East Beach Cafe 2011

(All 24.7.2011 copyright Steve Sainsbury)

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It was always going to be controversial, dropping a modernist vision in harsh metal onto a traditional British seaside promenade, and I know this divides opinion more than anything. Me? I love the design from the back (the bottom photograph), not so keen on the front.

Since I moved from LA in 1990 I can be as close as possible to an objective observer! My wife and I travel a lot around the world and we've visited a lot of interesting restaurants. Some good, some bad! We were hungry and wanted to eat so we dropped in. (Remember this was six years ago). We're vegetarian so get used to limited choice - and the choice was limited! The food was also quite average. Really a place like this needs to be special in every department. Hopefully it's changed a but since 2011. In the right direction of course.

As kids this whole area was part of our stamping ground, climbing on the roofs of the old beach shelters, going out on Winkle Island and trying to get trapped, watching the bonfire grow and then burn over a couple of weeks. Things are always changing, it's how we know we're alive. Have we been back since 2011? No, but then again we don't get to LA too often these days ...

Home from home

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When we were kids growing up in Whitelea Road we almost had Narnia at the bottom of our garden, or so it seemed at the time. We had our very own twitten!

We'd spend hours chopping nettles, digging holes or selling soil to people whose gardens backed on to the twitten. 6d a bucket full. We even once started to build a miniature railway along it, with wooden rails and no idea what we'd run on it!

Many years later (on 4 November 1984) I found myself back there. Not a lot had changed though it all seemed much smaller than I'd remembered it! 

All gone now though - the house owners have bit by bit reclaimed the twitten and incorporated it into their back gardens - depriving Whitelea's kids of hours of fun!

Arctic Blast 1975

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Sussex, especially West Sussex south of the Downs. doesn't normally get a lot of snow but sometimes we get plenty, which can stick for days or even weeks.

I have a note that these shots were 1975. I walked up to Lyminster Road where I had a feeling the banks along the eastern side would produce some excellent blowing snow. I wasn't disappointed.

I've since lived in Scotland's second highest village and in a Swiss ski resort, but these are still some of my favourite winter shots!