframe will earn a certificate and a medal.

East Sussex County Council’s Councillor Peter Griffiths says: “I have been an avid reader all my life and there are so many benefits to children being encouraged to read: from building their knowledge and their communication and language skills; to developing self-confidence – not to mention the immense enjoyment that can be experienced whilst getting stuck into a really good book.”

Entry is free. Booking is required for activities running between Saturday 4 July and Saturday 5 September. Children can sign up at their nearest East Sussex library or visit eastsussex.gov.uk/src

Walking along my road in Hastings recently, I found myself delighting in the abundance of plants growing through the cracks in the pavement. Dandelions, grasses, tiny flowers, plants I couldn’t name were everywhere. This change is due to a local petition many, including my partner, had signed asking the council to stop using weedkiller on the streets. Now I could see how that small act had made space for nature to bloom everywhere. Not planted, not designed, not officially invited, but there anyway.

As a basket maker and craft forager, these pockets of wild mean I can find plants that become materials in my work. What some people see as weeds, I see as possibilities, and this made me think about culture in Hastings.

So much of what makes this town interesting does not wait for permission. It happens in the gaps: in pubs, kitchens, gardens, streets, shared buildings, community rooms, studios, workshops, campaigns, conversations and acts of neighbourliness. Hastings is not a town that waits politely for culture to be delivered to it. People here make things happen, often with very little money, a lot of invention, and a strong feeling that places belong to the people who use them.

Culture is fluid. It constantly changes through our interactions with others: family, friends, neighbours and people we may only just be meeting. It’s something we make together. That’s why Hastings feels like such a natural place for Fun Palaces.

Fun Palaces is a UK-wide movement supporting people to create their own local cultural events. Each October, people across the country make Fun Palaces in the places where they already live, work and gather: libraries, parks, pubs, schools, streets, cafés, museums, community centres and homes. No big budget, no professionals and no permanent building required. It might begin with a recipe, a walk, a story, a song, craft making, a game, a piece of local knowledge, a repair skill, a conversation or an activity. It’s about people sharing what they love, creating something local with and for the people around them.

The theatre director Joan Littlewood was the inspiration behind Fun Palaces. She recognised something radical: people don’t need to be taught how to be creative, or to be given culture, because they already have it.

Along with architect Cedric Price, she imagined the Fun Palace in the 1960s as a ‘laboratory of fun’ and a ‘university of the streets’. It was never built, but the idea behind it remains relevant. Joan believed that creativity did not belong to experts or institutions alone. She believed that everyone had something to contribute. Perhaps that’s why her famous phrase, “Everyone an artist or a scientist”, still resonates today.

As Hastings looks towards its bid to become UK Town of Culture 2028, I hope this breadth of culture is part of the story too: the grassroots, generous custom of people sharing what they know, making things happen together and inviting others in. Not because institutional culture doesn’t matter, but because culture exists in many forms, and we sometimes need reminding to place greater value on the things people are already doing themselves and with others.

When hundreds of these things happen across the country at the same time, with thousands of people taking part, something remarkable begins to emerge. It becomes a collective shout. It reminds us that we are connected to other people and places and that small local acts can become powerful when they are part of something shared.

I would love to see many Fun Palaces happen across Hastings, because the town is so full of cultural activities that are worth shouting about. For me, the power of Fun Palaces lies in recognising what is already here: the knowledge, humour, skills, memories, passions and care that exist in every place.

Like the plants in the pavement cracks, perhaps the work is partly to notice what’s already growing, and make more space for it.

That feels like Hastings to me. And it feels like a good place to begin.

If you like the idea of making a Fun Palace in Hastings or want to talk through what it could look like, I’d love to hear from you: rachel@funpalaces.co.uk. You can also find out more at funpalaces.co.uk

Letter

About Horsing

Dear Editor

I was interested to read the article by Peter Grey about Norman horses and how they were shipped across the sea. The image on the Bayeux tapestry clearly shows the Norman sailors lowering the horses off the ship using the mast as a hoist to lower the horse over the side of the ship safely. One sailor is lowering the mast while one man is steading the boat with a pole secured in the beach. Another man is using the rope to lower the horse while another man is in the sea guiding the horse to the ground. The horses do not appear to be jumping off the boat! Mast of a Viking style ship had a pulley at the top used to hoist up the sail and the mast can be lowered when they are being rowed or moored. These kind of ships were well used by the Saxons and the Normans and can be seen in Viking ship museums in Oslo and Roskilde in Norway and Denmark. The nuns sewing the tapestry have not shown leather slings that would have been used to support the horse while they are being lowered. I am sure when Hastingers visit the British Museum to see the tapestry they can see it for themselves.

Regarding Roger’s invasion of Sicily, the chroniclers at the time mention a date of 1061 and not 1038!

Paul Reed

From our website

Syd’s Last Stand

Fun though Nick Tucker’s preview of ‘Syd’s Last Stand” (HIP 305) is, he’s arguably too much of a fan boy to be objective.

LSD, sometimes enjoyable, other times curdling your karma, does not automatically confer wisdom. Consequently, Syd’s solo albums were merely whimsical, fitfully entertaining and thankfully less pretentious and overlong than Pink Floyd’s later LPs.

Floorboards are not iconic; they simply stop you from falling through the ceiling. A more interesting question to ask when analysing the album cover might be why an unacknowledged woman is adopting such an uncomfortable pose in the background? I’m sure her nudity was essential to the artistic message, yet Syd, for some reason lost to rock history, retains his clothes… 

TK Bedford

From our website

Betty Important

I enjoyed the Betty Parsons exhibition last year. I agree the title was a misnomer, but as a researcher who’s written about a number of mid-twentieth century women artists, I found it very interesting to see the work from Betty Parsons, who supported women artists at a time when macho personalities dominated the world of abstract expressionism while ignoring the women. She was important.

Susan Gilbert

The Prince of Wales paid a whirlwind visit to Hastings on 9 July, spending the day meeting local fishermen, playing crazy golf and being inducted into the Winkle Club as an honorary member . The visit was designed to highlight the vital work of local youth organisations and community-driven groups.

The royal visit began with Prince William descending from the East Hill funicular railway where he was greeted by a crowd of well-wishers. His first official stop was with local fishermen where he climbed aboard the Senlac Jack and chatted with crew members about the struggles of the town’s historic beach-launched boats. He listened attentively as skipper Roland Kelly told him about the problems of overfishing by large EU trawlers, the complexities of fishing quotas, and the impact of warming sea temperatures on the fishing industry. He later toured the iconic wooden net shops.

On a lighter note, the Prince was inducted into the Winkle Club as an honorary member. The local charitable organisation was founded by fishermen in 1900 to support families in need, and past members include his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother, Sir Winston Churchill, and Field Marshal Lord Montgomery.

Prince William was given a silver winkle as a token of his lifetime membership and was told that members of the club, known as ‘Winklers’ must carry their shell at all times and that failure to present it on demand when challenged to “Winkle Up” would result in a fine. He accepted the responsibility with a smile and promised to “take good care of my winkle”.

The next stop was a visit to Eagle House, where the Prince chatted with young people and volunteers who use the space as a youth club and gathering place. The building is owned by Hastings Commons which aims to transform some of the town’s historic and neglected buildings by turning them into shared homes, workspaces and hubs of social support that are owned and run by the community.

Later in the day, William headed to the Hastings Adventure Miniature Golf, meeting  young people supported by the local youth charity XTrax and enjoyed a round of crazy golf. At almost exactly the same time Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex – William’s estranged brother and his family – were meeting their father, the King, 160 miles away at Highgrove

The first of these large-scale changes in the shape of the town was the reconstruction of the Old Town after the hurricane of 1287; the second was the attempt, around 1580, to build a harbour in the Priory Valley which laid out the town centre as it is today.

At both these times the government of the town was carried out by a bailiff, assisted by 12 jurats, normally referred to as ‘the brethren’, who were basically the leading members of the local establishment. The bailiff represented the Crown, imposing any necessary taxes, and generally ‘looking after’ the town in a limited semi-formal way.

As Hastings had a population of many hundreds of people, rather than the tens of thousands that there are today, the bailiff and brethren should usually have been able to find a consensus agreement of the chief residents about what to do in serious matters.

Until 1287 most of the Old Town was laid out further south than today, and the East and West Hills extended further to seaward. But a series of damaging storms from the 1250s, culminating in February 1287, brought major destruction to much of the southern coast of England. Whole areas of the coastline were then redrawn, with estuaries silting up and cliffs collapsing.

The most famous victim of the 1287 hurricane was the original town of Winchelsea, which until then stood on a massive shingle bank that protected the confluence of the estuaries of the Rivers Brede, Rother and Tillingham, and provided a sheltered anchorage called the Camber. After the Norman Conquest, Winchelsea was of great importance in cross-Channel trade (acting especially as an entrepôt for London) and as a naval base. By 1281 the people of Winchelsea had become aware that the end was near for their existing town because of the many storms, so they began laying out the new town on higher ground, where it is today.

There is no surviving written record of just how Hastings suffered from the late 13th century storms, but the result can be seen on the ground in the layout of today’s Old Town, which was actually a new town built after 1287. The clue is in the way both the High Street and All Saints Street have been laid out in parallel straight lines, as can be seen in the 1746 map. These were cut into the slopes of the West and East Hills respectively.

This encroachment required high pavements to be constructed on which the houses could be built. The houses could not have been built prior to the pavements, and no buildings in the Old Town today date from before the late 13th century storms.

But it was different, two centuries later, when the local ‘ruling class’ decided unilaterally that they wanted to turn the Priory Valley into a harbour. The Priory Valley in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times was one of only a handful of English harbours available for cross-Channel traffic. This was probably the main reason the town of Hastings had been created in the 9th century, as a new national economy had begun to emerge, based on increased cross-Channel trading and transport. The town itself was on top of White Rock, mostly on the section that has now been lost to the sea.

But in the 12th century, the harbour mouth silted up and the town gradually moved into the Bourne Valley, where the West Hill provided some shelter for a port at the mouth of the Bourne Stream. This was largely destroyed by the 1287 hurricane, so for the next 300 years a succession of wooden harbour arms was built roughly where the west end of West Street is today. These provided some shelter for fishing boats and the small commercial vessels operating off the beach in front of the Bourne Valley.

By the late 16th century, England was increasingly becoming an international trader, buying and selling goods around the world. In 1578 leading members of the Hastings establishment decided this would be a good time to restore the Priory Valley as the harbour it had been long ago. A petition was sent from the ‘townspeople’ of Hastings to Queen Elizabeth asking for a grant of £4,000 (many millions of pound today) to turn the valley into a “very good haven for the arriving and safeguard of ships, barks and boats, to the great relief of the inhabitants and all merchants and travellers sailing along the narrow seas [the English Channel]”.

A ‘haven’ is a closed-in dock, like a marina, rather than a harbour arm projecting into the open sea. Queen Elizabeth gave her blessing, authorising the local establishment to start collecting funding for the scheme, so work began. Within a year £2,000 had been spent. But then the rest of the money that the local businessmen had obtained went missing and construction had to stop. Historian William Camden wrote in 1586 that “the contribution was quickly converted into private purses, and the publicke good neglected”.

It seems that in about 1580 a sea-wall of soil, and possibly rock, had been built across the Valley near the sea where Cambridge Road is today. This may have been put on top of an already-existing trackway across the valley which is likely to have been formed by people travelling along the coast once the Priory Valley had partly filled with shingle and silt.

Parallel to the c1580 sea-wall across the valley, there appears to have been another wall further inland, where South Terrace is now. These two walls and the hillsides to east and west of them would have formed the deep-water haven where the Priory Meadow shopping centre is today.

But the haven was never completed, instead it became a large wet marshland in the middle of the valley. In the mid-18th century it could still be seen on ground in outline, as shown in the 1746 map. In the southern corner of the haven was the outlet to the sea of the Priory Stream, over which a succession of bridges was built. As the town expanded westward in the 1830s, the bridge site became the heart of the town, where the Albert Memorial clocktower was built in 1863.

The 1580’s trickery by the leading Hastings businessmen which halted the haven scheme was probably the key factor in the setting up by the Crown in 1588 of a commission of inquiry into the mismanagement of the town of Hastings. To regularise the controversial situation, a ‘charter of incorporation’ (usually referred to as the ‘Elizabethan Charter’) was passed in February 1589. The elusive, self-perpetuating cartel which had been running the town for many years was replaced by a new governing body, described as the ‘Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of the town and port of Hastings’.

This was essentially the old self-interested ruling group by another name. But from 1589 it was a new legally-defined corporate body – Hastings Corporation – which had specific rights and responsibilities. were many similar local government corporations around the country, most of which were run by members who re-elected themselves or friends, and who were suspected of becoming rich at the expense of the town’s inhabitants.

This became so widespread that the Whig government in 1833 set up a royal commission to investigate the working of 285 local authorities. This resulted in the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act which established the principle of local councils elected by ratepayers, which had to publish audited financial accounts. Hastings Council was born.

Local mental health charity Counselling Plus Community (CPC) will be relocating to the St Nicholas Centre from 1 September. The collaborative move was announced by long running charity the Fellowship of St Nicholas (FSN).

The relocation will bring together the two well-established and crucial charities, strengthening the support services FSN delivers to children, young people and families.

CPC was established in 1992 and provides affordable counselling for people aged 16 and over who are on benefits or low income. They will continue to provide this service from their new home and hope the move will help improve their ability to deliver it.

Verra Papaspyrou, CPC’s CEO, and FSN’s CEO Angelica McMilan both expressed excitement about the move. “Our roots lie in recognising the urgent need for affordable therapy within an area of significant deprivation,” says Verra, “and I believe this ethos will be enhanced and further developed by working closely with FSN.”

“We have been building towards combining our respective strengths at the St Nicholas Centre over the past few months,” says Angelica. “It’s such a great opportunity to enhance the support available to children, young people and families across our local communities. Creating greater access to dedicated mental health services and a more joined-up approach to wellbeing is so needed. We have listened to our community, and this collaboration is another step forward into ensuring families’ journeys in life are happier, one step at a time.”

