I carried on through the South Downs National Park, the scenery ordinary after Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. It wasn't unattractive, just far from memorable. And drivers were noticeably less friendly too, not reacting when I let them pass as they'd done everywhere else. Maybe they expected a dirty, little, bike-riding oik like me to get out of their way. Perhaps I should have tugged a forelock at the same time.
I arrived in small-town Petersfield and found the sign for Steep, supposedly the location of tonight's field. Never has a village been more aptly named. As I climbed up a seemingly endless hill something in the sky above me took aim, fired and hit me squarely on the arm. Unusually it wasn't the typical hue of an avian deposit. Perhaps someone had launched a St Bernard from a cannon.
At the top of groovily hippyish-sounding Stoner's Hill I asked a man if he knew where the campsite was. He had no idea but said I was no longer in Steep and so it must be somewhere back down the hill. That wasn't what I wanted to hear.
“Beautiful round 'ere, isn't it?” he said.
I nodded but wanted to say 'meh'. He was right though. It definitely wasn't ugly. Perhaps the constant wheel-banging of the broken roads and the precision of the bird life was tainting my experience.
Halfway back down the hill I saw a woman trimming her hedge with a chainsaw. No sniggering at the back, please! The campsite was, it turned out, down the lane at the side of her house although, with no sign of any kind, I suppose the only way you'd find it without her there to provide directions would be via satnav.
I cycled down the lane and came to a car park on which stood a tiny handful of caravans. Next to it was a field. I looked for an office or a toilet block but there was nothing. Maybe this wasn't the campsite at all. I carried on down the lane but I was soon faced with a No Entry sign. That field was obviously the site and so I cycled back to it. And then I spotted the facilities, a single portaloo in the corner of the field, looking like the shittest TARDIS ever. The sloping field was empty save for a single, large caravan with a huge awning attached to the front. Every inch of available space was covered with washing, an unfeasible amount for the number of people who could realistically live in such a caravan, as though whoever resided within was taking in laundry for their non-existent neighbours.
As I pushed my bike past the caravan to access the sole flat space in the top corner of the field, Jeff emerged from the inside. I'm guessing he was early fifties but I'm rubbish with ages.
“Just set up your tent,” he said. “It's £10. The farmer will come to collect it. Otherwise, stick it in the letterbox at the end of the lane.”
Last week I'd paid £5 for a fully-featured campsite and here it was double for a sloping field, a water tap and a shitpit. The field was surrounded by tall, handsome trees though and so it wasn't all bad.
“You look hot,” he said, handing me a cold can of Coke.
He was right. I was boiling. And grateful.
I'd noticed a pub a little way back down the hill, the Cricketers, but bizarrely on this sunny Sunday afternoon it was closed. Luckily, someone had left a single leaflet in the portaloo – maybe its destiny had been emergency loo paper – and it talked of local poet Edward Thomas and a walk around Steep. There was apparently a second pub too. I set off.
The walk to The Harrow took longer than I'd expected and, when I got there, it too was closed. Another bloke examining its exterior told me it would open at seven, in an hour's time. On its outdoor picnic benches there were magazine articles about the pub – it was locally famous – one of which included a gushing recommendation for its food, beer and charm from that jovial, older fella from The Great British Menu, not Prue Leith or that younger bloke made of angles and bitterness.
I stuck around and amused myself until it opened. The articles outside had described how oldie-worldie it was, and that was certainly true. It was 17th century after all. The interior had a dark wood, hobbit hovel feel to the place and drinks were served from a hatch.
I noticed a WiFi sign on a shelf and asked for the password. The barman laughed.
“No,” he said. “That's a joke.”
Of course it was. The place didn't even electrically cool its drinks; why would it have internet? Silly me. I didn't mind being without Facebook but I would've preferred it if they'd stuck 50p in the meter and chilled the cider.
