In the late eighteenth century, East India merchant, hatter, knight, magistrate, sheriff, and Member of Parliament for Southwark Sir Richard Hotham began to develop a seaside resort on an undeveloped sand and gravel coastline sixteen miles east of Portsmouth and twenty-four miles west of Brighton.
It featured in Jane Austen's final, and unfinished (she died while writing it), novel Sanditon (1817) and later took the name Bognor and, finally, Bognor Regis. In the early twenty-first century it would become the starting point of the 4th TADS walk of 2021 and I am sure you will agree that each of these events are equally significant in the town's history.
The day had started well for me. I had had three consecutive early, and booze free, nights and was up bright and early, and raring to go, on Saturday morning. As I checked my e-mails, social media etc; I listened to a proudly eclectic mix of Little Simz, Iron Maiden, Penderecki, and an Analog Africa compilation of garage funk from Cameroon and I headed down to Honor Oak Park station.
Where a miserable rail employee nearly ruined my day. The wallet I carry my railcards in has been increasingly threadbare so I politely asked for a replacement. The grumpy fucker huffed and puffed, almost threw one at me, and then moaned that I had too many cards in there - and it should carry two cards maximum.
Considering a recent train journey to Ruabon and back involved no less than eight cards that is hardly practical. Considering the exorbitant prices paid to travel on UK trains (last week's trip to Llangollen by car worked out 25% of the price it would have cost by train) I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that each new wallet is gold plated and presented to me on a velvet cushion while a brass band plays a fanfare to celebrate the occasion.
Oh well. Not to worry. Miserable gits are part of life. The trick is NOT to let them ruin your day and this one certainly didn't. From Honor Oak Park I met Pam (whose photos I have included in this account and, as ever, thank her for) at East Croydon (she'd been at the Wide Awake festival in Brockwell Park with Belinda the previous day watching Idles, Squid, Snapped Ankles etc; but seemed pretty clear headed) and we took the train to Brighton, Barnham, and, finally, Bognor Regis where Adam was waiting.
With only three walkers, and following last weekend's Welsh extravaganza, there was always a danger that things may feel a bit 'after the lord mayor's show' but, instead, it felt like a homely acoustic gig following a large stadium tour. I even joked it was a top team talk but for that we'd have needed Shep (still out with a broken ankle) and Teresa (at a family bbq).
Our first stop was Macari's, a venue Shep and I had visited in 2014 when we walked from Bognor to Littlehampton and - unbeknownst to us at the time - began formulating the concept of TADS, where I took chips, beans, bread and butter and a mug of tea. It was good. As, I believe, was Pam's veggie breakfast. The only minus points came because the ketchup was in sachets rather than bottles.
The interior of Macari's felt like a Butlin's canteen (appropriate) and they had an inordinate amount of cakes for the elderly punters (Pam was probably the youngest person in there and I think I was the tallest). Not that all of them were happy. One woman, who spoke like Phyllis from Coronation Street, complained to Pam about the rip off prices of the cakes quite vehemently. If rather amusingly.
We ventured down to the 'front' and my gluttony still not sated (how different to last weekend) I had a 99 with a Flake which proceeded to melt very very quickly but still tasted pretty good. Following Hotham's arrival, and Austen's tacit endorsement, the next big event for Bognor was the arrival of the railways in 1864.
Bognor had been growing anyway but things started to move faster. Another boost came, in 1929, when George V's advisors chose the area as a base for him to aid his recuperation (this giving us the blog title:- George V's famous riposte, "Bugger Bognor", when asked if he'd like to visit proved, possibly apocryphally, to be his last words.
Nonetheless his patronage was enough to earn Bognor its royal suffix and gain it yet more popularity. Billy Butlin has opened his first holiday camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire in 1936 and, looking to expand his empire, added Bognor Regis to his portfolio in 1960. He had already been in Bognor though, where he ran one armed bandits and dodgems as well as a zoo that featured polar bears, kangaroos, and something, or someone, called Togo the snake king.
Of its time I guess! As was Butlin's. As a kid I used to love going there. Snaffling sweets and chocolate bars, going on the monorail, spending hours in the swimming pool, and skidding on my knees on the smooth dance floors as my parents and their friends were drunkenly entertained by Redcoats.
Good times. Butlin's now is more a place for seventies and eighties music weekends and, I would have thought, is frequented by stag and hen parties but I can still imagine them to be a lot of fun if you leave your preconceptions at the door.
Another claim to fame that Bognor has is its annual birdman contest where people jump off the pier in Heath Robinson contraptions and attempt, badly, to fly. It started in Selsey in 1971 but moved to Bognor seven years later and is usually held on the first Saturday of September. The very day we we there. The pier, however, was conspicuously free of birdmen. Covid, it seems, does not even respect Bognor's birdman community.