To find out more about the work of CPC and FSN go to: counsellingplus.org or fsncharity.co.uk

As we sweat our way through the third heatwave of the year, it’s impossible to ignore that the climate is changing. That’s why Hastings United FC and Bexhill United FC are part of Gamechanging Futures, a National Lottery-funded project to help six English sports clubs adapt to the new climate.

The effects of the climate on sport are already apparent. Wimbledon has faced delays due to extreme heat, while at the World Cup, players are taking hydration breaks mid-game due to the heat, much to the consternation of the crowd (arguably an absurdity, because in this heat most people can’t even move off the sofa). The hydration breaks, however, do seem to be a flash of common sense from FIFA in a World Cup that is expected to be the most polluting yet.

On the smaller stage, the effect is perhaps more widely felt. Across England climate-related damage and disruptions to grassroots sport have produced a financial toll estimated at £320 million. These disruptions have a knock-on effect for communities, with pitches and sports areas being unavailable for local groups and clubs.

It isn’t just heat that has an impact. Geoff Martin, Media Manager at Bexhill United FC, highlights that: “Pitch irrigation and wildly fluctuating wet and dry spells leave us on a knife-edge with cancellations.” A third of community pitches across England are unplayable for up to two months of the season due to flooding and waterlogging.

Gamechanging Futures aims to help clubs adapt to these changes and help limit their impact on the environment. It’s a three-year project – supported by £1.5 million of National Lottery funding – being led by environmental charities Climate Outreach and Pledgeball. There are six participating clubs across the country, including local Hastings United FC and Bexhill United FC.

Hastings United FC will launch Play It Forward. This will keep football boots and kits in play through donation, repair, exchange and redistribution. Sally Greig, Director at Hastings United FC, says that this aims to “reduce sports kit waste, make football more affordable, and ensure that no player is left out of the game because they lack the right equipment” – as well as contributing, even in a small way, to a more eco-friendly approach.

Just down the road, Bexhill United FC plan to install LED footlights, cutting energy usage in the future as part of their bid to reduce further climate damage.

Rachel Orr, CEO of Climate Outreach, says: “Fans and players of grassroots sport are already feeling the effects of our changing climate. But they are also at the forefront of driving possible change. From installing solar panels to bringing down bills to creating accessible low carbon clubhouses, clubs are taking action to lower emissions and build community pride. We’re really excited to be working with these clubs to see what more we can achieve together.”

A recent report by the Climate Change Committee said that adaptation cannot wait – as evidenced in part by the struggles sports clubs face. That’s why they’re taking action now to change the game for future generations.

A new Community Eco Hub is the next aim of Umbrella Sussex – the group behind the Library of Things, Make and Mend, and Save the Convent Campaign. They are currently crowdfunding for the project and are looking for help from the community. The hub would combine climate action and anti-poverty work, focused on their well-established mending and lending schemes.

The building would provide space for the established Hastings Library of Things and Make and Mend, and would also play host to new initiatives like Hack Space – a shared community workshop for fixers, makers and inventors, and that would repair items, collaborate and develop new ideas, and tackle waste.

From Shore to Shed would combine beach cleaning with creative reuse. Materials collected from local beaches will be sorted and made available to schools, artists, community groups and makers. From these safe and renewable waste materials, creative projects can be born.

Providing affordable meeting rooms, a community kitchen and fully accessible facilities are also central to the building’s conception.

To ensure that the building is never sold and always available to the people of Hastings, Umbrella Sussex plans to put the building into a trust. It would be retrofitted to high environmental standards, to tie in with the group’s aim to tackle the climate crisis – as well as to inspire local residents and businesses to do their part.

Christine, spokesperson for Umbrella Sussex, says: “I started Make and Mend in 2019, and we’ve always struggled with space. Our two regular volunteers work incredibly hard to keep up with demand, but we simply can’t fit in any more volunteers. I’m so excited that, with control over our own space, we’ll be able to open every day and welcome many more people to get involved.”

To find out more or to donate. visit: crowdfunder.co.uk/p/community-eco-hub

BOO – (Battery Operated Orchestra) make “highly charged electronica with incredibly addictive melodies” and are an independent act now based in St Leonards. Their new album Sea Views Soft Rains, was made during the year in which they moved here from Newhaven. It’s out on stream now, and is to be released on CD in early August.

For everyone but the fortunate few who can survive solely on the quality of their music, their notoriety, or their retrospectively nostalgic appeal, sale of a modern album is much more than the simple laying down of ten or twelve quality music tracks. This – BOO’s eighth studio product – is, like many contemporary outputs, a concept album, based around pictures of an apparently fading seaside town. 

For your £17 album price you get not only twelve carefully-synthesised songs, a box lovingly folded with their own hands, but also 15 photographs. The whole package is intentionally fadeable, mutable, easily-damaged. It’s based around themes of love, loss, and redemption, ‘refracted through rain-streaked windows, empty promenades and abandoned ballrooms.’ 

This is a sophisticated collection of impeccably-produced, wholly electronic tracks The voices are part of the digital whole – controlled, measured, pitch-constant; the beat is crystal clear, decibel-sharp, bpm-consistent. What in other genres we might regard as the normal ebb and flow of musical engagement – natural variations in rhythm, pace, volume, pitch, sustain, and a lot of other things that imbue music with emotion, become secondary to a pinpoint-sharp, other-worldly exactitude. Why not? We live in a world dominated by these kind of images, where the medium is, definitively, the message. 

BOO are Brigitte Rose, born in Tasmania, and Chris Black, from Scotland, who now live here. Album release is 3 August.

TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] 2026 is an anthology of poetry and art from around the world. 28 contributors confront the catastrophic stupidity, cruelty, corruption, racism and murder precipitated by the disastrous Trump administration. Many people are incensed, horrified and driven to extremes of language by this – a condition that has been weaponised by the orange lunatic and his cronies against their opponents, to suggest that they are not capable of rational thought (as opposed to Trumpian policies that are of course cohesive, progressive and well thought-out!). This is a historical record for today and future times.

From the 28 contributions in the anthology, readings from which featured as part of Nottingham Poetry Festival, only two from England are included – the others are from around the world: USA, Canada, India, Europe and one from Scotland. Both artists live and work in Hastings and St Leonards. Felicity Stephen is a poet, writer and educator – she runs a series of workshops here, Hastings Writers for Wellbeing, and facilitates speaking and writing workshops for refugees.

Lee Allane is a poet, artist and illustrator, also living in Hastings.

TDS 2026, Poetry Global Network Publishing UK, ed. Mark Fishbein and Ray Whitaker. On sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and at all good bookshops.

Do you have an imaginary friend? Or do you think you might be someone’s imaginary friend?

Imaginary friends make our worlds bigger, wilder and full of new possibilities. We can ask them things we are afraid to ask anyone else. We can tell them our secrets. They tend to be good listeners and can often take us to enchanted places beyond our troubles.

Several imaginary friends are joining me as I tour libraries in Sussex and Kent this Summer. I’ll be introducing audiences to characters such as Wendy Wildwood, The Twilight Dragon and my favourite imaginary friend Jamboranja Jamboram, the wild crow-man from my book We the Wild Ones.

I’m also delighted to be getting to know some imaginary friends through collaborations with two brilliant local writers. These began with a performance at Hastings Library by David Quantick, celebrating his book Imagine a Friend. The novella explores the theme of imaginary friends in a way that deals poignantly with loss and separation, while also succeeding as an addictive page-turner. Locals will probably find themselves seeing a version of Alexandra Park as they read.

The theme of imaginary friends is clearly in the air as Brian Moses’ new verse-novel is I am Ray’s Imaginary Friend, described as: A spell-binding illustrated verse story for 7+ year olds… Thought-provoking, heart-warming and beautifully written, an outstanding book to share with KS2 children.” (School Reading List)

Brian Moses and I will be performing together at Hastings library at 11.00am on 29 July. Brian will be introducing I am Ray’s Imaginary Friend, but can no doubt also be persuaded to share some of his classic, beloved poems, such as Walking My Iguana, that I had the pleasure of illustrating a few years ago.

At the event, I’ll be sharing my new picture book The Twilight Dragon. In my story, the soft colours of sunset become a dragon that carries a worried child to an endless world inside a cloud. Once safely in The Twilight Dragon’s world, she can wander freely, talk openly… and dance like no one is watching. I’ll be telling the story with the large original illustrations I made for the book.

Following our joint event on 29 July, I’ll be going solo, visiting libraries throughout the area with East Sussex Library Service. All performances will be full of stories, poems, pictures, music and joining in.

Please visit edboxall.co.uk, facebook, Instagram or the library service for details. All events are free and all ages are welcome. Bring your friends- both real and imaginary! 

I first recall seeing what you could broadly call ‘Persian Miniatures’ when I was installing a show in Dammam, KSA. I still go back and forth to install artwork there. It’s an important place to me, for many reasons.

When I told people I was going to the Middle East to work I was met with a typical response, laced with prejudice and an underlying sense of Western superiority. In spite of more global cultural exposure, this remains. To me it was an opportunity to see art to which I would not ordinarily have access. The discovery of the miniatures was a part of this.

The miniatures are deceitfully tricky: the ornately painted borders seem to exist only for themselves – a skilful patterning and rendering of cloth butting up against wonky angles and lack of reliably straight lines. The flattening-out of perspective brought to mind dried flowers pressed in the pages of an old book. They elicit a joy for drawing, for looking, for seeing and trying to replicate things, especially natural objects. Above all, I liked the idea that these are a collaboration between skilled artisans: the guy who would do the flowers perhaps working on one border with the pattern guy waiting next to him, and the lad who draws the trousers sitting in the corner.

They were intended as illuminations for manuscripts, drawn and painted just to be bound and kept hidden; stacked on darkened shelves with the pages slowly discolouring from the edges inwards. At first I thought them unsophisticated, but I realised quickly that this wasn’t the case. They had been excised from manuscripts, mounted and framed for a gallery, but that didn’t mute their narrative, even if you had to work harder to understand it.

They also felt proletarian, in spite of the subject matter of historical moments: battles, conflicts, celebrations of stature and the rise of great figures (I’ve always disliked the idea of the heroic or the Saviour in art).

JUXTAPOSITIONS, CONTEXTS, AND ENQUIRIES

Frivolously, perhaps, I thought that it would be fun to copy them, but in doing so also to represent scenes of the life and people I was working with. That new art horizon was in its own way a kind of battle or land-grab; the importation of a cultural idea that was unrelated to its environment, and often in contradiction to it. These contradictions are the foundation of these drawings. At what point does celebration become appropriation? And does that really matter if you’re borrowing an aesthetic from an ironic culture that elevates Jeff Koons’ disco rabbits to an obscene value quite unrelated to their physical or artistic merit?

My drawings are essentially juxtapositions of environments, subjects and objects. They are about things that shouldn’t be there, and are an enquiry as to why they are. They are about the oil-and-water effect of cultural tension that can only exist in certain quarters, the navigation of new territories, politically, culturally and artistically. Mostly they are love stories; for a place, an idea and for people. They are narrative works that speak of moments soon lost to time, much like a page removed from a book and shorn from its original context.

There is heroism in them, but like all the best heroes they are the unwitting and unwilling, the smaller voices that don’t vie for attention but instead pass by without fanfare, making life more bearable by existing, rather than by a leading example.

Mark Spelman’s exhibition You Weren’t There is showing at Project 78 Gallery, Norman Road until 25 July

Hastings Pirates baseball club continued their blistering form last Sunday (5 July), with two impressive on-the-road triumphs over the Brighton Jets. The wins gave the Pirates a record of 12 victories and only two defeats for the season, stretching their lead at the top of British Baseball Federation Division 5 South to two games.

The victories showcased many of the strengths of this year’s Pirates. In the first game, a 17-3 drubbing, eight early runs came with two outs (in baseball, three outs ends an inning), demonstrating both discipline and patience at the plate. Pitcher Robert Uduak Victor once again dominated on the mound, giving up only six hits and three ‘walks’ (a free pass to first base awarded when a pitcher misses the strike zone four times), and striking out five – sparkling statistics at any level of baseball.

The Pirates, meanwhile, rattled out eleven hits against the Brighton pitchers, who also coughed up fourteen walks. Such impressive hitting meant there was only minor disappointment when slugger Marhil Romano’s thumping hit to left field was spectacularly caught in the third inning, robbing him of a fourth home run of the season.

Although the second game was closer, with the Pirates only narrowly ahead late on, four unanswered runs in the fifth and final inning brought a comfortable 11-5 win. Once again a balance of timely hitting and strong pitching was key, the latter courtesy of Romano and veteran Frank Cooper, who between them held Brighton to seven hits and five walks. The win stretched the Pirates’ unbeaten run to seven games.

Such form means the thoughts of Pirates’ players and staff are naturally turning to the possibility of qualification for the post-season play-offs for the first time in the club’s nine-year history, which would put the team well ahead of its aims for the year.

“As a club we set out a goal of achieving post-season games in 2027, with the primary target for this year to build on last season,” says general manager Clive Raines. “To find ourselves top of the table and with talk of the play-offs on the players’ lips is testament to the hard work put in by the entire squad.”

To make the play-offs – and ultimately reach September’s Division 5 semi-finals and finals weekend at the National Baseball & Softball Complex at Farnham Park – the Pirates will have to fend off stiff competition from within their division, with a pair of crunch fixtures away to Tonbridge looming this Sunday, 19 July.

“We’re not taking anything for granted,” says Raines. “Our opponents have all experienced this situation before, and are more than capable of catching us. But whatever happens between now and the end of August we’re going from strength to strength, and looking towards the future.”

