April Showers, Sussex Flowers

A wise man once wrote a poem about modern society, beginning his monumental work with the following words:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

That man was T.S. Eliot, and that poem, “The Waste Land” (1922).  Although I’m positing this snippet of the now classic poem out of context, the words really ring true for me at this point in my study abroad journey.  Spring is, implicitly, a time of awakening and rebirth; however, as Eliot so provocatively suggests, it might also be thought of as a time for reflection. 

It’s hard for me to believe, but I have spent close to three months in the United Kingdom at this point AND – just a few weeks ago – I eclipsed the half-way point in my study abroad experience.  I am still discovering so much here each and every day, and what I’ve realized is that many of the best discoveries have come right here in Sussex, right here in Brighton.  A spell of warm and sunny weather over the course of the past week has allowed me to get out and lounge on the beach – the same beach I’ve been researching these many months.  I’ve also had the opportunity to travel around the region and the South Downs National Park.

My April, so far at least, might accurately be summed up by the following:  Regional and Local Travel, Research/Writing, and Soccer.  It is for this reason that I have decided to sub-divide this post into three sections.  What follows is, for the most part, a meandering personal narrative and collection of photographs.  Emphasis on “meandering,” though!

Regional and Local Travel

In the past three weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to visit several small towns nestled in and amongst the South Downs (“Downs” being the Saxon word for “hills”), which meander (!) for some 100 kilometers from East to West, between Brighton and London.  The first town I visited was Chichester, with my friends Nico and Teresa.

The clock tower at the Chichester town centre

Chichester was originally a Roman outpost, and the Roman walls still stand on the outskirts of town.  My friends and I walked around about two thirds of these walls before visiting a local history museum and learning more about town itself.  As we learned, Chichester is perhaps most famous for being a haven for pirate smugglers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries!  For more information on smugglers, give “The Hawkhurst Gang” a quick google search.  I can’t help but wonder if the smuggling was worth it, when many members of this gang, which operated all around Sussex, were BRUTALLY executed for their activities. 

In addition to the museum, we also visited Chichester Cathedral, a medieval-style Gothic church that dominates the Chichester cityscape.  Established in the 11^th century, the Cathedral now serves as the final resting place of many of the region’s most distinguished personages.  One of the church’s pastors kindly showed us around the site.

Nico, Teresa, and I enjoyed hanging out in Chichester so much that we decided to travel to London together just a few days later! 

We started our day by walking up and down Baker Street (and yes, that Gerry Rafferty song was playing in my head the whole time!).  Here, we saw the Sherlock Holmes house, and eventually reached the entrance to Regent’s Park.

Baker Street Tube Station

The first signs of spring in Regent's park.  "Stirring dull roots with spring rain" .....

After a pleasant walk through the park, we took the Tube over to the Natural History Museum, and spent the afternoon learning about evolution, geology, and … DINOSAURS!  The sheer volume of  full-scale dinosaur skeletons at this museum was incredible!  I also enjoyed seeing many of the “missing link” skeletons (many of them Neanderthals) that helped anthropologists trace the origins of our species back through the millennia (the ones I used to read about in my biology book!). 

Standing outside of the Natural History Museum

Hello!

Nessie!

After the History Museum, we ate some delicious Vietnamese food and walked around the central part of town – seeing Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the Tower Bridge, and St. Paul’s Cathedral.  There is SO much to explore in London.  I can’t wait to go back!

View of London from the Millennium footbridge.  The large building on the right is "The Shard" and the Tower Bridge is just visible to center left. 

Tower Bridge!

About a week after visiting London, I traveled with a school group on a “Sussex Countryside Tour,” which took us to several small towns in the Downs.  However, our first stop was at the Seven Sisters white chalk cliffs.  These cliffs, which are situated about 20 kilometers east of Brighton, are composed of the compressed remains of microorganisms that used to form part of the seafloor (about 70 million years ago, when Great Britain and most of Europe were submerged under the ocean).  The cliffs were breathtakingly beautiful.  A World War II memorial near one of the cliffs, which stated that the cliffs would have been many service members’ “last view of England” added a deeper layer of significance to their beauty.

Seven Sisters Cliffs

A lighthouse just off the coast

After visiting the Cliffs, our group stopped for lunch in Eastbourne, a seaside resort town in the style of Brighton, albeit smaller and home to an older demographic.  I only had a few hours in Eastbourne, but I enjoyed eating some fish and chips on the waterfront and walking up and down the Eastbourne pier, which was very similar to the Brighton Palace Pier. 

Eastbourne Pier just visible through the dense morning fog

After a stop at the stunningly picturesque Pevensey Castle, a Norman fort established in 1066 (and, interestingly, last used as a garrison for British, Canadian, and American troops in World War II), we turned northwards into the Downs.