I took my pint outside. As I sat there sipping my lukewarm apple juice a bunch of twenty-something cricketers crowded on to the picnic bench behind me. In expensive accents they discussed this evening's narrow victory despite playing rubbish as well as the age of their girlfriends. One of them used the word “Classic!” a little too often. Tonight's shock gossip was that one of their number had acquired a girlfriend as old as nineteen.
“Nineteen. That's, like, ancient.”
“Classic!”
The others had much younger females than her. No one admitted to anything pederastic but if nineteen is way too old then they weren't leaving themselves too many options. These guys didn't sound like they wanted to bowl a maiden over, maybe just a tween.
Next to the front door was what appeared to be a legal notice. A Mr Mahood Majeggings had apparently applied for a licence to take over the place and sell kebabs and pizza. It was another joke. Can you imagine anything as uncouth as a pizza being served here? That fella from The Great British Menu would never come back. Unless it was topped with Japanese fugu and quails' vaginas or something.
I didn't want to stick around for more tepid cider and so I returned to my tent and sat outside. As I lit my stove Jeff appeared again. He was keen to talk.
“How often do you come here?” I asked.
“We live here. I got the caravan delivered a while back and it got stuck in the mud. Now we can't move it.”
“Delivered? So you haven't a car?”
“No, neither me nor the missus can drive.”
That must be awkward. The nearest shops were in Petersfield, a few miles down the hill.
“We tried living in town with the wife's sister but...” Then he called her a name or two and pulled a face. “So we came here. She picks us up to go shopping once a week.” That seemed generous for someone he didn't actually like. “She only does it to make herself feel good.”
We talked, or rather Jeff talked, while I cooked my dinner. He was into search engine optimization. I worked in I.T. many years ago. I didn't need to be reminded how dull it is. He was really good at it apparently but doesn't do it any more.
“Maybe I'll start again. This time I'd just charge £30 a month or something.”
He was setting his sights low. I'd looked in the newspaper at property pricing around here. An ordinary two-bedroomed terraced house would set you back £1,200 a month in rent although for larger but still not massive houses this rose to £3,000. To buy a three-bedroomed house on a photocopy estate, detached in name only – a one-metre gap separated each home – would cost £400,000. I suppose Petersfield is in the commuter capture area for London but it would be a miserable old trudge to travel up there every day.
Jeff mentioned what a great area this was, how Mark Owen lived not far away, and another impressively famous couple whose names escape me now. If he was only going to charge £30 a month, he was going to need a lot of customers. And I'm sure if Mark Owen wants www.TheTakeThatImp.com at Google's number one spot then, given his tax arrangements, he could comfortably stretch to forty quid.
Jeff had been a successful businessman, he said, but then later mentioned he'd never had a bank account. I ate my dinner while he continued to talk. It started to get dark and Jeff looked at his watch.
“Sorry. I've hogged the conversation, talking about me all the time,” he said. “Tomorrow I'll ask you all about your adventures.”
It was alright. I didn't need to talk about my adventures.
I think more than anywhere else I'd been in Britain so far, Hampshire felt the most alien, the most far-removed from what I thought Britain is supposed to feel like. Everyone was paying an abs
olute fortune to live in fairly ordinary surroundings. And despite the obvious wealth around here, few people seemed happy. Drivers were angry. Smiles were in short supply. Maybe it was just too bloody expensive. Or maybe they kept bumping into Mark Owen.
*
I woke up to yet more sunshine. I hadn't been awake long when Jeff captured me again. Boy, he could talk. He told me a story of a time he went to India. A diplomat was supposed to make a speech but had been forced to cancel the engagement. The organisers cast around for someone to fill his shoes. With only five minutes' notice, Jeff pulled it off. He did a 45-minute presentation in front of a roomful of people. I believed him. I mean, he was a little David Brent-like – he'd often start a story with “Oh, and this is funny” but then it wouldn't turn out to be – but he wasn't a bad chap. I think he just desperately needed someone to talk to.
By half eleven I was on the road again. The route took me on forgettable hills and lanes full of tall hedges. It was impossible to see over them, or to see anything at all. I may as well have been fitted with blinkers. The only clue I'd entered West Sussex, apart from the road sign, was that the roads improved.