The Hastings Pirates play their home games at Claremont Prep School on Sunday afternoons. First pitch is at 12noon; attendance is free. For more info follow instagram.com/hastingspiratesbaseball

11 July: Cuckfield 152 all out; Hastings & St Leonards Priory 156 for 5

HUGH SULLIVAN

The cricketers of Hastings & St Leonards Priory started this month at the foot of the Sussex Premier League table, without a win since 16 May. But in two successive home games against top-half opposition they have emerged with the best of a draw against Preston Nomads followed by a comfortable win over Cuckfield. Only 21 points now separate fifth from tenth, and the stage is set for a tight contest between all the league sides over the second half of the season.

On 4 July, hosting the Nomads, captain Harry Scowen won the toss, opted to bat first, and made hay under sunny skies. Hitting a masterful 117 off 136 balls, he shared an opening century partnership with the more circumspect Alfie Hunter (26), then enjoyed another rampant pairing with Joe Billings (50). From a score of 206 for one after 43 overs, a total of over 300 looked on the cards. The last 15 overs produced only 61 more runs for the loss of all nine remaining wickets, however.

Freddie Hulbert took a couple of early wickets when the Nomads replied, and the visitors remained well behind the required run rate as Adam Barton and Troy Henry, bowling with accuracy on a pitch that favoured spin, kept tight control. Scowen maintained an attacking field with close catchers around the bat, inviting the batsmen to accelerate towards their target with some cheap boundaries. But Nomads were not tempted, seeming to decide rather early that this was beyond them, and the game petered to a draw with seven wickets down and over 50 runs still to get.

A week later against Cuckfield, Hulbert again struck early, clean-bowling first Joe Cambridge, then Omair Yousuf with only 16 on the board. As this pair had hit 244 runs between them in the corresponding fixture between the sides when they played at Cuckfield in May, these dismissals naturally stoked Priory into the belief that this should be their day. Barton and Henry again bowled with admirable control, while Hunter took five wickets. The West Sussex side subsided to 26 for four, recovered somewhat to reach 102 for five, but never managed to collar the home bowling, and were eventually dismissed for 152 in the 55th over.

Batting conditions remained tricky for Priory’s batsmen and, despite a fluent 26 from Scowen, Priory lost half their wickets in reaching 87. However, Caleb Laloo found his best form of the season and, with confident assistance from Henry, helped himself to 11 fours, including some fine drives and a delicious reverse sweep in an unbeaten knock of 67. The pair guided Priory to victory without further loss and with plenty of time to spare.

Next up is an away trip tomorrow (Saturday) to Pulborough to face West Chiltington & Thakeham, followed by a home game against Haywards Heath.

Sussex Cricket League – Division 2 table 

Ramblers Making Tracks

Down in Division 2, Little Common Ramblers are promising a second successive promotion season. They achieved a fourth successive victory (in completed matches) last Saturday, winning by just eight runs in a thrilling finish at the local Recreation Ground against potential promotion rivals Brighton & Hove.

Kaleb Auld top-scored with 43 runs in a total of 201, then took three wickets, including a caught-and-bowled to dismiss the last opposing batsman. Ramblers have profited all season from his consistent all-round performances – 320 runs so far, plus 28 wickets at an average of under 13. 

The Coven Club, a fabulous new live music night to showcase femme-fuelled rock, punk and metal bands, returns to The Carlisle Rock Bar in Hastings in July this year. The night has already lived up to its aim of promoting up-and-coming talent, with April’s headliners Vampyra having since secured a coveted slot at this year’s Bloodstock heavy metal festival.

Vampyra, the feisty Kent-based horror punks who headlined The Coven Club just weeks after debuting their revamped line-up [pun intended!], have gone on to win the regional Metal 2 the Masses competition, securing them a place on the New Blood stage at Bloodstock.

The Coven Club is run by vocalist Amanda Brooks-Byron and bassist Steph Bennion of Hastings rock band Ditch the Demon. Both are keen to do more to support women who want to forge their own path in the male-dominated world of heavy rock. Hastings already punches above its weight in terms of its music scene and Amanda and Steph see the potential for something a bit different in town. All the big names in rock music started life in grassroots venues like The Carlisle. Vampyra are but one success story and The Coven Club will undoubtedly see more.

The Coven Club runs quarterly at The Carlisle Rock Bar in Hastings, with at least one local act appearing on each bill. The next event on Friday 24 July will feature: Key Change Electric, Deity and Devilry, and headliners Kindred Spirit Band, prog/folk-rock.

Tickets for 24 July (£5) are on sale from The Carlisle, online at Skiddle and will also be available on the door. Money raised through ticket sales will go directly to the bands, supporting original music.

There is endless fascination in using real historical figures as the inspiration for works of fiction. Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell and Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet are just two distinguished recent examples.

Hastings certainly has plenty of characters in its past, fighting for resurrection. A number who are apparently determined to make their way on to the pages of a modern novel are from the smuggling days of the early Georgian period – the first half of the 18th century.

Robertsbridge author Guy Radlett credits a review in this paper, of a biography I wrote some years ago as the inspiration for his new work Jemmy. James Collier – Jemmy – was the son of John Collier, one of the town’s most prominent citizens, and mayor in 1719,1722 and 1730. Historically Jemmy studied law at Cambridge and practised in London before his early death in 1747, aged just 26. Fictitiously, Radlett has him infatuated with an Italian dancer at Covent Garden Theatre before disappearing, to the consternation of his family.

Alongside Jemmy’s story, the author pens what he describes as a ‘non-linear narrative’ of the ‘Fall and rise of Mr Thomas Carswell’. The actual Carswell was a Riding Officer with the revenue services, combatting smuggling in Sussex and Kent. He was shot and killed in 1740, after a notorious altercation with members of the Hawkhurst gang at Silverhill near Hurst Green. He was generally considered an upright citizen of Hastings, mayor in 1734 and a friend of John Collier. The beginning of Radlett’s new novel has him as a disgraced drunkard propping up the bar of the Stag Inn.

There is, of course, nothing wrong in a historical novel with a fictional fleshing out of the sparse biographies of those who have gone before. Indeed, it’s perhaps inevitable that a writer will wonder at the unrecorded, fuller life of those from the past. The danger is that, if you do know something of them, you may feel the modern author has taken undue liberties with those known facts.

This, I rather felt, was the case with the otherwise excellent recent novel Winchelsea by Alex Preston. Here he used another character I had researched, the smuggler Gabriel Tompkins, but radically altered the recorded facts about his life and death. One was left wondering why he had not simply created an entirely fictional character in the first place? Radlett’s work, on the other hand, seems more rooted in fact and provides detailed expositions of the political climate of the time.

The upside of this intermingling of historical fact and modern fiction is that it may entice the reader into a world they knew little or nothing about. And for those who have put in many dusty hours in the archives, any fresh interest in those about whom we have become so passionate can only be a good thing. 

Jemmy; or the Rise and Fall of Mr Thomas Carswell by Guy Radlett is available at via jcweald@protonmail.com. Mr Hastings, a biography of John Collier by Kent Barker is available from the Hastings Local History Group.

Bexhill Art Weekender returns on Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 August 2026, featuring artists’ open studios, drop-in workshops, a Bexhill Day concert, experimental music experiences, exhibitions, film screenings, ceramic sales and a celebration of sculpture and 3D art. For a weekend, Bexhill-on-Sea will be transformed into a vibrant, town-wide celebration of contemporary art, performance, music and creativity.

The Weekender brings together artists, cultural organisations, community groups and independent businesses to present a programme of exhibitions, performances, screenings, workshops, talks and open studios. Entirely free to attend, the festival invites residents and visitors to discover Bexhill’s rich cultural ecology, and to experience the town as a place of collective imagination.

Bringing together cultural institutions, artist-focused organisations, community groups, heritage organisations, youth initiatives and independent businesses, the festival offers a snapshot of a cultural infrastructure that is far greater than the sum of its parts. In doing so, it reveals part of Bexhill’s emerging plan and its UK ‘Town of Culture’ ambition: the town’s greatest cultural asset is its capacity for collaboration and continuing cultural evolution.

THE EXHIBITIONS

Alongside their Summer exhibitions programme, Tawfik Naas’ Manifestations for an Eternal Spring and Annie Whiles’ Door Way Guardians, Flatland Projects will present CEREMONIA, an evening of performances celebrating the radical potential of the analogue in a digital age. Bringing together experimental music, movement and collective gathering, the programme features Bionic Step by Canadian-British artist Nina Davies (whose work centres around dance and popular culture) and Ed Baxter’s Statue of Liberty ‘anti-fascist’ big band that offers collective, inclusive, diverse improvisatory performance.

The De La Warr Pavilion, in partnership with artist collective ZEROH, will present MASS, a one-day celebration of sculpture and 3D art, bringing together local and regional artists. Other highlights include a sunset screening of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Revolver Record Fair in the auditorium, the launch of new collaborative projects with young people from Bexhill, and the Pavilion’s summer exhibition (reviewed in our last issue).

Common Clay opens its studios for exhibitions, a ceramic sale and Queer Clay Club by resident artists Nick Kidd and Camara Pinnock, whilst hosting a round-table discussion exploring class, making and access to ceramic practice. The weekend will also see artist Agata Bogacka invite artists and residents to take part in a Harvest Procession, a playful and participatory parade of handmade bread sculptures through the town.

Elsewhere, Do Your Ideas presents an exhibition by Anna Maria Nabirye, Letter Press Works, to accompany her residency at Written In Print Imprenta, a new letterpress print studio in Bexhill.

Bexhill Museum presents Sovereign Shoals with artists Yasmin Ornsby and Mary Hooper (curator of the fishermen’s exhibition at Hastings Contemporary), a new project developed with members of the Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society.

Bexhill Heritage joins the programme with a free Bexhill Day concert featuring live performances from local music and theatre groups, celebrating the town’s rich cultural traditions and civic life. Meanwhile, Living Communities will present Run to Chase Your Dreams, a series of creative drop-in workshops for all ages, inviting participants to make, create and imagine together through accessible activities designed to encourage participation, connection and aspiration. Visitors will also discover, throughout the weekend, exhibitions and activities presented by Bexhill Artrium, Love Art By Sea, Living Communities, Heart of Sidley Community Association, RePublic, Peter Marlow Foundation, The Refugee Buddy Project, Talent Accelerator and many others, alongside open studios at Beeching Road Studios and across the town.

Through collaboration and collective participation, the Weekender seeks to tell new civic stories about the town, celebrating Bexhill as a place of quiet but continual cultural revolution that uses the power of culture to connect communities.

Ben Urban, Director of Flatland Projects and Chair of Bexhill Cultural Network, said: “One of the most powerful lessons from our bid to become the 2028 UK Town of Culture has been discovering just how deeply culture is woven into Bexhill’s sense of itself. There is an enduring futurism here, a feeling that the town is always in the process of becoming.”

Bexhill Art Weekender 2026 Saturday 15 – Sunday 16 August 2026 Free admission Full programme and information: bexhillartweekender.com. Social Media: @bexhillartweekender 

As a music educator, I have been honoured to help a little from afar in the current work of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music (ESNCM), which has campuses around the West Bank and in Gaza. Their building in Gaza is now rubble, and most of the instruments smashed. But the children still have their voices, and the yearning to sing together is so strong that choirs are now springing up in the ruins, the tents, the rubble.

One of the musical leaders has been displaced more than fifteen times. Every time he is forced to move yet again, the families of the children move with him so that their children can keep on singing. Gaza’s pied piper.

At the core of this music-making is the resistance to the dehumanisation which accompanies the attempted erasure of a people and their entire culture; music enables the children instead to proclaim their essential humanity in a process of re-humanisation, and to say: “This is who we are.”

Fouad, ESNCM teacher in Gaza, recently wrote:

The very fact that we insist on singing, playing, and teaching our children means that we are affirming our existence and preserving our humanity – the very things they are trying to erase. Every note played under bombing is an assertion of human existence. When children sing together in danger, they create a sonic community that resists the silence imposed by violence.

There is nothing more powerful than a child singing under bombardment.

A few days ago I asked whether any of the music leaders in Gaza might like to send a short message for me to share with my parliamentary representative. The very next day, I received three eloquent expressions of grief, of hope, of an urgent desire to reach out and to be heard. One came from Al Mawasi, the place formally linked in friendship with Hastings.

Here they are, from Shireen, Ismail and Ashraf:

Peace be upon you… 

I am Shireen, the one who holds onto the strings of melodies so that the sky does not fall upon the heads of her little ones.

Here in Gaza, which has become an open wound on the face of time, we wake up every morning to a heavy question: Will we live to see tomorrow? Or will the bombardment be our appointment with the unknown?

We groan and suffer under the weight of an unending genocide and the burden of displacement that has uprooted us from our roots. Our homes are no longer made of stone; they are memories buried beneath the rubble, and our families have lost leaves that will never return. Yet, despite everything, we refuse to remain silent. We continue our mission, slipping through the cracks of war, running after our students in tents and destroyed schools, searching for their innocent faces so that we may offer them a moment of sincerity.

For us, music is not merely notes played in concert halls. It is a breathing soul; it is a space of light in a dark tunnel; it is a warm embrace for children exhausted by bombs. When we see a child forget, even for a moment, the sound of warplanes while improvising a melody on a broken oud, we feel that life still insists on surviving. In that moment, we believe that hope is not a slogan; hope is a choice. We chose to continue the journey… 

But hearts alone are not enough. Our instruments are shattered like our homes, our safe places have turned into rubble, and our students move between fear and exhaustion, while our teachers try to teach musical notes with fingers trembling from fear and pain.

The battle is twofold: the battle for survival and the battle to preserve this last refuge.

Our message to you is the cry of a voiceless soul: carry our heartbeat to the world. Defend the right of Gaza’s children to dream, to knock on the walls of the world’s silence with their melodies. Our music programs are not merely lessons; they are the testament of childhood and proof that we have not died yet, and that Gaza is still singing.

And in the end –

Hope is not a melody we hear; hope is to keep playing upon the wound, even if the instruments are broken and our breaths run out, because there is still a melody alive here…  the melody of life.

Ismail, academic director of ESNCM in Gaza:

We teach the children music to restore the sense of joy that they have lost. We strive to create moments of happiness and hope for them – things they have been deprived of throughout this devastating war.

