Another day of nice weather and a kind of spring madness is beginning to take over. This comes in the form of a mild wanderlust, coupled with the realisation that this might be my last summer in (relatively) good health, and this year I ought to take advantage of it. I have spent too long holed up in the Hove-l, sometimes not even venturing from the bedroom for days on end except to eat, and the typical aftermath of eating. Dish and pot, dish and pot, these are the poles, as Beckett’s Malone said, telling us stories from his deathbed.
So I have been looking at the bus routes, and entranced by the names of their final destinations, as given on the front. Others dream of Mandalay or Machu Picchu; I dream of Hangleton and Worthing. In the latter case, this is literally true: a friend who lives there invited me to lunch at hers last weekend; she was making slow-roasted lamb with anchovies and garlic – one of my favourite meals – but a combination of illness and work prevented me, and the psychic reaction to that has been to portray Worthing, in my sleep, as a place of run-down intrigue, all clapperboard housing and desolate sea views, like Derek Jarman’s Dungeness, although Google Street View tells me it’s not really like that. As for Hangleton, which is served by the 5B, I have taken it as far as the Hove Polyclinic (in one of the finest jokes I have ever made in this column, I said that the Polyclinic was where you went when you were sick as a parrot) but no further. Maybe it is time to spread my wings.
The 700 takes you, in one direction, to Worthing, that country of dreams; the 77, from the other side of the road, takes you to Devil’s Dyke, and I have done that, in the company of my friend A— while I was recovering from a woeful break-up. I was full of sadness but the views were amazing, if a little spoiled by the paragliders all over the place. (Devil’s Dyke, which has one of the most striking views in southern England, has paragliders the way a beer garden in late summer has wasps.)
The thing about Brighton & Hove buses is that they are amazing. They are prompt and frequent and have wifi that actually works, unlike Thameslink’s. Not that I would be spending any time on the phone. The whole point is to look out of the window and imagine other lives. The top deck of the number 1, which I take to Kemptown when I am feeling lazy or breathless, even has tables on the top deck, as on a train. (Unless it is a Thameslink train.) A look at the map and I get excited in a very British way. I could take the 14C to Rottingdean or even Newhaven; the 29 takes me as far afield as Tunbridge Wells, via Lewes and Uckfield.
Whitehawk (routes 1, 71 71A and 73) has also intrigued me, its name sounding like that of a heavy metal band with dubious political tendencies, but I have been advised not to go there unless I want to be beaten up. I do not. The 13X will take me to the Birling Gap and Beachy Head; a fear of heights and a temporary appetite for life will prevent me from hurling myself off the cliffs, or even coming within 50 yards of the edge. (The only time Tintin ever visits England, in The Black Island, the baddies force him to the edge at gunpoint and order him to jump off. The scenery, as with all the scenery in the Tintin books when they were redrawn, is depicted with meticulous accuracy.)
The thing is that Sussex remains for the most part an extraordinarily beautiful county, and I have not been doing it justice. One of the things I like about Brighton very much is that it stops with a bang instead of petering out; go south enough and you’re in the English Channel; in any other direction, suddenly you’re in the countryside, and not just any old countryside but that of the South Downs, one of the UK’s most beautiful national parks. Travelling along the coast is also great; I have done the journey to Hastings by train and that took me via Bexhill, home of the Goons’ Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler; and a train to London once had to be diverted westwards and took me past the liminal wetlands of Southwick and Shoreham-by-Sea, which is how, I now come to think of it, my subconscious came up with its idea of Worthing.
What I will do when I get to these places I am not sure. Probably have a pint, smoke, and wait for the bus back. Of course, the whole exercise is fraught with potential melancholy; last summer I took the train to Lewes, on a whim, to have a pint at the Lewes Arms. I sat outside, against a wall, in the evening sunshine, and then it occurred to me that this experience would be a lot better if I were sharing it with a woman I loved. But if one goes on a bus, one dons an invisible anorak, waterproof map holder and binoculars; one becomes armed with the sexlessness of the public travel geek. Of course I once said in this column that I was thinking of becoming a B&H bus driver (“All we ask from you is a driving licence and a smile”) and nothing came of that. Nothing might come of this plan either; but a man can dream.
[See also: Taking on the manosphere death cult]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 10 Apr 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Spring Special 2025