Wonderfully-monikered villages whizzed by. Although I didn't venture away from the A272 I was never far from places with names like Balls Cross, Cocking Causeway and Gay Street.
After such a late start I wasn't going to get many miles done today. Near Billingshurst I found a campsite behind a pub called The Limemakers for a tenner. While the site was fine for the money asked, I was now close enough to the capital for it to start infecting pub prices. Five quid for a pint was a little bit Scandinavian.
Today, for the first time on the trip, I felt bored as I rolled along the lanes of West Sussex. Everywhere else had stimulated the senses. I was looking forward to the day I could head north again towards wilder lands. But I wasn't despondent. I suspected my boredom would end tomorrow. Brighton was calling.
*
One of the joys of being in Britain is a breakfast of a big bag of supermarket custard doughnuts costing only 70p, knowing that throughout the course of the day you'll work off those delicious calories.
I started by moving eastwards. After West Grinstead the traffic on the A292 became seriously unpleasant. A lorry came so close it ran me off the road. Luckily, at that precise moment there was a turning to my left into which I could escape.
I ducked off the racetrack towards Henfield and could see an ominous sky ahead. The earlier blue had mutated into the blue-grey of an imminent thunderstorm.
I crossed into East Sussex, statistically almost identical to West Sussex, a similar size, a similar population and a similar amount of that teenage knobbish driving.
I'd been told to visit Devil's Dyke in the South Downs National Park. As the skies grew increasingly murderous, I headed south and up the large hill towards the dyke. I heard my first rumble. I kept going. It couldn't be far, but the more I climbed, the more the sky grumbled around me. I had no idea what the dyke was but, judging by my ascent, it seemed to be on or via the top of a hill and, generally speaking, the top of a hill is not the sort of place you want to be in a lightning storm. A flash ripped through the air with a simultaneous deafening crack. It really wasn't far away. I didn't care what the Devil's Dyke was. It could be a mountain of diamonds with a free bar on top. I wasn't going there in these conditions.
I rolled back down the slope and while on the cycle path to Brighton it started to rain. The storm was only just warming up. The route took me through a tunnel and for a few minutes I hid inside to see what would happen to the weather. Another cyclist came in the opposite direction, dripping from every bodily protrusion.
“It's worse in Brighton, mate,” he said.
The light drizzle I was experiencing continued but didn't seem to be getting any worse and so I decided to continue. I eventually reached Brighton unsoaked. Britain's gay capital hadn't fared so well. Its giant potholes were full of water. They must have had quite a storm. Once again on this trip, the worst of the weather was somewhere else. Probably in Wales.
I found the campsite near the coast on the opposite side of town.
“Are you in a car?” asked the woman on the desk.
“No, I'm cycling.”
“Wow, you're really slumming it, aren't you?”
It was nice to hear someone talk up their holiday camp so highly.
I left my bags and walked the two miles back into town along the sea front. A little depressingly I was asked by a couple of French kids directions to the nearest McDonald's. Thankfully I couldn't help. Hopefully they found a proper burger elsewhere.
The storm had passed and the sky was a perfect blue but in the west an enormous, lone, aircraft-smashing cumulonimbus was growing majestically.
It was clear Brighton was better than your average British seaside resort. Its crazy golf course had its own waterfall for God's sake, and on the seafront I caught a glimpse of the world's oldest still-active electric tram.
In any coastal resort there's always a compulsion to visit that bit of scaffolding sticking out into the sea. Call it pier pressure if you like. I'd always thought of them as a very British invention but there are piers all over the world. Brighton's pier was exactly how I remembered Blackpool in the 80s but with a slightly elevated, international feel. The stalls at its entrance sold Spanish churros, although really they're just doughnuts in a different shape. From the bright sunshine I walked into the bulbs and neon of the arcade. Suddenly I was transported to my sixteen-year-old idiot self, shovelling in handfuls of coins to win pointless toys no one really wanted. The space was almost entirely devoid of adults. Plinky plonky cheap synthesizer sounds merged with roaring fake Formula One engines and dying Pacmen.
