SUSSEX MISCELLANY
THE JOY OF SUSSEX This new series of articles is written by Kevin Newman, a Sussex-born author, historian, tour guide around the county and history teacher.
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or those who missed this year’s postponed Olympics we try to compensate with look back at competitions, games and challenges from Sussex’s past. Geographically, the coastal heart of Sussex is Brighton’s Old Steine, which hopefully soon again will be a much nicer area than the busy grassy traffic island it currently is. It is hard to believe today, but it was once “an arena for curious contests.” The Edwardian writer on Sussex, E.V. Lucas tells of how “officers and gentlemen, ridden by other officers and gentlemen competed in races with octogenarians. Strapping young women were induced to run against each other for a new smock or hat.” He continues: “Every kind of race was devised, even to walking backwards; while a tame stag was occasionally liberated and hunted to refuge.” Apart from the animal cruelty, how much fun would it be to have a ‘Brighton Alternative Olympics’ in this vein once more in the Steine – West versus East Sussex! Sticking with Brighton, the city may be very anticar today, but its early days saw it make and race cars, with Madeira Drive once the home of speedtrials. Brighton’s most famous car race today is where it hosts the finish line for a plethora of veteran cars making their way down from London. It occurs every November to celebrate the lifting of the Locomotive Act of 1865, otherwise known as the Red Flag Act. The first ever race of cars from London to Brighton subsequently started in 1896, called the ‘Emancipation Run’ to celebrate the repeal of the law, which had limited drivers to 4mph, curbed the development of the British car industry and insisted that any self-propelled vehicle had a man walk ahead of it waving a red flag. The event originally finished not on Madeira Drive, as it does today, but outside the Metropole. Later the race became known as the Veteran Car Run, with the emphasis being that the earliest vehicles only (veteran cars) could take part
and features in the 1953 film Genevieve from 1953. The Old Ship hotel in Brighton is where the meeting took place that created the Veteran Car Run, but it is also where another great race was created, this time a nautical one. Every year Brighton hosts an amazing annual yacht race every year from Brighton to France with historical inspiration. The Royal Escape Race started back in 1976, when Linda Morgan, the PR Officer for Brighton’s Old Ship Hotel called the Sussex Yacht Club with the idea for a race across the Channel. Linda was apparently very passionate about the idea and wanted to see every yacht in Sussex on the starting line. She took some calming down to recognise that with the limited facilities then available perhaps it should be scaled down a bit to just include SYC yachts, but the event has since grown and takes place every year in May. The Old Ship was still heavily involved back by the 1990s and used to fire the starting cannon for the race from its rooftop. The race gets its name from the journey Charles II made when escaping from Oliver Cromwell’s forces during the Civil War. We may not have had the Olympics this year, but at least cricket is back on in Sussex once more. Our wonderful County Cricket Ground has been at its present site in Eaton Road, Hove since 1872, before which the site was a barley field. Before then, the club was Brighton-based at Park Crescent and the
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020