Our conditions are harsh: living in tents, losing safety and security, hope, access to clean water, education; we endure continuous displacement; we are not safe in our homes, in the streets, anywhere.

We hope that the voices of our children will reach the world with one message: we love peace, we long for freedom, and we wish to live like all other peoples of the world – in safety, security, and stability. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for your compassion, solidarity, and support in helping us reclaim the beautiful lives we have lost.”

Ashraf, Violin Teacher and ESNCM Activities Coordinator in Al-Mawasi:

I teach in different places across Gaza. Travelling anywhere is extremely difficult. The weather is intensely hot, and there is always the threat of ongoing attacks. But this constant has not prevented us from continuing to spread hope in the hearts of children. We have not abandoned our responsibility.

The children love their lessons, and they eagerly await their classes; music is their safe haven.

We give children feelings of joy, even though we ourselves are exhausted. We sing and play for hope, but we ourselves are so tired of waiting and searching for those who will embrace and support us amid this deadly silence that comes from the world. These children have the right for the world to listen to their music and to understand what they feel; and to an environment filled with peace, tranquillity, and stability.

We still dream of seeing music in every home, every tent, and every street in Gaza and Palestine, and we hope that we may all live in safety and peace.

Finally, a voice from the children. A little while ago I was sent this from Aya (14). She wrote:

When I sing or listen to music with my friends, I feel as if we are escaping together from the noise and chaos of the world into a small space we shape with our voices and dreams. Music becomes a warm embrace we turn to – we sing and laugh, we sing and cry – and every melody seems to heal something broken within us. These are indescribable moments; we sing not to perfect our voices, but to feel alive – together, stronger than any pain.”

Felicity Laurence is a member of Hastings Jews For Justice. 

GREENHEAD’S GULLS

Local Hastings artist Bill Greenhead invites you into the mind of a seagull. Imagine a universe where Earth is not dominated by humans, but by avian creatures that call themselves “Sea Gulls”. What films would they make? What God would they worship? Do they even eat cereal?

All these questions and more will be answered in the fabulously quirky one man show at the Hastings Arts Forum in St Leonards on Sea.

A two-week show was launched on 10 July. Bill sported a brand new, never seen before, seagull T shirt designed and hand painted by the artist himself. Prepare to be amazed.

SMILEY FISH, ETC

Soon after that sees the return of the show Smiley Fish and Cheerful Things, which was such a success last year.  A great line-up of seven local artists is gathered to show work which aims to be bright, family-friendly and joyous – something for everyone and for every room in the house. The show will house paintings, prints, ceramics and the occasional ‘curiosity’, using inspiration from coastal themes, the local area, recognisable characters and folklore.

The artists are: Dawn Timmins, Judith Douglas, Fiona Granelli, Alex Leadbeater, Darren Baxter, Kate Winterton Dyer and Ed Boxall (who will also be presenting free storytelling events in his unique, inimitable, universally-appealing style.)

Bill Greenhead’s exhibition runs until 19 July at 20 Marine Court, St. Leonards. TN38 0DX. Smiley Fish runs 5-16 August. Wednesdays-Sundays. Open evening 7 August, 6-8 pm, storytelling 16 August 3-4 pm. All welcome. Visit hastingsartsforum.co.uk/category/exhibition for more information.

Joseph Stannard is an enthusiast. He loves music and he loves film. When he isn’t editing record reviews in a music journal, he is exploring the paranormal. “I’ve always been interested in the paranormal, the supernatural, and … weird music as well” he says.

While living in Brighton he noticed that a lot of music was influenced by horror, and that there were also a lot of horror films that featured experimental soundtrack music So he organised something called The Outer Church, a series of events which combined the two. They toured, in the UK and abroad, for about five years. He tried London but wanted to get back to the sea, and was eventually attracted by the rich occult history in Hastings.

Watching The Stimming Pool he realised that The Electric Palace, which appears in the film, was a beautiful Hastings venue, and began planning an event series to happen here. His event names come from the mind of Grant Morrison, who drew and scripted The Invisibles for DC Comics. It turns out in the end that the Outer Church and the Invisible College are actually two sides of the same organisation. Historically, The Invisible College was a name for the group of individuals, including Robert Boyle, who eventually founded The Royal Society.“It’s good to pay attention to synchronicities” continues Stannard. So, about his move from an outer church to an invisible college, he remarks “you could say I’ve moved from the ecclesiastical to the educational.” 

The Invisible Collage Vol I – puts together of some of the music he has assembled for the event (track list at the end of this article) 

The first event will show the film Body Melt (“there’s a lot of slime and gruesomeness, and it’s very splattery, very day glow”, he continues) directed by well-respected film writer Philip Brophy. Essentially the film has been called ‘the Substance before The Substance’ – though on a much lower budget – and features the horrors of Big Pharma, and Ian Smith (Harold Bishop from Neighbours) on a gun-toting rampage.

The evening will also feature live artists Trigger Objects and Dream Skills, both of whom make music that is thoroughly in keeping with this kind of film. “A lot of the stuff I put on is stuff I really love, and if other people like it, then hopefully it will bring out other freaks.” There is also of course a considerable tranche of avant-garde musicians in Hastings who might well be interested in this series of events, which with Stannard’s combination of enthusiasm and expertise, is sure to be a success.

The Invisible College will present as a special event at the Electric Palace Cinema on Sunday 16 August. For more details see electricpalacecinema.com. Mixtape tracklist as follows:

In 2024 the Hastings Independent met with Josh Levy, Tad MacDonald and Celia Farrar to discuss the beginning of Bunka, a collaboration delivering restaurant pop-ups across Hastings and St Leonards. Jump forward a couple of years to today and you’ll find Bunka’s Rooftop Bar on top of the Observer Building, their Kiosk perched on the West Hill and Hastings Castle filled with people, music and food. They’ve come far since that initial article but are still just at the beginning, with plans for a restaurant and visitor centre on The West Hill Cafe site.

Under the banner of Troika Projects, the team set up Bunka Restaurant, bringing a wealth of expertise from each of their varied backgrounds. When Josh first met Celia he got her picking sticky labels off tubs, mistaking her for someone with no kitchen experience. Meanwhile Celia was writing her recipe book Poke: Hawaiian Inspired Sushi Bowls and founding one of the UK’s first poke eateries. Josh himself has worked in Michelin Star institutions, beginning his career with Gennaro Contaldo and Jamie Oliver before working as Sous Chef at Thomas Kerridge’s renowned restaurant in the Corinthia Hotel.

Tad, who you’ve probably encountered smiling out the hatch of the Kiosk or flying over the rooftop bar with drinks and pizzas in tow, has over 15 years of experience managing high-performing hospitality venues, ranging from Flat Iron and Caravan in London, to Heist, Boatyard and Farmyard in St Leonards.

After a successful pop-up last year, Bunka has permanently opened a rooftop bar on top of The Observer Building. It is a treat to see Hastings from a different perspective, the views scan over the higgledy-piggledy rooftops of the new town, reaching their limit at the sea’s edge. Pizzas, British charcuterie from Curing Rebels, and English wine from Henners vineyard make up their simple but delicious menu. The pizza flavours offer twists on classics like pepperoni with hot honey or nduja on a white base with mussels. The atmosphere is relaxed, with an indoor area as well as the open rooftop, offering panoramic views whatever the weather.

In addition to their rooftop bar, the trio run The Kiosk, a hugely popular café positioned on top of the West Hill. Although the Kiosk is a temporary set-up, it has become a much-loved spot for breathless hill hikers, toastie-lovers and Hastings’ entire population of dogs. With delicious coffee from Nelson Coffee Co. in Eastbourne, sourdough from Poppyseed Bakery and beers from Three Legs Brewery in Bexhill, the Kiosk highlights the incredible community of local food and drink suppliers we have available in Sussex.

The Kiosk was initially built as an interim offering while the team developed the site of the West Hill Café and Hastings Castle, as planned for The West Hill Project. With funding from The Hastings Town Deal Programme, Troika Projects are working alongside Hastings Borough Council to build a new restaurant, café and visitor centre. The project is a wonderful opportunity for visitors and locals to engage and connect with the castle’s fascinating history.

Hastings Castle site pre-dates 1066, with a record of humans settling there for at least 8,000 years. Running a castle was never a childhood dream for the trio but it seems fitting that the space is deeply connected with human history, as people and community are at the core of Troika Projects’ ethos. In their designs for the project, the team placed emphasis on the significance of the site in terms of its history, culture and community. Speaking on their goals, Celia Farrar stated that their main aim for the castle site was ‘to realise its potential as a community asset’.

With their combined knowledge and experiences in designing and operating hospitality spaces, Josh, Tad and Celia are well-placed to transform the West Hill site. The transformation will begin with an array of family-friendly events, performances, and workshops, connecting visitors with the space by taking inspiration from its rich history and natural surroundings.

In July, Hastings Castle will be host to yoga mornings, sunset singing sessions and The Handlebards, a cycling theatre company, performing a hilarious production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. There will also be storytelling workshops on weekends and Wednesdays with Su Austin, taking inspiration from found objects around the Castle. On Pirate Day weekend, there will be a Castle Sundowner event, with guest DJs from Catch My Drift and a BBQ and bar from Bunka.

Location plays a significant part in each of their ventures, with the high-up, outside spaces offering incredible views and front row seats to the constantly changing and often dramatic coastline weather we experience in Hastings. This positioning pairs well with the interesting and changing menus and events that Bunka are becoming known for.

With so much accomplished in such a short amount of time, the team at Bunka have a lot to be proud of. When asked about their biggest achievements, Josh, Tad and Celia agreed that the community they had built from businesses and suppliers to colleagues and customers was their strongest asset. Alongside Troika Projects, Josh Levy also works as a Chef Educator with Prept Foundation, going into local schools and community spaces to deliver cooking sessions. By sharing their expert knowledge, skills and experiences, the team at Bunka are committed to local collaboration, creating employment opportunities and bringing people together over excellent food and drink.

Coming up at the Castle: hastingscastle.org.uk/whats-on 

The name Paul Joy is well known in Hastings, especially in the Old Town. Paul has been a fisherman here for most of his adult life and he has been chair of the Hastings Fishermen’s Association since 1977. However, what most people don’t know is that a young Paul Joy was a very keen amateur boxer who had dozens of fights, most of which he won.

“In 1970, inspired by watching the fights of Muhammad Ali on TV, I first went to the Hastings West Hill Boxing Club with absolutely no experience,” said Paul.

“The training was pretty serious. We’d run and sprint from the gym to Battle, before returning to the gym in Hastings to spar for three rounds. Other times, we’d jog along the beach, holding up heavy weights to get our muscles used to keeping our hands up. I loved it!”

“As an amateur, we fought three, three-minute rounds. I found out early that I could hit and knock out opponents with a good right hand. You could say my style was like a bouncer. I fought as a light welterweight (140 pounds or 10 stone/7) and occasionally, I’d fight as a lightweight (up to 135 pounds), and sometimes I’d fight opponents considerably heavier and more experienced than me because I had a reputation of knocking out opponents early.

“My very first fight was against a Royal Marine in a Chichester hotel, where a ring was set up in the middle of the dining room. Before the fight, the Marine came into the dressing room to taunt me, looking me up and down and sneeringly saying, ‘No problem’. I KO’d him in the first thirty seconds of the first round! And in my next few fights, I KO’d opponents with my right hand cross.”

“In 1974 I fought Clinton McKenzie, who was an up and coming star in the amateur circuit. I knocked him down in the third round, but lost on points. In fact, McKenzie went on to become the professional British light welterweight champion.”

“As an amateur, we weren’t allowed to be paid cash prizes, so my promoter would arrange prizes, such as bath towels and bathroom scales.”

“One time, the Club set up a boxing ring on the shingle beach, where the Ferris wheel now is. It felt more like a fairground than a proper boxing arena. Anyone was invited to step into the ring with me, but most of my opponents were totally useless, sometimes even pissed, so I had to hold back so I didn’t hurt them.”

“I’ve never been knocked out, but I have been knocked down several times. One time there was boxing on Hastings Pier, and my opponent, Johnny Farnbry, didn’t show up on time, so while I was waiting for him, I had a few beers too many. When Farnbry eventually did show up he knocked me down. I got up, but lost on points. Lesson learned!”

“I boxed for almost six years, until 1977. All my family were in the fishing industry, and eventually I followed. Also, it wasn’t fair to my wife and two children to be disappearing days on end to fight abroad.”

“Just before I ‘retired’ from the ring, I had a few unofficial, under the radar fights. For about a year, I worked on a building site as a hod carrier… and a boxer! After our mid day dinner break, I’d put down my hod and put on the gloves and box. There was no ring or ropes, we just fought on a square patch of concrete floor. I mostly sparred with the sub-contractor, Terry Haddon. And I got £10 a day for doing both, which was good money then!”

“In another unofficial fight, I fought a Frenchman in the Hotel de France on Jersey Island. He was two weight classes heavier than me and I injured my hand when I hit him. As I was then fighting one-handed, they stopped the fight. The best bit about boxing in Jersey was that for a few days after the fights we were given freedom of the city and got free drinks in all the pubs.”

Two of my most memorable ‘under the radar’ fights were against a fighter called Ripley, King of the Gypsies, in Canterbury. I beat Ripley in our first fight, but what was most memorable was that in the first round, ten and twenty pound notes started appearing all over the canvas. Ripley didn’t trust his promoter, so instead of keeping his pay in his locker, he stuffed the money into his socks and as the fight progressed, the pound notes started falling out onto the ring.”

“In our second fight, I knocked Ripley down, but instead of getting up to finish the fight, he jumped out of the ring to attack an obnoxious spectator who was heckling him. It really was like the Wild West!”

I ask Paul what he thinks of boxing today. “With all the different sanctioning bodies, who are only interested in profits rather than their fighters’ welfare, professional boxing has become a bit of a circus. But I still think amateur boxing is still very important for young men, as well as women, giving them a community to belong to, and to help them focus their energies positively.

Does Paul have any regrets about his boxing career?

