Run along the seafront

I am currently on the train back home from Brighton. I wrote this post on my phones Notes app this morning while I sat on the bed in my AirBnB, after a post run shower. It is a bit weird and personal, I think.

I’m surprised how windy it is immediately. I step out onto the street in my shorts and T-shirt, mid December, to a biting wind coming in from the seafront. “Fuck” I realise I have forgotten to bring down my AirPods as I pat my pockets, as if they are going to appear if I just pat just one more time. Not wanting to waste the 2 minutes it would take me to get them, I do my quick warmups which apparently help prevent my heart exploding again. A sight I must appear. Stepping over the street, the Marina to my left, pier to my right, I set off in a light jog.

Brighton holds a strange place in my head, and heart. My family have historical connections to the area, with many aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents at one time having lived nearby. When I was a kid, this was our frequent days away destination. We would end up in Brighton multiple times a year. It was our tradition at New Years to come here, and spend our collection 2p coins collected over the year in the coin slot machines. I was always afraid of falling through the wood slats of the pier. Who can blame me when sometimes there were pieces of wood missing with just a small “watch out” sign.

I run up by the pier. The gates are all locked up. It is only 7:30. It’s not quite dark, but it isn’t quite light yet either. I decide to run along the road first, then on the way back along the beach front.

All of my memories of Brighton take place exclusively on the pier, the beach, and the drive past the pavilion. I feel we very rarely went into the town, and if we did it’s something my brain doesn’t want to remember anymore. But the pier, I remember well. It’s a lot of arcade machines in my head. The crazy taxi cabinet I’m pretty sure with its pedal and wheel. Occasional Time Crisis plays if we had the money. I never went on the wee rollercoaster at the end. My brother did, but that was always more his kind of thing. I regret that now I’m not allowed to go on rollercoasters.

If I’m honest it feels like the seafront here has not changed much at all. Its vibes are familiar, especially in the winter. But I’m running up now to the biggest change. A colossal tower rising out of the seafront, allowing people to rise some 150 metres into the air and maybe see France, I guess. As I get closer I can’t help but be stunned by its enormity compared to everything else around. It’s rare I think to feel so utterly lost as to why something exists. It feels like an interloper in my memories of this place.

I remember one time, one of the few times, seeing my dad angry here. We had come to visit Brighton over the summer I think, and we were trying to find a parking spot. As you can imagine, a Victorian seafront is probably not the most hospitable place for a modern family car hold 2 adults 3 children and a cool box full of cheese and salad cream sandwiches (don’t ask). We must have spent an hour going around in the car trying to find somewhere to park. In the frustration of that, and my mother’s nitpicking of his decisions, he had a minor outburst. It wasn’t much, a sprinkling of anger that I saw, but he was normally so calm. Or at least, defeated. It’s one of the few times in my life he felt real.

We are onto the wide pedestrian path of Hove Beach now. The wind is at my side, pushing me inland. It’s neither helping nor hindering my run, but it is always there. I kind of wish I had my AirPods now, I have spent the whole run thinking about the past. Normally blasting music keeps it quiet. But I’m untethered from that now, just the sound of my feet, the ocean and the gulls. I come up to the colourful beach huts. This is my turning around point, to start heading back to the pier and finish my 5k.

It wasn’t just Brighton on our south coast excursions, we would often go to Christchurch and Bournemouth, where the other half of our family resided. I’m pretty sure my great aunt owned a beach hut on one of these beaches, or we knew somebody who did. We came here less frequently, but still plenty, and on its much nicer sandy beach my brother and I would dig big holes and bury each other in the sand. That’s one thing Brighton does not have going for it, a really nice beach. I hated the stones growing up, they hurt my feet and I could never skim them as well as my brother. But I have no real love for Bournemouth like I sort of do for Brighton. It’s funny as well, I never really noticed until this moment that in these memories I can’t actually remember my parents.

Heading back now, I run a bit closer to the beach front. I’m taking in how stormy it look. How grey. How menacing. Splatters of sea water breach the mass of water as it strikes the pebbles, landing on my skin. It’s not raining, but it’s like being back home.

I got my first sailing certificate when I was around 8. We were living in between Southhampton and Portsmouth, and my dad decided we would take up sailing. We braved it in all weathers, and I always remember the cold of the winter months. The choppy seas being both frightening and exciting in equal measure. Me and another kid would take out an Oppie every Saturday morning into the Solent, come rain or shine, and come back in a couple of hours later shivering to the core. I will always remember the feeling under those warm showers, peeling off the wet suit, shedding our skin of the salt of the sea. Eventually we would upgrade to the much cooler and faster Topper, which we would take out and go as fast as possible. A story for another time.

I’m back at the big observation tower now, but this time I’m below it on the sea front. I didn’t really notice it before, but it’s been placed directly in front of the old west pier. It sounds stupid but I feel a kinship with this mess of poles just off the beach. We are both not the same as we once were. I remember when the pier had some structure, before the storms and the fires. We all weather what comes, but this has not faired well. Looking back up at the tower, I stupidly mark down in my phone about how funny it is they put the cancerous tower on the sea front next to the rotting corpse of the pier. “Maybe it is the right place for the tower really.” I really hate myself sometimes.

I stopped going away with my family as a teenager. Most teenagers probably do the same. To retreat a bit. Try and figure out who they are outside the context of their family. I also just wanted to retreat from my family. The arguments, the void. I didn’t come back to Brighton for about 8 years, until a friend of mine from Cambridge in his classic Mini wanted to do the Ally Pally to Brighton Mini run. So off we went to London, joined the procession, and made our way to the seafront. We parked where we could (my friend would later get a parking ticket), and walked the sea of cars. I was surprised how out of place I felt to be back in Brighton. Like meeting up with a school friend who you haven’t seen in a decade. This feeling is why I don’t go back to where I went to school, and generally avoid anywhere from my past. It doesn’t feel good to remember sometimes.

I run up to the base of a ramp nearest the pier. The run is over. 5.01km. I’m just off the side of the pier now. I take a breath in. It wasn’t a particularly taxing run, I spent a bunch of it taking photos. But it does feel nice to take in new air. Along the front of the pier again now, I walk past the mini golf course. I remember that. It used to look different, but also the same. People doing their morning runs go past me. The weird zip line corkscrew isn’t lit up in technicolor like it was last night. It looks a lot sadder in the morning. At the hotel door now, I note that next time I won’t forget my AirPods. Glad I bought the gloves with me, though. Check out is at 11am. I am writing this sentence on my phone at 10:38am. Better hurry.