Sussex Miscellany

NEW OCCURRENCES, STARTS & CHANGES

By Kevin Newman, a Sussex-born author, historian, tour guide and history teacher

With the commencement of a new year we tend to use the occasion to review where we’ve been and see the first month of each year as a time to look ahead. This year we welcome what we hope will be the first month of the year we enter the post-COVID-19 world. I thought I’d use this opportunity therefore to examine new occurrences, firsts, start-ups and changes from Sussex’s past.

Many find that New Year is a time for new careers and developing new skills. Many of us have developed a portfolio of professions as the age of a full-time job for life has moved into the past and many now multitask different job roles. his is nothing new though. Before World War I, William Avenell, the first Chairman of Brighton and Hove Albion was also its fundraiser and even the club’s first photographer. If you too fancy taking up photography as a new year’s hobby, then you might be inspired that here in Sussex Agnes Ruge was not only Brighton’s first female photographer, but one of the nation’s first. She owned a daguerreotype business that was based in Western Road.

Brighton and Hove got its first female police officers in 1918 but it was not until 1942 sadly that the folk of East Sussex would gain their first female Police Constable. Perhaps they should have done the same as Miss Mary Hare who in 1915 set up her own Women’s’ police force against the wishes of her local constabulary. If you are considering a new business venture or job, then hopefully it’ll be better than the experience of women who were first allowed onto the East Sussex County Council from 1919 but were advised ‘not to speak for the first six months’.

No wonder women early in the 20th century had joined the Suffragettes, formally known as the WSPU, with one of their first branches opening in Brighton by 1906. It had gained over 150 Sussex members by 1907, two of whom attempted to sabotage a talk at the Dome by the Prime Minister who had refused to give them the vote, Herbert Asquith. The Suffragettes attempted to hide in the Dome’s organ ready to leap

Brighton’s Metropole Hotel.

out mid-talk and disrupt the meeting but the dust within led to an unfortunate sneezing bout; foiling their plans as their hiding place was discovered. So, should you decide to recreate this fate, or indeed join a new pressure group this year then you might not want to get rid of your COVID mask just yet.

If your new year’s resolution instead is making sure Fido and you both get enough walks, then you might want to visit Brighton as in August 1894, the Palace Pier’s Brighton Dog Show was the first ever dog show ever to take place on a pier. Or if you plan to make 2021 the year you discover your musical roots and learn a new instrument, then head slightly west from there to Brighton’s Metropole Hotel. This is where on August 21st 1962 Brighton hosted the first ever ‘Disc Festival’ – as played by ‘Disc Jockeys’ (in other words, a records and music fair). Should you be awaiting your first live gig in ages, then you might want to know two decades later Kylie Minogue played her first ever live performance in Britain at the very same hotel in the 1980s. Should enjoying your music for free rather than paid gigs be more your thing, then investigate Worthing which in the 1970s was home to ‘Phun City’: the UK's first large-scale free music festival.

Festivals are often places of heavy drinking though and so if you want to cut down on the demon drink for 2021, then you might like the new concept one Sussex pub landlord back in the early 1990s came up with. He devised a pub that deliberately tried to make its customers as miserable as possible. And no, it wasn’t Wetherspoons. The Argus reported back in 1992 about

Brighton’s grumpiest guvnor, Ian Thomas who was proud of the fact that his bar, ‘Bianco’s’ had a hideous pink interior and of his reputation for being miserable. He moaned about the fact that he had to be cleaner, barman and doorman despite the fact this was due to him laying off all seven staff just two days after taking over. Bizarrely, the pub’s takings soared in the first ten days that Ian was in charge, despite his stock line of “what the hell do you want?” when asked for a drink. The customers seemed not to mind his hefty prices and moaning at them to “sit up straight!” Fittingly for such a dour drinking hole, the pub had not a happy hour but a grumpy hour, repeated from 11am to 11pm.

Finally, we move from drink to food. Especially whilst we wait for our turn to be vaccinated, this New Year is definitely one where many of us plan to focus on health, and for some of us after Christmas excess, we need to fight the flab and part with those pounds. Weighing too much when COVID and obesity are linked is one good reason for exercise, but another reason could be otherwise you could possibly cause embarrassment when travelling. This happened back in 1883 when Brighton’s Volks’ Electric Railway suffered humiliation on its opening run. The combined weight of corpulent Aldermen assembled in the railway carriage of the world’s first and oldest continually running electric passenger railway temporarily proved too much for the then futuristic method of transport. Thankfully, this doesn’t seem to have happened to the i360 yet, but judging by how much my office chair is currently creaking, I think I’ll pass on going on it again just for the moment. For zoom or (eventually) group Sussex talks and motorised tours, please call All-Inclusive History on 07504 863867 or email info@allinclusivehistory.org. Other tours, talks and events are available including ‘Spooky Worthing, ‘Brilliant Brighton’, ‘Super Sussex’ and ‘Scrumptious Sussex’. Kevin’s next book, ‘Celebrating Brighton and Hove’ can be pre-ordered from www.waterstones.com/book/celebrating-brighton-andhove/kevin-newman/9781398100206 for £15.99

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