Elegy To The West Pier

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Brighton, Brighton Beach, i360 tower, inspiration, landmarks, memory, piers, starlings, storms, The West Pier, The West Pier Trust, weather, writers, writing

The West Pier is dying. Last Wednesday a huge chunk of her fell into the sea, dislodged by heavy winds and swelling tides. Now there is a gap on the Eastern side of her and the middle hangs precariously over pirana waves. Brighton’s residents gasped collectively and wailed about her not lasting the next twenty-four hours, many braved the wind to gaze on her last moments. The wind raged through the night but the Pier stood defiant. She won’t last the weekend, they said. Tomorrow a week will have passed but tomorrow the weather forecast is gales and high swells. 

The West Pier features in the first proper short story I ever wrote, a story which went on to form the first ‘chapter’ of my episodic novel, Starlings. For me the landmark is the most beautiful place in the city. She is definitely female and also old. I don’t mean in terms of actual years, I mean anthropomorphically. She is, to me, an old lady. She was once a great beauty, immaculately dressed, popular at parties, blessed of many lovers but then she aged and she couldn’t afford the fine clothes and shiny jewellery the younger girls had and her looks began to fade, people didn’t come calling anymore. She still paddled in the sea, as she had in her youth, but she grew thin through lack of sustenance and good company and her legs withered, the bones showing through. Then there was the fire.

I remember visiting Brighton in the 1980s and 90s and seeing her listing downwards, her paint peeling and windows broken and I remember thinking how romantic it was that she wasn’t a naff bells and whistles fun-fare like the Palace Pier. Every seaside town had a pier. I’m from the North, you couldn’t really beat Blackpool for seaside attractions, but Brighton had the West Pier, decaying, abandoned, loved only by the birds. It was special. The white picket fence brigade hated her then, she was an eyesore, a blight on their beautiful city, someone should do something about her. But whenever I came here she was the thing I wanted to see the most.  She was Miss Havisham. She appealed to my introverted younger self. I wore black then, even in the sun, Wuthering Heights was my favourite book, the Mary Chain played in a loop in my head and I wouldn’t have been caught dead swimming in the sea. What better than a pier you weren’t allowed on because it wasn’t safe! I didn’t want a kiss-me-quick hat and a stick of rock; I wanted to gaze on decay.

I’ve changed, I hope, I like nothing better than a sea swim these days, but I’m still drawn to the desolate beauty of West Pier.  I thought she was at her most beautiful after the fire. I didn’t move to Brighton until 2003 so I wasn’t here for the fire but afterwards she seemed elevated into a new art form, something truly unique.  Her burnt out wreck has inspired me in so much of my writing, even when the work isn’t actually about her, the image of her guides my hand, churning up thoughts of lost beauty and aged stoicism. She is memory personified. She is death. She is anything you want her to be.

Brighton will be a much less interesting place without her. There won’t be the collective thrill of walking around her ruin at extremely low tide or watching the waves crash over her prow in stormy seas. I won’t be able to hear the peculiar metallic  ting of the wind shaking her strutts or see clouds of starlings crowd her at sunset. If I’m honest though I’m really looking forward to seeing her fall. To me she is a reminder of our mortality, that technology is meaningless and that all things eventually come to an end. How much sweeter it is to be here when she goes? To be able to say ‘I was there when…’ This is selfish of me I know, but I don’t want her rebuilt like she was, because then she’d just be another pier and in the end she’s so much more than that.

If you are not as selfish as me and you would like to see a life size sculpture of the West Pier on the front when she goes then please sign this petition (anything is better than a stupid tower).

Diary Of A Book Trailer – Part One

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book groups, book trailer, Brighton, diary, locations, niche publications, Publicity, Reviews, starlings, The West Pier, writer's block, writers, writing

A marvellous opportunity has recently come my way. A friend of a friend has offered to make a book trailer for me. Charlie Rose, who was introduced to me by my friend and co-Rattle Taler Charlotte Feld, wants to make a trailer for my first novel Starlings. Starlings was released over a year ago but I have always felt that it didn’t get enough attention at the time. It was published by the gutsy but small Revenge Ink and the marketing budget was limited. Revenge Ink is one of the few publishers accepting speculative submissions from authors– this is great, it meant I could get my book published without the help of an agent unfortunately it also meant that I didn’t have an agent to help me publicise it. You might think it’s a bit arrogant to think my novel deserves to have been noticed but it’s not that honestly.  The reviews it did get (apart from the very first one!) where all so good but they were in niche publications and the local press, it was impossible to get it reviewed nationally. Likewise, the readings I did for the book were all met with very positive feedback and the book groups I went to were all extremely enthusiastic. The book is set in Brighton (where it seems at times that everybody knows everybody) and even now I’ve given up actively promoting it, people will stop me in the street and tell me how much they loved it. It was long-listed for the Edge Hill Prize so there is some merit in it; I’m not just full of bluster. I sometimes think that the niggling feeling of not being done with Starlings is what is preventing me from finishing a second novel. I’ve plenty of ideas and I write every day but I can’t quite settle down to it, as if I’m not yet ready to give it my full attention.

When Charlie offered to make a book trailer for it I jumped at the chance. What harm can it do? If it brings a new audience to the novel then I’ll be more than happy and if it doesn’t I won’t be any worse off than I am now. We had our first meeting last week to discuss what kind of trailer to make, the main themes, how to start it, how to portray Brighton and the book in just a few minutes. We went over the genesis of the novel, the process and the generalities of how and where I wrote it. It was really interesting to discuss the book in depth again especially with someone who has just read it. I haven’t looked at it for many months but it was such a big part of my life for so long that of course I remember a lot about it but there are things I’ve forgotten.  The structure is very complex, the stories link into a narrative that makes you reflect differently on the action and the characters by the time you’ve finished reading it. All the characters are related in some way to others in the book even if they don’t initially appear to be. The aim was to show how everyone is linked to everyone else, something the trailer should show too. In addition to this, every time I talk to someone about Starlings something I’ve never thought of surfaces. This time Charlie said he thought it was perpetually summer in the novel that the sun was always shining and that this contrasted with the dark and gritty underside in the stories. I wasn’t aware of this, in fact I thought a lot of it was set under a cloud with stormy seas but, now it has been pointed out to me, I realise a lot of the stories do take place in the hot summer sun. This could be a problem for the book trailer as we want to start filming it pretty soon and the last time I looked it was threatening to snow. We’ll have to improvise, maybe con some friends to walk about in shorts eating ice-creams!

We also plan to film in some of Brighton’s lesser known locations, to look at the city from a different angle, a slightly skewed vision of the tourist image so often presented. There was even talk of taking a boat out to film the West Pier from the sea-bound edge.

It’s an interesting process, deciding where to film and what passages to include and also what background information to talk about. It’s all very exciting. I’ve decided to blog about it at each stage so if we have to call the coast guard during filming you’ll be the first to know.