“No regrets, it was a fantastic time!”

“In fact,” Paul continues, “I genuinely think that the skills I learned as a boxer – resilience, determination and the ability to pick myself up off the canvas and keep fighting – have been invaluable in my role as chair of Hastings Fishermen’s Protection Society, fighting for the rights of our fishing community.”

John Cole has been photographing the Hastings Fishing Community since 1991. Visit his site at johncole.co.uk 

The Pett Level Rescue Boat team, usually tasked with helping distressed swimmers and vessels, found themselves in uncharted waters on Saturday 4 July when they responded to an alert regarding an unusual casualty: a live octopus, marooned in the sand by the receding tide. Steve Hill, the Chair of the Launch Authority, told HIP that his members carefully recovered the creature before safely returning it to the sea. Another successful, albeit unusual mission, for the team of valued community volunteers.

While the sighting of this eight-armed cephalopod may still feel like a novelty for beachgoers, its presence is likely to signal the onset of a serious ecological upheaval in local waters. For the fishermen of Hastings, however, it represents a potential threat to their livelihoods.

The sightings of octopuses are becoming more common along the South Coast, particularly off Cornwall. Marine biologists explain that the sudden surge in sightings – a phenomenon known as a ‘bloom’  – is driven by environmental factors, such as a mild winter followed by a warm breeding season, supercharged by the long-term warming of our seas due to global warming.

The warm-water creatures make their way here from much hotter southern waters as sea temperatures rise. This migration is driven not only by the current marine heatwave, but also by longer-term climatic trends that are pushing sea surface temperatures 4–5°C above average in parts of the English Channel. So-called ‘heat domes’ exacerbate the problem by trapping the hot air to drive record-breaking air temperatures.

In the short term, some of us may bask in the tropical conditions and enjoy lazy afternoons on the beach. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that the ecological shift scientists have long warned about is no longer a distant forecast but a present-day reality.

The rising sea temperatures along the Kent and Sussex coastline are already impacting traditional marine habitats, the very staples of the historic, shore-launched Hastings fishing fleet. The numbers of cod, Dover sole, plaice, herring, mackerel and skate fished locally are declining, as these species move further north to find colder waters. Seagrasses and kelp forests are also disappearing rapidly from around the English Channel.

The rise in octopus numbers is now beginning to have an impact on shellfish stocks, too. Octopuses are voracious predators of crustaceans, and as their population is set to explode, stocks of crab and lobsters are likely to be decimated. This will impact shellfish potters who use specialised baited traps (known as ‘pots’) to catch their quarry which are highly prized.

The octopus threat is only the latest blow to an already battered fishing fleet, which has seen the number of active beach-launched boats that make up the historic fleet in Hastings reduced to almost single figures.

Roland Kelly, skipper of the Senlac Jack, has witnessed first-hand the dramatic decline in Hastings’ fishing fleet over his 40-year career. When he first put to sea in 1986, he says the waters off the Sussex coast were teeming with cod, Dover sole and plaice, but those abundant hauls are “now a fading memory”. He blames the steady encroachment of large EU trawlers, “even within the post-Brexit six-mile limit,” of over-fishing and of stripping the inshore grounds of mature fish. As a result, “catches today barely cover costs” he says.

Add to that the bureaucratic nature of fishing quotas, whose rigid inflexibility makes them virtually impossible to meet, along with the prospect of extended Marine Protection Zones – a conservation initiative he supports for safeguarding critical habitats, yet whose expansion he fears will impose even greater constraints.

Mr Kelly believes fishing is a passion but “a passion too few young people seem to share today”. The restrictions have simply become too onerous and he asks is it any wonder “given the difficult working conditions, the financial uncertainty, and the bureaucracy why any young person would want to work the boats anymore.”

He acknowledges an ecological shift is under way in the English Channel with sea temperatures rising and traditional fish stocks depleting. He also believes the threat posed by the rise in octopus numbers, whilst real, is not the most immediate concern of local fishermen.

The longer-term shift in marine life will inevitably present opportunities, as new species arrive in local waters. Increasing numbers of octopus and blue fin tuna could, in time, he says, provide lucrative markets. But, he adds, there is no certainty that the octopus will stay if their supply of crustaceans disappears. New equipment will also be needed along with new skills, and new supply chains – all at considerable cost, and it remains to be seen whether these gains will outweigh the losses already being felt across the local fleet.

The rescue of the octopus in Pett Level was undoubtedly an act of kindness, but it also serves as a stark warning. Increasing numbers of octopus are a visible sign that global warming is real and that an increase in sea temperatures will have a massive impact on our town and on the very future of our historic fishing fleet.

Hastings police stand accused of ‘lacking enforcement’ over aggressive begging and antisocial behaviour in the Wellington Place area of the town centre, while the council confirms an increase in disruptive incidents involving groups of young people.

Local shop workers, managers and owners have told HIP of numerous incidents including fist-fights and other disturbances which, they say, often involve street sleepers and people with alcohol and drug dependency problems.

A spokesperson for Hastings Borough Council (HBC) told us: “East Sussex County Council’s Youth Offending Service and Early Help teams have been working alongside Sussex Police to identify the ringleaders and ensure that serious offenders are appropriately dealt with, while also seeking opportunities to divert young people away from offending behaviour through early intervention.”

One employee at the local McDonald’s in Wellington Place witnessed a fight breaking out in the fast-food outlet during his evening shift. “It wasn’t clear who started it,” he said, “but it was between a middle-aged man and three teenage boys. Fortunately, no weapons were involved, but the scuffle resulted in blood being spilt onto the shop floor. It was extremely intimidating.”

IMPROBABLE EXPERIENCE

These firsthand experiences from locals and workers are evidence that contradict the idea of a family-friendly atmosphere in Wellington Place. In daytime, the experiences seem improbable; police are patrolling, and the Hastings community is enjoying the heat, in the hotter than average 2026 summer. Yet the area shows many symptoms of decline; shops on the brink of closure are running emergency sales. Litter wafts along the gutters and remnants of rough sleeping camps – mattresses and sleeping bags – are present for all to see. Shops’ corrugated shutters are scrawled with graffiti. According to local workers, by evening there are insufficient police on the beat – which is when instances of antisocial behaviour rear their head.

The problems are far from new. A senior manager at Kokoro, which serves East Asian cuisine, said they petitioned Sally-Ann Hart during her time as Hastings MP between 2019 and 2025. After six meetings with her and Police Commissioners, they finally got a Police Pod installed two years ago.  This is a portable or temporary policing hub – effectively a miniature police station – with CCTV coverage of the surrounding area.

Kokoro cited an incident where local boys had thrown a cup of McDonald’s coca-cola at their front counter, resulting in the damages of store Point-Of-Sale (POS) equipment. Since then, they have banned groups of young boys from using their outside seating.

On the topic of repeated antisocial behaviour from local young people, a council spokesman has said: “We are aware of concerns about antisocial behaviour in Hastings town centre. Over the past couple of months there has been an increase in incidents involving groups of young people, and the Safer Hastings Partnership has been closely monitoring the situation and coordinating a multi-agency response. East Sussex County Council’s Youth Offending Service and Early Help teams have been working alongside Sussex Police to identify the ringleaders and ensure that serious offenders are appropriately dealt with, while also seeking opportunities to divert young people away from offending behaviour through early intervention.”

ENGAGING YOUNG PEOPLE

The council says the partnership has funded youth outreach services to patrol some of the more secluded locations where young people tend to gather during the warmer months and that this work is continuing, with additional support from Active Hastings and Hastings Commons. All of which “helps to engage young people in the wide range of positive diversionary activities available across the town”.

However employees at both Millets and Kamsons Pharmacy say there is an ‘increasing trend’ towards unprevented, street-based antisocial behaviour, often worsening towards the evening. One argued that the decision of JD Sports to actively prosecute shoplifters acts as a far greater deterrent than the patchy police presence.

Besides commenting on actions taken against young people, the HBC spokesperson said: “The council and its partners recognise the impact that antisocial behaviour can have on residents, businesses and visitors. Tackling these issues remains a priority. The Antisocial Behaviour Public Spaces Protection Order (ASB PSPO) is an important enforcement tool, helping agencies tackle a wide range of antisocial behaviour and manage alcohol consumption in public places.”

INCREASED SHOPLIFTING

According to Sussex police data, overall crime in the area has declined slightly between May 2025 and 2026, particularly antisocial crime – yet shoplifting has proportionally increased. The solar-powered Pod, which cost around £12,000 to install as part of a £1.4 million county-wide investment, has previously been attributed to a 14% decline in hotspot area crime.

HBC told us that they recognise the importance of a visible police presence in the town centre, particularly during busy periods and in warmer weather, and “partners continue to work closely with Sussex Police to respond to emerging issues and community concerns.”

However HIP’s investigation showed a marked discrepancy between official police initiatives and the actual experiences and sentiments felt by Wellington Place visitors and employees on the ground.

A senior staff member at Vape & Mobile, who along with most people we spoke to asked to remain anonymous, expressed their grievances at the persistent presence of “local pissheads, drug addicts and pushy beggars”. They recalled their experience of rough sleepers at their shop windows, which would trigger security sensors in product display windows and deter potential customers. They said that many of these antisocial individuals “tended to be the same faces”, and observed that whilst the police showed presence, this presence lacked enforcement of aggressive begging in the area.

Several people pointed to the presence of Change Grow Live, a CGL-managed Alcohol and Drugs rehabilitation centre, stationed based in Wellington Place as contributing to the problems in the area. The Kokoro restaurant say they “hit a stone wall” in trying to get this moved to a new location following discussions with Sally-Ann Hart and the police.

EXTENSIVE DRUG SUPPORT

Not everyone thinks that moving the service would solve the area’s problems. According to the Change Grow Live website their drugs team provides essential support for people who use a wide range of drugs including opiates, cocaine, cannabis, ketamine, MDMA and steroids. They also provide a needle exchange and “recovery-focused counselling, detox and rehab programmes”. One Hastings Resident told HIP that closing or moving a valuable resource like that could exacerbate addiction related problems of antisocial behaviour.  And, anyway, it was wrong to blame people with addiction and possible mental health issues for all the problems in Wellington Place.

The council says that The Safer Hastings Partnership works closely with housing services, substance misuse services, health partners and voluntary organisations such as Seaview to address the complex issues that can contribute to antisocial behaviour. Recognising that antisocial behaviour is often a symptom of more complex personal circumstances, the partnership aims to balance enforcement with appropriate support and intervention.

Hastings is the third most deprived authority district in East Sussex, making it more likely that individuals can fall into difficult circumstances. The existence of support centres is essential to the community, for if people involved in antisocial behaviour as a cause of drug or alcohol addiction have no support in rebuilding their lives there seems every likelihood they will continue to cause harm to themselves or other

The future of the former Convent of Holy Child Jesus in St Leonards is in serious doubt following a fire which destroyed a large area of buildings.

The blaze is being treated as arson and Police said they had arrested two boys aged 13 and 14 on suspicion of deliberately starting the fire.

A total of eight fire appliances fought the flames after calls to the emergency services around 5.00 pm on Wednesday 9 July. Firefighters, who had come from as far away as Eastbourne and Heathfield, remained on the scene overnight to continue monitoring and damping down hotspots.

Roads in the area were closed and residents advised to shut doors and windows because of billowing smoke. The fire service said they were seeking specialist advice from the UK Health Security Agency due to ash on cars and buildings following the fire.

The Convent of Holy Child Jesus has been in the centre of a longstanding row over responsibility for securing the empty site and preventing vandalism. Less than a month before the fire, Hastings Borough council threatened to take enforcement action against the owners of the buildings. The move followed numerous incidents of trespass and vandalism. One video posted on social media showed a man destroying a window frame in the curtilage of a listed building with a hammer. Photos collected by the pressure group Save The Convent demonstrated widespread damage in numerous rooms.

After the convent nuns relocated to Mayfield in the 1970s the site was operated as a summer language school until it was sold to private investors. As reported in the last issue of HIP, the registered owners of the 15-acre estate are DKSS Holdings Limited, who paid £3.9 million for it in 2021. Company documents show that they borrowed nearly the entire sum from a Luxembourg-registered company Creo 12. The accrued interest on the loan rose to more £1m before the lender appointed a firm of receivers, Kroll Advisory Ltd, to attempt to recover their money. Hastings Borough Council (HBC) said they had repeatedly tried but failed to engage the owners to secure the site and limit damage to what they termed “this important heritage site that includes a Grade 2* listed chapel”.

However, within weeks of the deputy leader of HBC, Julia Hilton, threatening enforcement action, a significant portion of the buildings appear to have been deliberately destroyed by the fire.

Hastings MP Helena Dollimore called for a full investigation of the circumstances of the fire. She said it was “infuriating that this has happened after so many of us have repeatedly warned the site is not secure and urged the site manager and the local council to do all in their power to protect it.”

HBC reiterated that the former convent site is privately owned and is not owned or managed by the Council. “Responsibility for securing the site and maintaining the buildings rests with the owners. The council will carry on pursuing all action available to us to ensure the owner fulfils their responsibilities”.

It remains unclear, however, as to exactly who such action would be taken against. DKSS Holdings appear to be technically insolvent, their creditor is a foreign company not named as an owner by the Land Registry and the receivers Kroll deny financial responsibility saying the ‘lender’, ie Creo 12, would be required to ‘fund any necessary works’.

The community group Save the Convent told HIP they were ‘appalled’ by the fire and that the Grade 2* listed building – the Pugin Chapel which seems to have survived intact – needs urgent protection. They reiterated that they wanted to find a community-based solution “We are eager to work with the council on restoring the building and creating a community village space, with co-op housing, community arts centre, community gardens, museum, community cafe and micro business space, all of which are ideally suited to this beautiful site.” However they have not said if they have any potential backers to finance their scheme.

Thus the immediate future of the damaged buildings remains unclear. It is not known whether they were insured nor whether any insurance company would pay up, given the longstanding problems with lax security as well as the allegations of arson against two minors. Some observers believe that the most likely outcome will now inevitably be a heavily discounted ‘fire sale’ to a property developer who will put forward a scheme for market housing.

