And if you get it wrong you'll get it right next time

'Shocked, so I am,’ I said.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Grange Girl replied.

It’s not often I get Grangey on the back foot so I pressed my advantage.

‘Shocked to the core.’
‘All right, don’t overdo it.’
‘But fancy you getting the 28 for the first time without consulting me.’
‘I don’t know what I was thinking. You are the Bus Oracle.’
‘Can I presume that your failure to properly plan your expedition resulted in disaster?’
Grangey stared at her toes. ‘It did.'

She looked so mortified that I softened. ‘Tell me all about it.’

Turns out Grangey had made the basic schoolboy error of thinking that the bus station was the correct place to catch the bus.

‘Oh Grangey!’
‘I know. How could I be so stupid?’

Luckily a helpful bus driver pulled up outside Waitrose, saw Grangey loitering confusedly on the wrong side of the street, and gently signalled to her by yelling, ‘Oi luv!’

Grangey darted across the Most Tricky Road To Cross In Lewes and, weeping with humiliation and relief, managed to buy her city saver. There was no further incident.

‘Well Grangey, if only you’d come to me,’ I said, fixing her with a Paddington hard stare. ‘I could have told you that the bus station is owned by a development company who are struggling to get planning permission to turn it into shops. That they wouldn’t let Brighton & Hove buses use the station for anything less than twenty grand and buses had to drop people off precariously on East Street, the Narrowest Pavement In Lewes, but that they have seen reason and the bus now stops there en route to Tunbridge Wells, though not on its westbound journey.’

Grangey sighed. ‘Yes, but I probably wouldn’t have remembered any of that. In fact I’ve already forgotten the beginning.’
‘All you have to remember is: next bus trip, speak to me. Promise?’

Grangey crossed her heart and hoped to die, and there we left it. Her to go home and brood over her rare error; me to hop smugly on the next 28 that juddered to a halt outside the British Heart Foundation. Twenty minutes later I was in a city where a banner announced a ‘Festival of Shopping.’ I joined in with a whoop.

Later I easily caught a 29 from outside M&S, and drifted off into a self-satisfied reverie about how much I knew about public transport. I awoke with a start to find that we were going the wrong way, heading through the Cuilfail Tunnel at great speed, rather than towards the prison. Apparently, explained the driver when I shouted at him, this was to avoid some silly roadworks. I would have enjoyed the irony of having to get out at the bus station had I not been so cross. I trudged home all the way across town, avoiding passing Grange Girl’s door. I’m sure she wouldn’t have gloated, but I couldn’t take the risk.

Beth Miller, 24th May 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com and in Viva Lewes magazine, August 2011 issue.

For auld lang syne

Aging Lad popped in on New Year’s Eve for a pre-clubbing snifter. Pre-clubbing for him, I mean. I was already fondly anticipating that lovely moment when the fireworks stop, around 12.15, and you can go to sleep. Whereas Lad was limbering up for a wild Brighton night that wouldn’t start till the wee small hours.

I offered him some of my precious sherry, to which I’d become seriously attached over the Christmas period. As it’s only available from the Harveys shop, and as they’ve recently run out, it was awfully decent of me. Luckily he waved it away. ‘Got any lager?’

I found a bottle we’d got free from Spice Merchant at the back of the fridge. I prised it off the frost with a spatula.

‘Nice and cold,’ Lad said approvingly.

Man of the House shuffled in wearing his dressing-gown, and flopped into an armchair.

‘Wooh! Party night!’ crowed Lad. ‘Look at you two sad middle-agers.’

We ignored him, as we usually do. ‘Ah,’ sighed Man, sipping sherry daintily. ‘Those superb top-notes of almond…’

‘Followed by that delicious coffee after-taste,’ I concluded.

‘Ah,’ sighed Lad, glugging recklessly and splashing the Radio Times, ‘those superb top-notes of lager, followed by,’ and he belched loudly, ‘bottom notes of lager.’

Lad has been seeing one woman for ages – three months - so I subtly quizzed him about his intentions.

‘Did you give Destiny an engagement ring for Christmas?’

He looked surprised. ‘No. She wanted a tattoo. We got it done yesterday. That’s why she’s not coming out tonight; hurts to sit down.’

‘Thought she was the one, Lad.’Lad looked shifty. ‘She’s very nice. Yes. But. You know.’

‘No.’

‘Am I ready? For all this?’ He swept a hand round our living room.

‘What, Farrow & Ball?’

‘Marriage. Settling down. You know. Slippers and sherry.’

‘I thought you wanted kids, Lad.’

‘Definitely. But I’m only 47. That Lewes bloke who was in all the papers was miles older. And Charlie Chaplin was 73!’

What would male commitment-phobes do without Charlie Chaplin to fall back on?

A sleepy Thing Two came in, citing a nightmare about there being no more chocolate. Lad tried to pick him to prove his child-friendliness, but pulled a muscle in his back. As Man carried Thing Two back to bed with one hand, I reassured Lad, ‘they start off much lighter as babies. You get time to build up to this age.’

‘Don’t suppose there’s any more lager?’

I shook my head.

‘Give me some of that then,’ he said ungraciously, gesturing to the sherry, but as he sipped, his brow cleared.

‘Hey! It’s nice. Top notes of very strong booze.’

He did a kind of tequila-slammer thing with it, then slowly stood up. ‘Right. Off to par-deeeee!’

He sounded less enthusiastic than earlier. Then he sat down again, picked up the damp Radio Times and the sherry bottle and poured himself a heart-stoppingly large dram.