Pevensey Castle

Our final stop of the day was in a quaint English village called Alfriston.  Here, I enjoyed a DELICIOUS “Sussex Cream Tea” – which consists of a cup of hot tea and two scones smeared with thick, buttery cream and jam – before walking around town and popping in a local bookstore.  Alfriston was perhaps my favorite stop of the day.  Its narrow streets and alleyways were cozy, and its location in the rolling, green hills of the South Downs was even cozier.

 

St. Andrew's Church in Alfriston -- the "Cathedral of the Downs"

The final regional excursion that I must mention here was another Sussex Uni (for this is how “University” is commonly abbreviated here) organized trip to Lewes.  Just north of Brighton, Lewes is actually much older and, um, a bit more medieval…ier (I’m getting a bit ambitious with my literary license here) than Brighton.  It’s more “medieval,” as I say, because there’s a GIANT CASTLE in the middle of town!  

Lewes Castle

View of the town and countryside from the top of the castle

Lewes grew up after the Norman invasion in 1066, when the town was given by William the Conqueror to William de Warrenne, 1^st Earl of Surrey (who proceeded to build the Lewes Castle on the site).  Lewes is also famous for being the birthplace of the original T-Paine – Thomas Paine that is!  T-Paine was a key player in the American Revolution, and a world-class progressive thinker (see The Rights of Man and Common Sense).  The Lewes of today, which has a population of about 17,000, boasts beautiful tulip gardens and an abundance of quaint coffee shops.

   

One of  the beautiful parks in Lewes

I recently returned to Lewes with a smaller group of friends; this time we walked all the way from Brighton -- taking the "South Downs Way" footpath through the rolling hills and meeting a few sheep along the way.  The walk took a little over two hours, and the scenery was breathtaking.  I honestly felt like we were in the Shire.

The countryside (and sheep!) of the Downs

And here, I'd like to break up this fast-paced narrative by dropping a bunch of photos of Brighton that I’ve taken over the course of the past several sunny days here!!

Brighton Beach at dusk

View of the cliffs from the Brighton Marina (on the far East side of town)

The Brighton Marathon, which took place last weekend!

Always good to see a familiar face when I wake up in the morning!

Moving on....

Research/Writing

In addition to doing some regional travel, I’ve also spent several days in the library and in the archive here in Brighton, starting on my end-of-term essays and chugging along with my thesis research.  As far as the thesis research is concerned, I’ve been able to find some really cool sources!  I’ve mostly been looking at large collections of newspapers from the 1840s and 1850s, concentrating on sections dealing with local crime, poverty, and advertisements geared towards wealthier citizens.

Analyzing a newspaper anthology at The Keep

What I’ve found is that Brighton’s mid-nineteenth century aristocracy did everything it could to isolate itself from the town’s poorer residents.  However, liminal spaces like the Brighton Chain Pier (pre-cursor to the present day Palace Pier) forced the aristocracy out of their isolation.  The Pier was at once a fashionable promenade, a port of call for shipping traffic, and a focal point for onlookers.  As my project progresses, I will be working to find even more liminal spaces of interaction between social classes in the hopes of understanding how seaside towns like Brighton may have diverged (both socially and spatially) in their cultural development when compared to larger inland cities like London.

I have also been conducting research for my end-of-term papers, which cover topics ranging from the rhetoric used in nineteenth century imperialistic speeches to the global repercussions of slavery and racism.  Both very interesting topics to write about!  More on these papers later!

All of this *might* excuse my neglect of this blog over the past few weeks, but if that’s not enough, there’s always soccer!  ….(err… Footbol, excuse me!) 

Football

Football is THE sport in England.  People organize their lives around the schedule of Premier League games (kind of like how I organize my fall around the Razorback games….but anyways…).  The Brighton and Hove Albion Seagulls, Brighton’s football squad, were just bumped up into the Premier League for the first time THIS season, and I recently had the privilege of attending two of their matches.

View from my seat (versus Huddersfield) at Amex Stadium

Both matches – one versus Huddersfield Town and the other versus Tottenham Hotspur – ended in a 1-1 tie, but the atmosphere was SUPER lively!!  From the screaming visitors section, to the Brighton fans chanting “ALBION!”, to the seagull costumes, and the real, live seagulls flying overhead – it was such a unique experience! 

I was over-awed at the level of agility that the players displayed in maneuvering the ball around (it's important to note, however, that THIS particular line of commentary is coming from someone who hasn't really kicked a soccer ball at all since playing the sport when I was eight years old).  Nevertheless, I was really impressed, and it was cool to see a couple of goals scored right in front of me!  

In addition to watching live soccer, I've also been joining a few of my friends here in the pubs to watch Champions League soccer on TV.  We've started frequenting an Australian bar down by the beach called "Walkabout."  I certainly miss watching baseball and golf back home, but its been fun to start getting into soccer!

.     .      .     .     .     .

Thank you for reading this very lengthy and very meandering post!  I am hoping to post a bit more frequently in May so that I can properly catalog the final weeks of  my experience here!  This blog has helped me to remember, and allowed me to reflect on this April, 2018.  In the words of T.S. Eliot, "these fragments I have shored against my ruins."

Until next time,

BD