Sunnyside Studio

A short train ride east of Hastings is the port of Rye; still just a port despite being, today, several miles from the sea. It was associated with the Cinque Ports of Kent and Sussex, which provided a line of fortified settlements along the coast nearest to the continent and therefore strategically significant in earlier times.

Little sign of this remains save for a few canons pointing out to sea. Rye has become popular, some might say too popular, for its charm. The old part of the town with its narrow cobbled streets, attractive houses, quaint shops and pubs is crowded with visitors all the time, enjoying this most perfect example of a Georgian town.

We were reminded of the outrageous over acting of Geraldine McEwan in a very enjoyable TV series called Mapp and Lucia and think we found the street used for the outside scenes.

The Kent and East Sussex railway runs from Bodiam, site of a splendid castle and a fine though slightly expensive pub, to Tenterden Town. Tenterden, like Rye, was once a port and part of the fortified south east coast. Today it is an attractive Tudor, Regency and Victorian little town at the end of the line.

If you enjoy a little burst of nostalgia: that steam engine smell, the leather strap windows in the carriages, the noise, the smoke and steam rising above the trees, you can spend a happy day going up and down this line.

Eastbourne is more refined, genteel and prosperous than Hastings. Some of the hotels along the front were very grand indeed.

There is still a shingle beach but the pier here is open and thriving. This is a pleasant residential town and holiday resort, where the only fishing is with rod and line off the end of the pier.

Having never visited Sussex before, apart from a three hour visit to Brighton in 1963, we decided to spend our September holiday in Hastings and fill in a few more places on our travel map.

Most of Hastings is very unremarkable, just an ordinary working town. Parts of it seem somewhat run-down, other areas we found very interesting. The first of these impressions is exemplified by the closed and derelict pier which lends an air of depression to the beach front.

The Stade area of Old Hastings was much more to our liking with its weird black clapboard buildings and huts built out of boats sawn in half. This is the location of Hasting's fishing industry. Like Brighton, my only surviving memory of the place, Hastings has a shingle beach and the fishing boats are launched directly off the beach into the sea. The only place we have seen this before is at Filey on the Yorkshire coast.

There is nothing better than fresh caught fish and Hastings provided ample opportunity to indulge ourselves.

Opposite the pier in Eastbourne one can catch an open topped bus up to Beachy Head. Or, a pleasant walk will achieve the same end.

These are spectacular chalk cliffs, kept white by the constant erosion, which stains the waters at their base. Walking along the cliff edge on the short downland grass, watching the shipping passing up and down the channel is a nice way to pass an afternoon, if you have a head for heights.

I was suddenly shocked, however, to see numerous little memorials, bunches of flowers, pathetic little notes, dotting the cliff edge. Suddenly the afternoon sun did not seem quite so warm as before. I found it hard to imagine how desperate one would have to feel, to be able to step off that edge. In the picture the figure in the yellow jacket is a resident chaplain whose presence now made sense.