I was glad to emerge on the other side, back on to the wooden planks further down the pier. Various little shops sold sweets and t-shirts, and you could throw something to win something although you knew it was a fix and you'd have to spend more than the cost of the object you were trying to win. A woman in a burka examined the laminated photo choices at a Photo-In-A-Costume booth. I suspect she'd be disappointed unless they had something as unrevealing as a deep sea diver's outfit.
At the end of the pier was a funfair, although precious few were having fun. They had a special offer. For twenty pounds you could ride all day, but hardly anyone wanted to ride at all. The only machine spinning was one of those octopus things where you sit in a car at the end of its tentacles, and there were only five people on that.
I walked back down the opposite side of the pier. A group of four forty-something women in white jeans inspected the filthiness of each other's arses after sitting on various pieces of pier furniture. They pointed and shrieked like crows.
I left the pier and headed into town. A Deliveroo bike courier came past me, carrying what appeared to be a washing machine on his back, the poor sod.
Once I'd reach the lovely Pavilion, with its Russian onion domes, Brighton's character changed from Blackpool to Berlin. Tackiness was swapped for quirkiness. Diversity was its name. Various demonstrations of gayness abounded, from casual shy smiles to flamboyant Rue Paul mincing. There was hair of every colour and none, sometimes all on the same head, clumps shaved, strategically or otherwise.
Not everyone had chosen modern punk. There were the Euro chicsters, too-cool women wearing shades big enough to weld a battleship. These people weren't mouth-breathers; they weren't even nose-breathers. They probably had a little blowhole on the top of their heads, the only sign they respired at all was a slight ruffle of their hair every three or four minutes.
A crowd of suntanned pissheads, with rough beards and beef-jerky skin, sat cackling on a bench. No one paid them any attention. It seemed you could be what you wanted to be in Brighton. No one was going to judge you because there'd be someone more interesting along in a minute.
The Lanes were a joy to experience. The dudes and dudettes who haunted these streets were too eclectic to suffer anything as banal as modern British shopping
. These stalls were two fingers to the corporate suits, dreaming up profitable conformity in their boardrooms. I'm sure in another part of central Brighton you could have bored yourself with a rubbish Starbucks coffee or had a dull lunch at Burger King but, for this part of town alone, Brighton, I salute you.
After a tour of the centre I walked back tentwards, this time one street in from the front. A young bloke was standing on the pavement ahead of me. He swallowed something from what appeared to be a prescription medicine bottle and then, with a grimace, part-wrestled his shirt from his body, giving up after a few seconds. He seemed in pain.
“Are you alright?” I asked him.
He stared at me blankly, his face two feet away from mine. I repeated the question. Nothing. I tried once more, but still he was mute and just glared with dead eyes. Finally, after a good thirty seconds and without an expression on his face, he spoke.
“What are you saying?” he said, his voice a million miles away, his pupils dilated.
Maybe he was a Jedi. He certainly seemed to be on another planet. After all, Brighton is the Jedi capital of Britain. According to the last census, 1% of residents identify with the Galactic power, almost as many people as are Buddhists. As reported in the Sussex Tab, local Abbie Betts said:
“I guess there are no rules on what can and can't be classed as a religion but, as a Christian, I'd have a hard time accepting someone as a Jedi.”
They've got their light sabres and the Force, Abbie, and you've got your miracles and resurrection. They're all as daft as each other. Let's just get along.
The article in the Tab also discussed Brighton's high levels of atheism, deducing its connection to the gay community's reluctance to embrace religion. It didn't use the expression “gay community”. It said “LGBTQIA+ community”. Bloody hell, I've been out of Britain for a long time. I've no idea what anything after the T stands for, but I've a feeling this inclusive acronym is just going to keep growing until it starts repeating letters. Otherwise, sexual identities will have to name themselves with specific initials in mind.
Route Britannia, the Journey South: A Spontaneous Bicycle Ride through Every County in Britain Page 20