Hastings is expected to rejoin the 1066 Country marketing partnership in the near future. Deputy Council leader Julia Hilton told HIP that they had been in discussions with the group “over the past few weeks” over rejoining “in particular for their excellent work promoting the area to the overseas market.”

The move follows pressure from the town’s MP and Labour members of the council to rejoin the local tourism board which promotes the 378 square miles of East Sussex from Pevensey Bay to Camber Sands and back to the Kent border.

In February 2023 the council, then controlled by Labour, withdrew its support for 1066 Country saying the £50,000 a year cost was unaffordable. Councillor Andy Batsford said at the time: “Hastings is a really strong brand in its own right and we feel we can go it alone and actually push hard on the new businesses, the new investment, the new cultural buzz that is happening in the town.”

However, Mr Batsford along with council leader Paul Barnett and four other members resigned from the Labour Party later that year to sit as independents. Earlier this month the three remaining Labour councillors called for the council to rejoin the tourism and marketing initiative. Councillor Billie Barnes tabled a motion at full council supporting the idea, saying ‘“The Bayeux Tapestry returning to Britain represents an exceptional, once-in- a-generation opportunity for the area. It is vital to put on a united effort as ‘one 1066 Country’ to maximise regional tourism opportunities and profile”.

1066 Country Marketing describes itself as a ‘thriving public and private sector partnership, bringing together Rother District Council, Wealden District Council, Tourism South East, National Trust and English Heritage alongside scores of private businesses.’

Local MP Helena Dollimore supported the call for Hastings to rejoin, saying many local businesses who rely on tourism “want Hastings to return to the 1066 Country Tourism partnership. … with Hastings Council receiving a record funding settlement from the Labour Government this year, now is the time to return to this important partnership and I hope councillors will support this.”

Cllr Julia Hilton remained tight-lipped about the cost of rejoining. “I won’t comment on the financial contribution we will be making for that work as that is still being finalised,” she told HIP. As a result of the decision, she said: “The motion that the Labour group was intending to bring has therefore been rejected as the work to rejoin is already in progress.”

John Bownas, business improvement manager for the Love Hastings marketing group said he was positive “the majority of leisure and tourism businesses – in fact probably all businesses in the borough – will wholeheartedly welcome the call to reinstate Hastings’ funding for 1066 Country Marketing”.

Mr Bownas pointed out that the decision to withhold the £50,000 contribution to the partnership and replace it with a local budget of £15,000 meant Hastings had ‘lost a seat at the table where strategic tourism marketing happens. This has left our local businesses immensely frustrated, feeling that their individual membership fees are perhaps being spent to the benefit of other towns in the wider region.’ He estimated the regional visitor economy to be worth in the region of £665 million which means that the overall saving to the council of £35,000 was disproportionate as the potential return on investment is enormous. Tourists don’t plan their holidays around local authority borders, he said: “When visitors come to the South East, they see Hastings, Battle, and Rye as one interconnected destination. Trying to market Hastings in a hyper-local silo not only duplicates administrative effort, but it actively confuses consumers and forces our attractions to compete rather than collaborate.”

Hastings police are investigating a fire at the former Convent of the Holy Child Jesus on Magdalen Road in St Leonards as arson.

The blaze was reported at around 17.00 on Thursday 9 July and ultimately eight fire engines attended, coming from as far away as Eastbourne and Heathfield. Roads in the area were closed and local residents advised to stay indoors to avoid the heavy smoke from the blaze.

Police say two boys aged 13 and 14 were arrested on suspicion of arson and that investigations continue.

The buildings of the former convent school have been subject to repeated incursion and vandalism in recent months.

Read more on this story in the next issue of the Hastings Independent, out on 16 July.

All these questions and more will be answered in the fabulously quirky one man show at the Hastings Arts Forum in St. Leonards on Sea.

A two-week show kicks off on 10 July with a private viewing with wine and snacks from 6pm to 8pm to meet Bill sporting a brand new, never seen before seagull T-shirt, designed and hand painted by the artist himself. It’s so new he hasn’t painted it yet!

The exhibition runs until 19 July at 20 Marine Court, St. Leonards. TN38 0DX

Businesses Fined

Following investigation by immigration enforcement officers, two businesses in Hastings have been fined for employing illegal workers.

Edi’s Car Wash Ltd in Battle Road have had a £40,000 penalty imposed on them, as has Halsho Stores Ltd, previously trading in Bexhill Road. Both companies were found to be employing staff not entitled to work in the UK or undertaking insufficient checks as to their immigration status.

Homes Development at Northeye

Homes England is carrying out community consultation on prospective house-building on the site of the former prison at Northeye, west of Bexhill. The site was bought by the Home Office in 2023 for £15.4 million as a potential  immigration detention centre, but transferred to Homes England in February this year.

There was a general drop-in session offered at Little Common Community Centre last Saturday, and a guided tour of the prison itself scheduled for yesterday (Thursday). Homes England has, however, made it clear that it plans to demolish around 70 existing buildings within the site “at the earliest opportunity”. It claims to have, or that it will have, “detailed strategies” to combat known asbestos contamination and “protect nature”.

The site is allocated for up to around 300 homes in Rother District Council’s emerging Local Plan.

Best Beach

In a survey issued by AA Roadwatch last week, Hastings Beach was rated among the top beaches in the south-east – only Hayling Island and Hove scored better on an index weighting average: Google review scores and search volumes, car parking costs, lifeguard services, RNLI lifeboat station proximity, average water temperature and monthly hours of sunshine.

The quality of water at Hastings pulled down the overall score. However, average sea temperature in July (18.7C) was the highest among any of the top 20.

The Hastings Neighbourhood Board (HNB), charged with allocating £20 million of government money over the next ten years to boost community amenities and activities in the town, is inviting bids from groups of residents or community organisations with proposals of how best to spend it.

This funding programme – originally launched by Rishi Sunak’s government as the Long Term Plan For Towns, then re-branded under Labour as its Plan for Neighbourhoods, then further re-branded as Pride in Place – is to be divided between three separate pots. One, styled Pride in Our Streets, will provide up to £250,000 per year for small-scale ‘interventions’ in the public realm, such as provision of bins, bus shelters, benches or murals; a second, styled Pride in Our Neighbourhood, offers up to £500,000 per year for projects such as improvements to community centres, sports facilities and youth activities; a third, named Pride in Our Town, will make up to £1 million available per year for heritage projects and major infrastructure in the town centre or on the seafront.

A separate fund of £1m, called the Pride in Place Impact Fund, was announced in March to be spent on installing or upgrading playgrounds in neighbourhoods across the borough, including a ‘transformation’ of the existing facility in Alexandra Park.

Applications for funding from the first two pots are now being invited. The opportunity to bid will remain open until 31 August, with decisions expected in October. The criteria for choosing one bid over another have not been spelled out, nor is it clear who within the HNB will ultimately make the choices.

Former Hastings Borough Council (HBC) manager Kevin Boorman is Chair of the Board. Its decisions are supposed to be independent of either the borough or county councils, but its administrative staff are seconded from HBC employment, and it has proclaimed a policy of requiring ‘match funding’ from councils or other stakeholders – for example, a housing association will be expected to contribute where a facility is improved on its land. Good relations, and favourable negotiation, with these authorities is therefore paramount.

Other current HNB members include Hastings & Rye MP Helena Dollimore, and representatives from the county council, Sussex Police, Hastings Voluntary Action, Arts Hastings CIC, the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups. In recent months the Board has sought to expand and diversify its membership “to add new voices and different perspectives”, and has reported receiving 123 individual applications to join. Sixteen of these applicants have been short-listed; none has yet been appointed.

How any Board member, whether existing or to be added, will influence future funding decisions, remains to be resolved. Past decisions taken by the similarly constituted Town Deal Board (including the award in 2022 to develop the ill-fated Owens enterprise in the former Debenhams building) were taken opaquely, and seemingly determined in practice by external management consultancies assessing ‘business cases’. The HNB is no doubt mindful of this history, and aims for something different.

The grant was launched as part of the Age-Friendly Hastings programme and will support projects that bring generations together and help wellbeing. These can include projects such as gardening, storytelling, music, physical activity and digital skills. Projects that help people learn from one another – no matter their ages. Projects that challenge ageism and age-related stereotypes.

Grants of up to £500 are available for those who need an extra boost to fund these projects. All with the objective of bringing people and communities closer together.

Cllr Solly Solamito, lead councillor for Corporate Services, Communities and Equalities, Hastings Borough Council, said: “Intergenerational activities create opportunities for people of all ages to connect, share skills and build stronger communities. I am delighted to launch this grants programme and encourage local groups to come forward with ideas that will help bring generations together across Hastings.”

The deadline for application is 5.00pm on Friday, 31 July 2026. A further round of grants will be launched in Autumn 2026.

For further information go to hastings.gov.uk/my-community/Age-Friendly-Communities/

A remarkable night is in store at the Stade Hall on 5 July which will showcase both the breadth of musical talent in Hastings as well as the big heart that beats within the local community of musicians and songwriters. Oh Big Blue in Concert is the brainchild of soprano Chiara Vinci, who has pulled together an array of talent to raise much needed funds for the Al-Mawasi community in Gaza, to which Hastings is officially linked.

Chiara was inspired to organise the concert after seeing an exhibition of poetry and art from Palestinian children in Hastings last year and also the book which accompanied the exhibition.

“I went to the Oh Big Blue exhibition on my own,” she remembers; “I came away silently and profoundly moved and full of hope. The book and the artwork captured my imagination, and my heart – these poems were songs. Something to be created and held in consciousness for all time. But I needed collaborators.”

Stepping up to help Chiara realise her vision was the Hands Up project (an organisation that works – using art and theatre – with Palestinian children), the Hastings and District Palestine Solidarity Campaign as well as a slew of local musicians, singers and composers, all of whom have adapted the children’s poems into music.

At the concert people can expect a variety of music from acoustic to classical, from established names like Bev Lee Harling, Frank Moon and Chiara herself, to promising new artists like Ruby Colley.

Funds from the event will go to the Hands Up Project and Hastings friends of Al-Mawasi, which for the last three years has offered friendship and practical solidarity to the community in southern Gaza, enabling them to install solar panels on roofs, construct a bakery inside a war-damaged building as well as other initiatives.

People from the Al-Mawasi Resilience Committee hold Zoom meetings with their supporters in Hastings to give updates on their projects and their lives in general. The work of the Resilience Committee, and of Hastings Friends of Al-Mawasi, only grows more vital as Israel tightens its siege on Gaza. In May there was confirmation that a ban by the Israeli government on 37 foreign organisations operating in Gaza, including Save the Children and Oxfam, will be enforced. Summing up the situation in Gaza since the ‘ceasefire’ began last October, Oxfam states: “Civilians in Gaza continue to face the horrors of a genocide. Indiscriminate attacks on homes, schools, hospitals, and refugee camps continue by the Israeli military. And life-saving aid is still being blocked.”

Speaking of the concert, Chiara says: “As a collective of artists and musicians from Hastings, we deeply feel the urge and the desire to keep showing up in solidarity and support for Palestine.” She promises the concert will be ‘an evening to remember’.

Oh Big Blue in Concert will take place at the Stade Hall, on Sunday 5 July at 7pm. Tickets are available from Eventbrite.

The event brought together students, staff, governors, employers, families and industry partners to recognise learners’ dedication, progress and success across the automotive curriculum. Awards were presented by Nick Backstrom, Deputy Principal at East Sussex College, who congratulated students and joined staff in celebrating an exceptional year for the department.

Opening the ceremony, Nick Wood, Deputy Head of Curriculum for Construction, Computing, Engineering, Motor Vehicle, Electrical and Access, praised students, staff and employers for their contribution to the centre’s continued success. He said learners had gone beyond gaining qualifications, developing real-world skills, confidence and clear pathways into the automotive industry.

The ceremony was the final awards event to be held at the Automotive Training Centre’s Northridge Industrial Estate site before the department relocates to East Sussex College’s new Green Automotive Centre of Excellence at the Ore Valley campus from September.

Students were recognised for improvement, academic achievement, attendance and commitment to the automotive industry. Most Improved Student awards went to Josh Cottrill, Joe Shuttlewood, Hermione Elrick and Hayden Foster. Top Student awards were presented to Lewis Ellis, Lewis Jackson, Conner Baker, Jude Foster and apprentice Teddy Clements.

The department also celebrated good results, including a 100% pass rate for both Level 2 Diploma and Level 3 Diploma learners, with the Level 3 group achieving 100% for the second consecutive year.

A highlight of the event was the annual ATC Attendance Raffle, which rewards students for strong attendance throughout the year. Thanks to local employers and industry partners, prizes included vehicles, toolkits, diagnostic equipment and vouchers. Jude Foster won the top prize, a Peugeot 107 donated by Central Cars of Bexhill, while Chloe Walton won a Honda Shadow 125 motorcycle donated by Beeson Motorcycles.

Two local filmmakers were named ‘Filmmaking Champions’ at the Into Film Awards 2026 on 16 June. The awards, which celebrate young filmmaking talent and enrichment, took place at ODEON Luxe in Leicester Square.

The award ceremony was full of ‘big names’. It was hosted by former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq and featured special guest presenters such as: Jodie Whitaker, Peter Capaldi, Bella Ramsey and Jason Isaacs.

On top of that, a big name of Hastings was to receive the award – The Bright Foundation. Will Davies and Sophie Barnard from The Bright Foundation were celebrated for their work with young children. The ‘Filmmaking Champions’ award is for those that use film to support and develop young people.

HIP recently interviewed Will Davies for his work with local schools. He was one of four filmmakers at the foundation who helped pupils make films in time for the Children’s International Film Festival, which took place in Hastings on 18 June. Sophie Barnard is the producer at the foundation.

