The other Saturday, while reading The Times, I came upon a photo of a fitness femchick jogging along the promenade at the Lawns at Hove. She was heading towards Brighton and in the background I caught a glimpse of Courtenay Gate, where Suzi and I spent the week-end prior to moving into our little flat, way back in May 2005. Oh the memories! Even the mention of ‘Courtenay Gate’ makes us swoon – and we’ve got, as the great Duke Ellington said,’ blues to be there’. The ubiquity of Brighton means we re-experience these feelings on a weekly basis. Not that we mind, because running through poignancy is a vein of pleasure. Otherwise I wouldn’t be penning these posts. And, anyway, blog-writing confers on me some comforting power, to shape the memories, to sculpt them in the form of ….let’s say…a beer or wine glass – a or coffee cup. ..

Consumed in The …Atlas, Robin Hood, Biscuit Factory, Montpelier Inn, Real Eating Co., Freemasons, Mad Hatter, Meeting Place, Market Place, Sanctuary Café, Hampton, Lion and Lobster, PV, Windmill, Duke of Norfolk, and Billie’s , Tallulah’s, and Barney’s.

And beyond the zimmer-zone, where re-visiting wasn’t allowed: Hotel du Vin, Café Paradiso, Café Rouge, La Fourchette, Browns, Ha Ha, No Name Restaurant, Al Forno, Donnatello, Leonardo, Picasso, Due South, Havana, Boardwalk, Tables 88, Komedia, Food for Friends, Bagelman, Frank in Steine, Infinity Café, Inside Out, Mrs Fitzherberts, Koba, St James’s, Shakespeare’s Head, Sidewinder, Slug and Lettuce, William IV, Bar Valentino, Theatre Royal, Carluccio’s, and The …Dorset, Tin Drum, Joogleberry, Bath Arms, Cricketers, George, Nelson, Prince Albert, Regency, Sussex, Crescent , Office, Street, and the Duke of York’s cinema where a glass helped us get through Pierrepoint.

The memory of working - or drinking - through the ‘lists’ spawns another shape: £s. Only our wee beer-money cushion replenished by periodic employment made it possible; there’s no way we could do the same today, unless… Recently I learned I’d won 3rd Prize in Spilling Ink’s 2011 Fiction Competition for ‘Cries from the Marianas Trench.’ Late in the day my literary career is beginning to take-off. Let’s hope it’s just a matter of time before my published, comic-poignant Brighton-based nanotale, Walk A Pavement Once, is made into a movie. Between us and returning to Sussex there are several obstacles, but a film at least would remove one of them: cash. And it would bring in the readies for every joint in the lists. Plaques saying ‘Eivind and Suzi were in here Once’ or ‘Eivind and Suzi came here Twice’ would have customers arriving in their droves.

‘Arriving’! How the word reminds me of that beautiful May evening when Suzi and I arrived in town, reminding me too that the memory-inducing ubiquity of Brighton extends beyond newspapers, radio and TV, to the language I use - and the streets I walk: every time I stroll to our local Tesco or wander into town and see one of them, I’m transported back to that first evening, where just outside the railway station we were given, despite his penury, a warm, unforgettable welcome from the Big Issue seller who always called me ‘Sean’.

I hope he’s no longer there. I hope he’s moved on. Oh I can’t see him being in Courtenay Gate. But with the chill of winter upon us, I hope he has more than a roof over his head, more than a shelter: I hope he has found a home.

When I began today’s post, with an image of affluent Hove in my mind, I didn’t imagine it would end like this. But that’s writing for you: you don’t know where it’ll take you.

(The story of our year in Brighton began on May 17, with ‘ARRIVAL!’)

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here