First Stop: By the Sea

Travel Diary Dept.: My wife and I uprooted ourselves to travel for a month this summer. I’ve given a couple of accounts of our version of ocean travel, and I’ll get back to that shortly, but here’s a break from chronology and the water to explore the first dry-land stop on our itinerary: Seaford, a coastal town in southern England. All of the photos are my doing.

                                                                                 

AS A TOURIST, it seems hypocritical to seek “non-touristy” places to visit: after all, aren’t I traveling in order to see and otherwise experience that which has proven its appeal to others? Yes, but too often too many of those others are clogging the place I want to see. In planning a trip to the UK, my travel agent suggested a first stop on the south coast of England. Brighton was mentioned. So was Seaford, both of which lie east of Southampton, where our ship would dock, and south of London, which we would save until last.

Google Maps provided insight I could have gained nowhere else. I used the Street View function to walk along Brighton’s waterfront street, and I saw a row of ocean-facing buildings built to accommodate the tourists who’d be occupying the nearby beach. Seaford, on the other hand, not only had residences facing the ocean but also an esplanade facing a waterfront of large pebbles. Accommodations were fewer, but we found a place to stay in The Wellington Pub and Hotel, one block up from the esplanade, with its rooms atop what promised to be an old-fashioned pub.

This it was, although every pub we visited (and we visited many) during the subsequent weeks was, if not truly of significant vintage then designed to replicate the vintage look. But we couldn’t have made a better start to this trip than the Wellington. It was a family-run place in what proved to be a family-defined village. Jaime, our travel agent, gently discouraged us from this place, noting that it had but four rooms, all of them one flight up over the pub and restaurant, and no elevator. Worse yet, she cautioned, there’d be an open-mic event our first night there. Sold. I would look forward to the relative peacefulness of a mere four rooms, and ingratiate myself with the locals by signing up to perform.

Our room was perfect for adjusting to our first night off the boat. It looked over a quiet street, and the English Channel could be seen a mere 500 feet (all right, 150 metres) away. We would stay in more luxurious rooms during our travels, but none with more comfortable simplicity.

Down to the pub for a lunch of – what else? – fish and chips and a steak-and-ale pie. Hard to move after a meal like that, but we ambled to the esplanade, the walkway fronting the gravel beach. It’s lined with benches, which is great for me, whose walking ability runs out quickly. So I sat while Susan explored the path, no doubt making conversation with everyone she passed. I, on the other hand, was able to talk with nobody, my preferred method of socializing.

Just before the open mic event started, in the pub’s good-sized dining room, I got a message from Moz Walsh. He’s the fellow we’d be meeting in Manchester in a few days, and I’ll tell the story of our meeting when we get to that city. His message was a warning: He had investigated the event – don’t ask me how – and determined that the featured repertory was as far from my own as possible. I assured him that I’m accustomed to being the pariah on the bill. But I didn’t know how correct he was until the performers began performing.

The event was hosted by Larry, a local singer-songwriter actually named Steven Alder. He knew all of those who were there to perform. Except me, of course. Those who took the stage before I did were of a piece, at least to my innocent ears. I’d better explain.

I’ve spent a lifetime insulated from popular music. To me, “oldies” are recordings by Toscanini or Paul Whiteman. I’m reasonably familiar with songs from about 1850 to 1949, but I’m hopeless after that. So I didn’t know the covers these performers offered, and their original songs sounded fairly similar to one another, a variety of medium-tempo ways to complain about blighted love. I’m not suggesting the songs were bad, but I have no background with which to appreciate them. Thus did I feel more and more as if I were clinging to the entertainment margin as the evening progressed. But that’s the way I usually feel when I’m up against any manifestation of popular culture.

By the time my turn was called, the doom in the air was palpable. I figured I could cruise a little on being the only Yank in the lineup, and that was true, but I won few laughs with the one-liners I attempted and quickly launched into a tried-and-true a cappella number, a Grit Laskin song called “The Photographers,” an amusingly suggestive piece I learned from a Pete Seeger recording. It went over ... okay. I even did an old gag I stole from Leon Redbone, taking a photo of the audience while insisting they “move closer together. Closer. That’s it.” (And here they are!)

Ah, well. It diminished the charm of the Wellington Hotel not a bit. The building, formerly the New Inn, was charming pub-hotel, bought and refurbished by Simon and Nina, with Nina’s twin, Adele, working the pub many evenings. Our hosts couldn’t have been more hospitable.

In fact, the whole town seemed hospitable in a way I don’t expect from a coastal destination. As I would learn, Seaford has deliberately positioned itself as an anti-Brighton; that is, a village that prioritizes a family feel over tourist exploitation. We felt welcome, of course, as tourists, but with a sense that we were being slipstreamed into the town’s normal functioning. For breakfast the following morning, we followed the High Street a couple of blocks toward the town center and settled into the Spotted Dog Café where not only were we made welcome but also a succession of canines who escorted their owners therein. A man at an adjoining table, his large old pug beside him, assured us that this was a feature not only of Seaford but also much of the UK. We went on to explore a number of the shops nearby, including a thrift shop funding cancer research where we nabbed a club bag for £6 to use schlepping clothes to a launderette.

Sunday morning I indulged in a full English breakfast at the hotel. It’s a plate of sausage, back bacon (a thick cut containing some loin), fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, and beans. It's also called a fry-up, which hardly captures the artery-clogging excess of the meal. I don’t recall Susan asking for a taste of any of it as she superciliously chewed an order of kale and eggs or something similarly ridiculous. My fry-up was delicious.  

The Wellington serves a roast supper from noon, but we donned our formalwear and slipped away in a taxi to nearby Glyndebourne, there to see Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which I wrote about here.

The next morning we breakfasted at the hotel again and, while I packed, Susan set off up the High Street to visit a food co-op we’d seen earlier. She loaded up with sandwiches and snacks for our next limo journey, this time to the Cotswolds and the village of Moreton-in-Marsh.