It's a pity. Richard Branson once took part and the slim chance of seeing that greedy self-serving tosser injure himself plunging into the sea would have made our day out even more enjoyable. Other notables associated with Bognor include Cynthia "Madame Sin" Payne (born in Bognor, 1932), the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who worked in Bognor, 1875-6), and James Joyce who is said to have written some of Finnegan's Wake in the town in 1923.
We passed along the promenade looking inland at Butlin's, ramshackle holiday homes, fancier joints, and teeming cafes and outwards at vegetated shingle and clear blue sea beneath grey clouds that soon gave way to an unexpected twenty minutes or so of driving, if not torrential, rain.
Heads down, we marched on and the rain began to abate as we reached Felpham. Felpham is notable, to me at least, as the only place outside of London that William Blake ever called home. It is where he had his infamous altercation with a soldier and it is also where he wrote of "England's green and pleasant land" - Jerusalem.
We passed through Middleton-on-Sea and Elmer, occasionally having to come inland to look at impressively large (and sometimes architecturally impressive too) homes, often with swimming pools, manicured lawns, large areas of decking, and spacious balconies.
Property envy, of course, is a real thing but many of those who lived there, Adam pointed out - correctly, would have spent most of their lives in offices and not even been able to enjoy their homes.
Still, nice though. As was the beach of what had now become a surprisingly sunny day. Very few people make it this far out of town so the small groups of picnickers were able to enjoy almost unimpeded views of the vast coastline as well as looking out to waters that, under the afternoon sun, shimmered in turquoise hues.
Rotting groynes, sea kale, and moss covered stones gave the coast a deliciously careworn feel no matter what direction you looked in and as we followed along a path of baked earth towards Climping Beach Cafe it was time to turn away from the seaside. Pam and Adam were happy with a change of terrain but I have often felt the sea is in my heart and when I depart the coast it is, for me, like bidding fond adieu to a lover.
Not that that is something I do these days. Occasionally, when we'd come inland briefly, we'd pass nice houses but, at one juncture, we passed through some kind of Florida style retirement community that had a postbox (a priority one, snobs) that looked as if it was on holiday and even one of those barriers they have in NCP car parks so that non-residents cannot drive through.
Walking, it seems, is permitted. I have no gratitude towards those that allow me to walk upon the land to which I was born and it angers me that so much of Britain has been given over to private land and pettifoggery and whose infrastructure is scarred by unsafe housing and Balkanised rail networks.
To take a walk in the UK in 2021 is to both escape politics and to have it thrust in your face. The two, to me, are interchangeable. Other than one Art Deco example I was mostly unimpressed with the dwellings that made up the coastal retirement community. Most of them were no more imaginative than the speed bumps that slowed the minimal traffic as it trickled through.
But Climping and its environs was a different matter. A reasonably long straight road took us past flint cottages with gardens festooned with flowers and the sad, and oh so of its time, sight of an abandoned pub. The Black Horse (which I had planned as a stop until discovering only a few days ago it was permanently closed) looked like it'd have been a nice pub too. For both locals and visitors like us.
Just after The Black Horse we turned right into a field, passed a large group of walkers with six almost identical dogs (same breed, all siblings apparently, I was unable to make a correct identification), and, with fresh country smells lingering in the air, cut south of St Mary's Primary School, crossed the busy A259, and turned right into a footpath that was signposted as such but was seriously overgrown with prickly bushes.
You don't need to move far from the beach in West Sussex to find yourself in a totally different rustic, rural, almost pre-Industrial vibe and that is where we found ourselves. When we weren't flanked, and Pam getting stung by nettles under her leggings, by prickles we were nearly waist deep in the long grass.
A brief wrong turn had us heading pack to a ploughed field that proved to be one of the most difficult terrains we've ever crossed (at least, unlike the Groombridge disaster of 2016, it wasn't raining) and one that would, ultimately, lead us to being defeated in our attempt to reach Arundel entirely by means of foot.
Eventually we reached the west bank of the river Arun (the longest river, at 37 miles, entirely in Sussex and one which flows from Horsham to Littlehampton) and we were closer to Littlehampton, and further from Arundel, than I had hoped. The Arun was once called the Trisantonis which is thought to be a Bythonic word for 'trespasser'. Relating to the fact that the river would regularly flood.
That will explain the tall man-made banks on either side which we would pick up and follow on a meander north for the next hour or so. I marched on ahead as Adam and Pam joked about the quality of my walk planning and even went so far as to suggest a team of elves planned the walks while I slept soundly in my bed.