An increasingly familiar institution, The Bright Foundation was set up by Oscar and BAFTA winning Costume Designer John Bright to inspire creativity in children and young people – especially those experiencing disadvantage. They run events and schools at the Benbow Art Space in St Leonards, as well as The Barn Theatre and Museum. They have an illustrious list of ambassadors, including such celebrated performers as Dame Judi Dench, Dame Helen Mirren and Ralph Fiennes.

Now, Will, Sophie, and The Bright Foundation as a whole, have been celebrated. Will Davies said: “It was an amazing privilege to attend this year’s Into Film Awards. This is an annual award ceremony which celebrates young filmmakers from across the UK. There was so much talent in the room and I’m sure some of them will be household names in the future.

“The Bright Foundation was also there to receive the ‘Filmmaking Champions’ award. It was a really inspiring day and left us feeling really energised to continue with what is the best job in the world – making films with young people in Hastings and St Leonards. Thanks to Into Film.”

From our website

We Need Defence

In response to We Won’t Be Silenced (HIP 303), I’m not for any war. However, we need defence, right? Or should we have no defence and just let any country that feels like it come and attack the UK? We’ll all be speaking Russian soon then.

So if we need defence, we need to buy things like F16s. Someone has to make them. General Dynamics employs a few hundred people in Hastings making parts – not whole systems, and not all for defence but some for luxury goods. So they’d rather they are unemployed instead?

It’s a very biased view. Where would you draw the line? We can probably link all industry to defence systems, so let’s shut down every employment opportunity in Hastings then? I can’t see why you choose to go with “mainly makes products related to war”, while saying nothing about defending our country.

General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defence corporation known primarily for manufacturing Gulfstream business jets, nuclear-powered submarines, main battle tanks, and advanced defence and avionic systems. So here’s hoping, for the jobs of the people, that the Green party have more sense than the journalist here.

Ian Summerfield

Letter

Contra Costa

Dear HIP

In the light of recent appearances in HIP, would you consider starting a conversation with your readership about what a community newspaper is, and what it is for?

I like having a community newspaper, and I appreciate the time and efforts of the volunteers that keep the paper going.  For myself, I don’t expect to agree with everything I see because, obviously, different parts of the community have different opinions. I like the way HIP is usually full of information about a range of local, independent and community-friendly projects and businesses.

Usually. But HIP issues 303 and 304 dedicated whole pages to an advert for a coffee-house chain owned by Coca-Cola. There are several reasons why this is, in my opinion, a terrible idea. I’ll stick to the main two.

Firstly, I would expect that as a community newspaper, HIP is against genocide. I wonder if your editors are aware that vast numbers of people, charities and community organisations around the world are taking part in a BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) campaign to try and stop companies from investing in Israel whilst its government maintains its murderous stranglehold on the Palestinian people? It’s much the same as the boycott campaign that people and organisations around the world successfully used to put an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Secondly, the full-page ad for a corporate outlet sits very oddly with your usual content about local businesses, projects, charities and politics – the kind of endeavours, in fact, which are often threatened by the expansion and promotion of big, corporate businesses.

Perhaps you don’t see it that way, or perhaps you weren’t aware that the establishment you are promoting is a Coca-Cola company, and therefore should not, in many people’s opinion, be assisted by community-friendly organisations?

I’d be interested to know your position on this.

Kay Green

Letter

Heritage Responses

In response to Hastings Heritage in Peril (HIP 304), Hastings Borough Council and its officers do need to protect our heritage (and any tourism benefit), but we should all care. The protection and restoration of buildings and monuments must be the norm – not the exception! With the dearth of industry in our area we rely heavily upon tourism to supplement the rates. Not caring about our heritage is to not care about our area’s future. We do need to move forward, but we need to work around our history.

Bryan Fisher

The “above-ground shelters” listed as “in danger” at Robertson Terrace are the outlets for the fans that ventilated the car park when it was originally built. The machinery was removed some time ago along with the ducting which provided ventilation in a time when most cars produced a lot of fumes when running.

Peter Roadman

From our website

Reform in Charge at County Hall

Not even pretending to be objective, are you (Tories Hand Council to Reform, HIP 303)? Minority administrations exist in many councils and do so with the support of smaller parties. If they could have made the numbers, doubtless Labour and the Lib Dems would have supported a Green minority council.

Likewise Reform councillors may not be very experienced, but neither would the Green councillors if they had formed a majority, and they are now running Hastings Borough Council.

Also, consistently demonising Reform as ‘Nigel Farage’s far right party’ is doing you no favours.

Stephen Butterton

I’m extremely concerned. Decent social care was already a major concern for all of us and our families, and so much else too. If East Sussex County Council Reform leadership echoes Kent County Council Reform, which it will, we are going to be in even more dire straits. The result shows the utter mess that Labour nationally has brought to bear at the local level.

While national and local government are not the same, the local political landscape has been influenced by national performance. Starmer has been such an out-of-touch nonentity, an a-political disaster with no political nous, charisma or knowledge, being led by the nose by his handlers at the national level. The Tories were unable to cut through after years of Johnson, Truss and Sunak because no one believes them any more. They cut local government budgets to the bone as it is.

It’s no surprise to many that politically inexperienced voters are fed up and desperate for something different, so have fallen for Farage’s racist-schtick and ‘nationalist’ messages of flag-waving hypocrisy that are meaningless. But just you wait, Reform voters – you will see he is nothing but a shape-shifter who only wishes to garner power and money for himself, like his friend across the water, Trump.

Rosie Brocklehurst

Letter

Cool School

Dear HIP

During this very hot week many schools have closed or curtailed their day length, and who can blame them? We would just like to give a shout out to Sandown Primary School’s response.

On Wednesday our grandchildren came out of school saying they had had “the best day ever”. The school had provided bowls of cold water for the children to put their feet in and wet cloths for their heads as well as other inventive methods of keeping them cool.

Today has defeated even this seemingly indefatigable team, but they deserve great credit for their actions.

Sheila and Charlie Hume

From our website

GP Changes for the Better

Yes, I remember the times when you had ‘your’ GP (‘Medical’ Malaise in HIP 304). Often working alone with no nurse or other specialist auxiliaries, and without the range of diagnostic tests which are now routine. And if ‘your’ GP was rude or just brushed you off (“you’re just a young girl, you’re not important to me”), that was it. Personally, I much prefer the present system with all its stresses and strains.

The government needs to turn its full attention to GP services and primary care generally. They should not be expected to run businesses alongside their medical practice, which means rethinking the contract with the NHS. They need the money to employ new doctors  – at the moment those can’t get GP jobs. And I suggest that we should all be prepared to accept appointments with a nurse, or a call from the pharmacist, if that answers our issue.

Bea Rogers

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VICTORIA KINGHAM

The Love Supreme jazz festival takes place this weekend at Glynde Place, near Lewes. Tickets are still selling but it starts now (3 July) and if you like jazz, and you get the chance, you should really get over there.

I admit it’s outside this newspaper’s local area, but some of the greatest and/or most popular jazz musicians are there – Courtney Pine, Lemar, Ezra Collective, De La Soul, Joe Lovano, Jalen Ngonda. Represented in the programme (in slightly smaller letters for some reason) are two of the most exceptional musicians you’re ever likely to hear, both supremely gifted. I was privileged to speak with them ahead of the festival.

EMMA RAWICZ

Emma Rawicz, saxophonist, graduated from music college two years ago. A year before that, she had already made two albums, the second, Chroma, gaining her international recognition at the age of just 22.

It’s the most astonishing album – a combination of variety and whimsy, intricacy and sheer joy. Rawicz is known for experiencing chromesthesia – seeing colours and shapes when hearing sounds. If this sounds unlikely to you there is a long record of composers whose chromesthesia forms the basis of their music, from Messiaen, Scriabin, and Ligeti through to Duke Ellington and Billie Eilish. Visual artists Kandinsky, Van Gogh and Hockney also attested to it.

Even if you didn’t know this, there are unique forms in Rawicz’s music which defy genre and transcend boundaries. My favourite of her albums is the one she made last year with pianist Gwilym Simcock, the British updated equivalent of Keith Jarrett. Music pours out of him, and I could (and occasionally have) listen to his music all day. There’s so much freedom on this album, from two musicians who produce more or less stream-of-consciousness invention, alongside technical excellence. “I love playing with Gwilym” she tells me. They have exceptional rapport. “We both went to Chetham’s school (of music) and the Royal Academy, and had the same teachers we were there, and we both got into jazz and improvised music via the same sort of gateway people, like Keith Jarrett and Egberto Gismonti. We both love Brazilian music and we love ECM, and as a result, I think there’s a lot of unspoken stuff that works really well.” They have toured together “probably in five or six different countries” and written music together. “He’s such a really lovely, kind person, and obviously musically brilliant,” she adds.

Her tour schedule this year looks punishing, but she seems astonishingly fresh, not to say joyous. She divides her time, and her residence, between London and Berlin, and speaks to me from Berlin, from where she is touring festivals in Portugal and France, then the Love Supreme here, and straight afterwards at Copenhagen then the North Sea Jazz Festival at Rotterdam. “A busy summer,” she laughs.

The tenor has been her saxophone of choice, though she loves playing soprano too, and bass clarinet – she doesn’t always take all her instruments with her because it’s “just too much to carry!” For female players there is the additional fact that playing the tenor demands physical and internal strength. Whereas a six-foot, built male can sometimes be seen to swing the tenor, on its strap, round his bull-neck muscles, for women it’s a more significant weight. To maintain and improve her strength, Emma has become an avid weightlifter. To clear her mind of clutter between different activities (she’s also a huge reader, and has credited authors like Murakami and Adichie with inspiration for composition) she practises mindfulness techniques.

She is quick to praise the people she works with, and is especially enthusiastic about her current band Inkyra. At the Festival they will largely perform music from their latest, eponymous album. The band comprises David Preston on guitar, Gareth Lockrane on flutes, Scotty Thompson, Kevin Glasgow, and Jamie Murray. “I really feel one of the biggest privileges I have,” she adds, “is to be surrounded by such brilliant human beings.”

esperanza spalding

…writes her name in lower case. This is an aesthetic choice, but in my subjective opinion signifies a shift away from ego, thus away from personality or persona, and towards ideas: melodies, music, poetry, all the things that she is and that she does.

She has long been a jazz phenomenon, and a hero of mine since, in concert at a young age, she filled the main auditorium at the Barbican. In the 20 years or so since then she has had an unstoppable, world-class career trajectory.

On stage, she presents as one, organically, with her instrument – on that occasion an upright double bass. Just a few great musicians have this quality. It’s very special, and I think a kind of genius – like looking at a great picture, say Wheatfield With Crows, and as you gaze, it becomes all the wheatfields and all the crows in the world. In the same way, watching and listening to spalding becomes all the music in the world. More generally, jazz brings with it each moment the sum of the musicians’ skills and influences, cultures and backgrounds. It’s never the same way twice; the ultimate ephemeral art form, composition on the wing, human achievement at perhaps its most immediately creative point.

She has played at the Festival before, at the inaugural one in 2013 and again in 2016. She has also played at all the major venues in the world and with almost every top named jazz musician you can mention, and at the Obama White House. Neither her creativity nor her stamina seem to know any limits. She cites Milton Nascimento as one of her inspirations, and the last album she made (2024) was actually in collaboration with him, with a glittering cast of guest musicians. He’s 83 now, but you can still hear the kind of ethereality (one of his finer albums is called Angelus) that makes him one of the greatest vocalists of his time.

She agrees. “We’ve become friends, over the years” she says, “and developed a great rapport and mutual affection. You know, he has heart, joy in the whole process.” Recorded in the exotic climate of Brazil, there is some fine music on this album. Besides viscerally faultless bass playing, spalding sings too – singing is integral to her performance – with an enviable purity of tone. Some of the songs on the Milton + esperanza album are her originals, others could become, but aren’t, clichés – a far-out version of the Beatles Day In the Life for example. Some are inimitable Nascimento-Brazilian standards. All her albums incorporate a different musical approach – this one has Brazilian rhythm and language at its heart.

There are some very personal-sounding lyrics on the album Radio Music Society – but, she said “it’s fiction. Speculative. Just imagining contexts for these dimensions of the human experience to be at play.” Most of her words make sense not as straight narrative but as poetry, perhaps the ‘open-field’ mid-20th century American poetry where form and content are purposefully intertwined. I wondered about her process of composition.

“It very much feels like an architectural process, a structural craft. And it’s laborious, you know? Toni Morrison talked about writing as suffering. Like, don’t expect it to be all pleasure and fun.” The numbers grow organically. She sometimes creates a sketch, so “here’s the form, here’s the harmonic progression” then she hands it over to Matt (Matthew Stevens) and Justin (Tyson) and they put the flesh on it. “With a project like Exposure [her 2017, 77-hour one-take, limited edition physical album] we were really creating in real time.”

From 2017 to 2022 spalding was a professor of music at Harvard, and looking at various accounts, there seems to have been some controversy about her resignation. She’s quick to disabuse me of that idea. “It’s become this scintillating story! I just realised that the subject matter of my classes was at odds with the track record and current priorities of this institution.” Basically, representative of some of the traditional musical ideas she is trying to transform. “But I loved my experience. I loved my department. I left on such positive terms. It was just time.”

I wondered if she has a new album in progress, but she said no, not just now. She isn’t even quite sure what they’ll play on Saturday: “perhaps a combination of numbers from the last nine albums.” Love Supreme is just one of a swathe of prestigious international dates – after Cincinnati, Dallas, Atlanta, Portugal, then on through Spain, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands (at the North Sea Jazz Festival, where Emma Rawicz will also be – I hope they meet), then Norway, then back through the US again.

So there you go. At the age of 42, a unique, supreme musical powerhouse. You may already be at the Festival to see her. It’s a significant date, Independence Day. One of her songs, ‘Vague Suspicions’ [2012] she tells me, is about “the shit that my country was perpetrating around the world … standing by watching people being obliterated.” At that time, US versus Afghanistan, plus their Global War on Terror in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Pakistan. One wonders if any of her music at the festival will form a reaction to the current Great American Nightmare.

