I haven’t caught a bullfight anywhere in the Iberian Peninsula and thankfully avoided any risk of an obligatory nude sauna in Scandinavia. I’ve only dipped a reluctant toe in the Asian Mediterranean once – I don’t like exposing my skin on beaches – when I ventured as far as Kalkan.
Sue Rogers, on the other hand, has been everywhere – 196 countries. Has she been to Patcham and Hollingbury? Do come Sue – you don’t need a visa yet. Sometimes I wish you did.
If Patcham and Hollingbury could turn back the clock to 1086 when it was listed in the Domesday book and regain its independence what flag would it fly? Would it be green and blue? The green of the hills seen from the heights of Hollingbury coupled with the blue of the sea seen from Surrenden on the southern border. With a superimposed image of our 17th century dovecote. Or the 5G mast in Carden Avenue.
What would our national anthem be? “Lavender’s blue dilly dilly” would commemorate the “defeat” of the council trying to cut back our beautiful lavandula. We’d allow lavender all over the place, within reason. The brass band of the Nautical Training Corps would play the anthem on our Independence Day. We could, like many foundation myths, embrace an existing celebration – perhaps the Duck Fayre, run by one of our fairy godmothers Sally – as our founding festivity, in Patcham High School’s fields. Unlike Brighton, we’d put on an annual Christmas market.
Every country has its fairytales. It was heartening recently to see Carden Primary pupils learning about that old English tale of the Three Little Pigs. Like much in England, it’s about property. The three pigs should have gone to Nick Knowles on DIY SOS – so should half of our council tenants. Which story would push Patcham and Hollingbury over the edge to independence?
I have a good idea who our heroines would be. Sally, the manager of Patcham Community Centre, is one. Gayle of Ladies Mile fame is another of course, and Reyna, while Rebecca I see as a kind of Rapunzel living as she does by a tower of sorts, doing battle with Brighton on a daily basis.
If the Brothers Grimm paid a visit to our newly minted federal democracy – its centres of power shared between Patcham Community Centre and Old Boat Corner – they’d have to bring their wellies. For somewhere so high up, we’ve more in common with The Netherlands than Brighton. Sewage seeps out in surprising places. It’s not unknown to see a poo or two float by in streets I won’t name. In 2000, the council knew the sewers in Patcham couldn’t cope. There’s a report.
They can’t cope now, and we can see it. Yet the proposed development of Royal Mail’s sorting office, with recent conditional approval by Southern Water – with one company you get too little and the other too much – flows on. But with Rebecca, and Captain Howard by her side, we have a worthy heroine and handsome prince fighting the just cause. If Labour don’t listen to all the objections, that’s reason enough to secede.
On the other side of the realm – we’d keep the monarchy, and the pound – Reyna lives, like many fairy godmothers, in a little thatched cottage lost in a glade with candy canes for trees, Bambis and children skipping all over the place. That’s how Old Boat Corner Community Centre would be reimagined by Disney. Old Boat is the heart and soul of Hollingbury with its film nights, food bank, dance classes, clothes store, charity haircuts – as good as any – music lessons, and hipster café for your frappuccino and pain au chocolat.
The Grimm Brothers would hear a tale of battle over a small library that serves this part of Hollingbury. It’s a complicated, legalistic tale – not for children – but so many dealings with the council are. It centres on rent. Old Boat subsidises the library space. It has looked after it and paid the cleaning bill for years. But the council is resisting a modest rent rise despite the centre having a duty to use its space cost-effectively. Old Boat could rent it out to another provider for more money. We all want the library to stay – why all the huffing and puffing?
Stranger things have happened than Patcham and Hollingbury declaring independence. Whatever the future brings, there is passion and talent enough in Patcham and Hollingbury to ensure the most ardent hodophile – lover of travel – wouldn’t want to leave.
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