Legs, and feet, were getting tired and the sight of Arundel in the distance was comforting but still looked a long way away. We we were due to reach The Ship and Anchor pub in Ford for about 5pm (and did) but that pub did not open until 5.30pm and, even then, looked as if it was mainly for campers, one in an almost triangular caravan, and may have sneered at passing walkers. Certainly the path that would have carried us into the pub was marked 'private'.
We ignored it. A minor infraction of a bylaw a price worth paying to prevent a two mile diversion. It was the part of the walk that is now so familiar for me. I had to make, with consultation, an executive decision. So I did. We'd hop on the train at Ford, walk into Arundel, have a pint, and take a curry earlier than normal so we could all get our trains home in time.
It would have been lovely to complete the walk on foot but these events are supposed to be fun and we put in a decent stretch (I'd clocked up 32,568 steps by the end of play) before resting up. I always feel I need to justify these changes/modifications but what I really need to remember is we're there to have a nice time - and walking on in pain (or missing out on meals and drinks) actually mitigates against that.
So, we hopped on a train at Ford, took the short ride to Arundel, and walked into the town. It's a small place so even though the station is out of town you find yourself quite central very quickly. We'd missed Ford Open Prison (where I once visited an old school friend - Richard 'Nelly' Nelhams - who was doing 'bird') and the pedimented Dutch gables and Gothic windows of St Andrew-by-the-Ford church in Ford but we were afforded a rather splendid view of Arundel's more impressive edifices.
The most obvious, and most commanding, sight is Arundel Castle. It's exactly how you want a castle to look and dates back to Xmas Day of 1067 when it was established by one of William the Conqueror's chief counsellors, Roger de Montgomery.
Damaged in the English Civil War it was restored in the 18/19c and is now owned by the Duke of Norfolk. In 1380, it hosted the wedding of future king Henry VI and Mary de Bohun. Mary died before she could become queen but Henry married again, this time to the Spanish Joan of Navarre.
Just along from it, and even higher up so more imposing from a distance, is the Roman Catholic Cathedral Church of Our Lady and St Philip Howard. Built in the Gothic Revival style in 1868 by Joseph Hansom. A man more famous for his invention of the Hansom cab.
They now both sit proudly over a small and handsome town that is, surely, worth further investigation one day. I'd visited twice, I think, before. Once after a camping weekend in which my friend Bugsy was caught on camera displaying his inimitable, and now sadly never to be seen again, road crossing technique and once, in 2011, when I walked from Amberley in another walk which would go on to become part of pre-TADS folklore.
This time our priority was food and, first, drink. We'd passed a permanently closed pub and one that wasn't open yet and although Arundel, surely, has a selection of pleasant hostelries we were impressed with the first one we found. The White Hart was no great shakes indoors but had a very pleasant beer garden, served a tasty pint of Harvey's, and had a friendly pub dog called Herbie.
Who, thankfully, didn't go bananas when I, completely soberly, accidentally smashed my pint on the ground. Somebody else had done just that a few minutes earlier and we'd remarked how good it was to hear that sarcastic pub cheer reverberate around after so long. Of course, I received the same courtesy and the friendly bar staff laughed it off and cleared up the mess with no fuss.
My jeans were still wet when we arrived at the India Gate for food but that was the only downside of the experience. 6pm was earlier than we'd normally eat but it meant we weren't too heavy with drinks (Adam had only one pint all day) and soon poppadums with lime pickle, mango chutney, and salad were being washed down with Cobra.
Ostrich tikka was eschewed in favour of a paneer makanwala (for me), channa masala (for Pam), and a dansak for Adam while rice and breads were shared. It all tasted good and the restaurant itself was surprisingly swanky, almost like a hotel bar. I'd feared it'd be costly but it proved very reasonable and the staff were friendly, prompt, and obliging.
Even the chocolate mints after dinner were great. No complaints whatsoever. We returned to The White Hart for a couple more drinks, Adam shot off, and Pam and I took a convoluted route home that involved a train to Pulborough, a longish wait (with unhelpful bus drivers) for a bus connection to Three Bridges in which we wrestled with The Guardian crosswrod, and another train to East Croydon where we split.
I carried on to Honor Oak Park, my tired legs took me uphill to my flat, and I got home and went almost straight to the bed. The walk had not worked out exactly how I'd planned it but it had been yet another lovely, life affirming, day of walking and another page in the ongoing book of TADS history. Next month we're walking from Merstham to Croydon in a walk I'm calling Into Happy Valley. Shep and I passed through on the London LOOP a few years back and he ended up covered in mud after slipping up and I was hoping he could put that ghost to bed. Let's hope his ankle is recovered because if I could have changed one thing about yesterday's walk it would have been having the Bangla swigging bastard there with us.
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