When I met Elliot Riley he showed me round his sunny suburban garden in Bexhill, which itself has grown unusually wild.  He told me about the plants there, their traditional uses, the history of their names and how they helped improve the soil’s condition.  He has a habit of picking up everyday greenery, plants more often removed as weeds, and offering them to you as an unexpected snack. He speaks with confidence and enthusiasm about his work at St Leonard’s Academy, where he is building and planting a ‘Food Forest’, to provide a long-lasting, self-sustaining organic food source for the school and help transform waste products into a source of fertility.

“We are directly teaching students the skills to reduce our reliance on imported, oil-driven food; growing your own, harvesting rainwater, transforming waste into fertile soil and back into nourishment.” Elliot tells me that during his lessons the children learn how to improve the water retention of soil, which reduces the impact of our cycles of flood and drought, and how plants put atmospheric carbon back into the ground.  “We’re creating the opportunity to talk about community, bring the varied skills of different students and members of the wider community into our project. Schools are intended to prepare students for the future.  For any school which aims to do this, I believe teaching their children how to grow food is an obligation.” 

His enthusiasm is certainly contagious.  A small garden with a few raised beds had already been started on the site but Elliot approached the school with a plan that would teach children to re-engage with nature whilst helping pupils struggling in a mainstream environment to rebalance their emotions and find a valuable outlet for their energy. Elliot explained what his pupils do during lessons.  This includes sowing seeds, caring for seedlings, transplanting, watering, using companion plants such as clover for nitrogen fixation and garlic for pest repellence, selective weeding, making high quality compost, building ‘lasagna’ beds which layer waste materials rather than soil and, as he puts it, “breaking up bricks of mushroom-inoculated sawdust which acts as a useful mulch whilst producing oyster mushrooms when it rains”. It also involves painting signs and building fences and dead-hedges. The list is long, busy and rewarding.

Elliot’s early story is one of transformative opportunities. Raised in Bexhill and “well-looked after” at Little Common Primary, family connections helped him successfully apply to Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham. From there he earned another scholarship to study at AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities in North London. After three years of History and Philosophy he was left uncertain what would come next.  Then the Covid lockdown hit just as he was graduating. What he felt during that time was the people’s exclusion from land ownership and inability to provide for themselves, as well as the impact of industrial farming on our planet.  He explains “That pausing in the global supply chain showed us how much we were reliant on it and how fragile it was.”

After lockdown he began to learn more about permaculture, a form of regenerative agriculture that focuses on working with natural ecosystems to be self-sufficient, produce no waste and regenerate the soil. Soon he was introduced to the work of The Human Hive and travelled to work at their school in the Dominican Republic.  There his first project was helping to build a food forest on the site. “Within a matter of weeks I saw this barren, dirty, derelict space absorbing rainwater, producing stupid amounts of food, creating a place where kids could not only take the food scraps but also get out a load of energy and sit in nature. It just worked. I thought: ‘This is absolute genius’ – it was what the planet needed.”

By the time he returned home, Elliot was convinced he needed to find a way to practise permaculture education in the UK and, since he had no land of his own it occurred to him that schools “with their abundant land and their need for emotional support systems” would be the easiest way forward,  benefitting the school, the eco-system and pupils themselves.  “It’s a win-win-win scenario, which is what permaculture is built on.” Through working with other established practitioners, he was eventually invited to help develop the project at St Leonards Academy, which he now co-ordinates under the name Future Growth. This kind of work is far from commonplace, but listening to Elliott talk it’s easy to see why the school has embraced his vision, providing significant space, financial investment and support to the project, which has already gained local recognition as well as an imminent Level 5 RHS School Gardening certification. Elliot’s organisation Off-Set Food Forests, which you can find on various socials and Patreon, is also in the process of developing similar projects in other Primary and Secondary schools in the area – to train new practitioners and grow a new generation of permaculture gardeners.

Future Growth at St Leonards Academy was part of the Edible Open Gardens scheme on 28 June. To help support the initiative visit: patreon.com/offsetfoodforests

After the Samphire Sauna’s annual summer break for overhaul, the UK’s only sauna on a pier will be back on 5 July, bigger and better!

Owners Zoya Jordan and Nell Monck have been at the helm of this Hastings success story. Four years after opening it has become an all year round attraction for visitors as well as a hub for locals, with a regular clientele and a reputation for community involvement. As it turned out, they have been riding the crest of a wave already in the making.

“We’ve been lucky in that we started the business at a time when sauna culture was really taking off,” Zoya says. “At that time there were about forty mobile saunas in the UK, and now there are 650, so the expansion has been insane. It’s no longer just about going somewhere to get warm after a swim. Sauna has become more of a way of life in the UK, whereas once it was something you only did at the gym. It’s also part of ‘contrast therapy’ using hot and the cold to naturally raise serotonin and promote well being.”

The Samphire Sauna (the name was dreamed up as a play on alliteration coupled with natural sea connections) began as a pop-up enterprise, moving around between Eastbourne, Bexhill and Bodiam, staying for short residences. Zoya and Nell initially intended the sauna to be on the beach, but local restrictions ended up working in their favour.

“Being halfway between Hastings and St Leonards makes us easily accessible to a wide range of customers, and also being on the pier has big advantages. Often beach saunas have to remove their mobile units each night, whereas we not only have the security of keeping them behind locked gates, we also have access to electricity and running water. We have an office space and, importantly, changing rooms, something we wouldn’t have been able to offer customers had we been down on the beach. Winter is our busiest season and when the weather’s cold people really want somewhere they can get changed in comfort.”

Despite this (and who wouldn’t love to luxuriate in the wood fired heat while gazing down at the crashing waves on the icy beach below) I sampled the sauna on a very hot day. The sun loungers, overhead shower and plunge pool out on the terrace would have been welcome even without the need to experience a bracing contrast, but of course that’s not all it’s about. Attention to detail – the way the space is laid out, it’s rustic components and brightly painted horse box units, each containing a spotless and inviting interior, the scent of both the wood and availability of natural skin products (I sampled the ‘Samphire Sauna’ own brand of seasonal body scrub) and the friendly and attentive attitude of the staff, are all part of it.

The sauna may be on the pier but it’s close enough to the beach to nip down for a sea plunge halfway through the session – something I took advantage of – thereby adding a saltwater addition to the sensory experience before lying back in the sauna for one last infusion of deep heat. As a single, I also had lovely conversations with other customers.

“The communal aspect has really taken us by surprise,” Nell told me, “with like-minded people using the Samphire as an alternative low-fi healthy environment in which to meet up instead of maybe going to the pub. Customers have connected here, started up friendships, businesses and even boyfriend and girlfriend relationships. Healthy hen-dos, family bookings and friends down for the weekend are all typical of the clientele.”

Being able to employ people (eleven at the moment) is also something Zoya and Nell are proud of. “We began the business doing absolutely everything ourselves, including running all the sessions, looking after the maintenance and doing all the marketing. But each time we’ve expanded, we’ve reinvested that money back into the business, providing a better service for our customers and contributing to the town’s economy, particularly during the slow winter months.”

Sessions are forty-five minutes, allowing time for the staff to go in and clean thoroughly in between. Those interested can also be reassured that the daily ‘deep clean’ each morning is done using natural, non-toxic cleaning products, and the Samphire Sauna’s environmental footprint is carefully monitored.

“We use sustainable sources of wood from a local supplier in Battle,” Zoya says. “Our electricity is derived from solar panels, we have LED lighting, and frankly the biggest electrical outlay is boiling the office kettle for a cup of tea in the morning!”

Sessions can be booked as a group or as individuals, but the revamped, reopened Samphire Sauna will have a new regular feature: special women only, men only and queer/trans sessions. Deals can also be had on multi-sessions booked in advance.

Replacement of one of the saunas with a larger, improved unit will also have the welcome innovation of a steam room option, something very much in demand at the moment. A slightly larger space will also give the opportunity for bigger group bookings and possibly sauna-inspired events, such as introducing a visiting ‘sauna master’!

Watch this space?

Visiting De La Warr Pavilion’s art shows recently has been a bit like the three cream cracker challenge – an unpalatably dry, instantly regrettable experience that has you reaching swiftly for a drink. After this spring’s Klondike-bleak barrenness of Jenine Marsh’s new wishes. (sic), with its aridly didactic deconstructed wishing-well and meaninglessly mounted dead pigeons, and the cack-handed colourblind beachcomber crock of last winter’s Betty Parsons: Sheer Energy – a misnomer so wide of the mark as to suggest a deeply cruel in-joke – DLWP greets mid-summer with To Improvise A Mountain: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Curates.

The title is far too long for word of mouth recommendation. But the good news is, it’s a banger. Respect to the newly appointed Head of Visual Arts, Ned McConnell, who whether from modesty, caution or strategy has brought this Hayward Gallery Touring show to the south coast.

Born after punk, in 1977, Yiadom-Boakye missed the memo about never trusting a hippie and refers in her curatorial notes to “poets, dreamers, thinkers and wanderers” and “that spirit of infinite knowledge and infinite knowing that poetry allows us” – which all seems a bit evasive, frankly. No matter, because among the 17 artists on display are obvious greats like Bonnard, Sickert and Vuillard, and exciting but less obviously substantial (because suddenly hip) figures including David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar and Yiadom-Boakye herself.

DEVELOPMENT OF A SENSIBILITY

It’s unapologetically Yiadom- Boakye’s show. Her own paintings are swanky, light-headed and even a little goofy, her charcoal drawings measured and coolly idealised, classically composed but ultimately, ethereal. Most intriguing is Oracular, a dark figure posed against an enormous black globe that might be a beach ball, a war memorial or a symbol of global transformation. It’s enigmatic in a way the lightweight portraits of earnest bespectacled male heads that is To Improvise A Mountain itself, is not: they look like newspaper illustrations. Conceptually the exhibition might seem slight: Artist Selects Stuff She Likes. But it’s a brave and engaging attempt to trace the development of a sensibility. Don’t expect narrative coherence or an encyclopaedic range: it’s as idiosyncratic as your own interior monologue – chaotic, playful, a work in progress. It offers above all an aspirational perspective, formally a little nostalgic, carefully avoiding the stylistic dead-end of the YBA dinosaurs who have doubtless dominated LY-B’s artistic life, instead cherry-picking outlier heroes and bunging in some treats and surprises.

Singular spots of suspended time abound. Kahlil Joseph’s short but dense film Wildcat pinpoints Black cowboy culture and exhibits both the grace of Eadweard Muybridge and the starkness of Monte Hellman. Wojnarowicz’s Untitled (Face in Dirt) is one of the late American artist’s incandescent enactments of calculated self-destruction. It’s a minor work and could be a film still from a student pastiche of Pasolini, but still burns like a white hot coal. Walter Sickert’s remarkable Self Portrait is simply alarming – a heartless brown study exuding Munch-like vigour, with a blotchy face the ferocious focus of which is the artist’s stony left eye. Pierre Bonnard’s Garden at Le Cannet provides a post-impressionistic oasis of volatile, energised colour and crackles with fiery life. Lisa Brice’s Parting at Dusk is a sullen nocturnal bright blue demon set against a glowing gold panel, a fierce, eyeless, disarming study in passive aggressive composure.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

There are some telling and provocative juxtapositions. Sickert’s The Blackbird of Paradise is beautifully brash, a luridly cackling creature who exudes the energy of an unexpected electric shock in the age of steam. Yiadom-Boakye’s Sunbird 3 subtly references it with quiet and delicate attention not to spittly character armour but to inner contemplative power. More powerful still and still palpably steaming – content warning: close attention is likely to scare the horses or spook your labradoodle – is Sex Series, Wojnarowicz’s photo-collages of reckless NYC cocksuckers, illuminated in stark negative relief like furtive crime scene contact prints from the Reaganite dark night of AIDS. These are placed alongside the photographic semi-sculptural staged studio portraits of Paul Mpagi Sepuya whose Studio with Gazing Balls formally reflects the queer American iconoclast’s brittle perspective (channelled rage against the ‘pre-invented man’) in an illuminating way, suggestive of a trajectory from the rough and ready techniques of a heedless radical underground to the slick production values of a soberly calculating mainstream.

There are a few lapses in judgment. Glenn Ligon’s Untitled (If I Can’t Have Love, I’ll Take Sunshine) is a pointless and yawn-inducing neon sign of the kind made utterly banal by Tracey Emin, among others – as trite as a Chinese fortune cookie, as redundant as a Future Mrs Tom Daley mug. The complex arrangement of photographs and sketches by Sickert, Hujar, Samuel Fosso, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Zoe Leonard which takes up most of one long wall is dominated by Wojnarowicz’s ‘Rimbaud in New York’ sequence: the artist wearing a badly made mask of the French poet/gun-runner. It’s juvenile stuff and the jumble of adjacent works don’t gel or offer any memorable insight. It feels miscalculated, mere filler. (Who’d ever have thought one might complain that in Bexhill-on-Sea there’d be too much David Wojnarowicz?)

AND UPSTAIRS …

In the upper gallery The Otolith Group (in truth just a couple) gives us The Third Part of the Third Measure, a two-screen video which repurposes the compositions of (African-American, gay, deceased, inspired) composer Julius Eastman. It’s meticulously shot, expertly performed and in the small cinema the music from two grand pianos sounds great. But it’s bullshit: opportunistic, self-important, an intellectually compromised exercise in reframing another artist’s work as an important piece of art in itself, part of a widespread and dubious tendency of bourgeoisification which throws into relief the entire exhibition.

Art about being art or art shows about art tend away from lived experience into a rarefied and abstract – sometimes cynical – realm, then into nothing. Carping aside, To Improvise A Mountain has a higher purpose and actually asks you to collude, to be attuned – and to be played. As you wander round you will make your own selection, will spot and/or fill in the gaps according to your own predilections, knowledge and tastes, your own ignorance and prejudices. And surely that’s the point. Don’t miss it.

Exhibitions run daily till Sunday 13 September 2026, 10am to 5pm. Free entry. De La Warr Pavilion, Marina, Bexhill On Sea