‘Might just watch a bit of the Hootenanny first.’

Beth Miller, 5th January 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com and Viva Lewes magazine, December 2013

Oo-hoo, everybody’s talking ’bout the new kid in town

‘I’m really liking this hip new Lewes’, said Hoxton Mum, raising a blue and white patterned cup to her lips. ‘This Lewes 2.0’.

‘What are you on about?’ I looked round to try and pinpoint the source of this newness. Sure, we were in Baltica, which had only been open a few weeks, but I couldn’t see what was so 2.0 about it. We were there because Hoxton Mum had put a temporary veto on Bills, her habitual hangout, owing to a recent skirmish over the amount of tapenade in a goats cheese and sunblushed tomato panini.

Hoxie waved the July issue of Viva at me. ‘Have you not seen this?’ She flicked through the pages. ‘Hush-hush cinema? Can’t believe that’s come here. We used to go to Secret Cinema in Shoreditch.’ She sighed. ‘Happy days. Even though we saw rather a lot of Andy Warhol films. And lookie here: this Hollywood red carpet thing with cabaret and burlesque.’

I scanned the magazine. ‘It seems to be taking place in the bus station, Hoxie.’

‘Yeah, totally edgy. And then there are all those parties down at the Zu Studios.’

‘What parties?'

Hoxton Mum, Cycle Girl and Absent-Minded Girl exchanged little smiles.

‘I tell you’, Hoxie went on, delicately slurping her Polish soup, ‘Lewes wasn’t gritty and cool like this when I first moved here.’

‘That was less than two years ago’, Cycle Girl pointed out.

‘So? That’s a lot longer than plenty of people who think they own the place. Why, there’s a mum at Django’s school who’s still unpacking, and she keeps banging on about the creeping gentrification of the High Street. There’s another family who have yet to sign the contract on their Wallands house, and they’re already big in Transition Town.’

I asked Cycle Girl how long she’d lived in Lewes. ‘Ten years. Practically a native.’

Absent-Minded Girl spilled tea onto her shoes but didn’t notice. ‘We’ve been here six years but of course, we’ve got cousins in Brighton so we’re as good as indigenous.’ She might be a bit vague but she knows some big words.

‘I’ve been here since 2005’, I joined in, ‘But we were in Barcombe before that for seven years and that counts double. And we used to come to Brighton on holiday when I was a kid, so I’ve basically always lived here. Apart from twenty years in Essex.’

There was a silence.

‘How long’, asked Hoxton Mum quietly, ‘do you have to live here before you’re accepted as a Lewesian?’

‘Ten years’, said Cycle Girl.

‘Six years’, said Absent-Minded Girl.

‘Three generations’, I said.

‘Anyway’, said Cycle Girl, ‘the correct term is Rook, not Lewesian.’

‘I knew that’, Hoxton Mum said quickly.

Then Born and Bred Boy walked past, saw us sitting at the window table and came to join us.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘Nothing’, we chorused, in agreement for once.

Beth Miller, 29th June 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com and in Viva Lewes magazine, August 2010.

The people on the bus go up and down

‘Trouble is, car parks cost a fortune’, he said. ‘Especially that North Street one. Hell, last time I was there, I went, “Mister, I don’t want to buy the building, just pay for a couple hours parking”. And do you know what he said?’

‘We don’t have to go in a car, we can get the bus’, I replied.

‘Well I won’t tell you what he said, you being a lady. And don’t get me started on the train.’

‘I wasn’t. I was talking about getting the…’

‘Because Brighton station is nowhere near where we are going. No. Where. Near. And if you think I’m walking more than twenty yards in these shoes, fuggedaboutit.’

‘Whereas the bus stops almost right outside…’

‘So how the hell will we get to the theatre, hmm?’

‘I don’t know. Hey! What about the bus?’

‘Never heard such a crazy idea.’

Planning a theatre trip to the Big City with my dear friend, Pierced Boy, is fraught with complications. He won’t see anything too experimental, or too staid, nor, in defiance of the stereotypes, anything with music (‘unless Bette’s appearing.’). Then it has to be a matinee, as his evenings are fully booked. At last, he agreed to Oscar Wilde’s Salome at the Theatre Royal, largely because of the publicity material: ‘Contains strong scenes that may offend’.

I hadn’t thought our mode of transport would also be contentious. I love the good old 28/29 bus. I used to catch it every day, amusing myself en route by watching the old man conducting an imaginary orchestra at the front, and by eavesdropping on baffling conversations (‘Barcelona is another one.’ ‘Oh, absolutely; appalling vertigo.’) And by running a private sweepstake regarding the length of the journey. The bus timetable makes stick-a-pin-in guesses as to arrival at Churchill Square, not factoring in (a) the random time the bus departed from Lewes (b) the award-winning roadworks outside B&Q and (c) how long the driver takes to pop in for a pee at the depot.

Pierced Boy was unconvinced. ‘Don’t you remember Margaret Thatcher? “A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.”’

‘Surely that would encourage you to take a bus? Anyway, you don’t look a day over 25.’

Flattery works. We were soon on the top deck of a 28. P-Boy was enthralled. ‘It’s so cheap! And you can look out the window and see who’s got a bald spot.’

We had a terrific time at the show, being enjoyably offended by the strong scenes, but got separated in the crush on the way out. P-Boy sent me a text to say he had, bravely, got on a bus by himself. I caught one shortly afterwards.

Two hours later, my phone rang.

‘Fell asleep. Did you know, the 28 goes all the way to Tunbridge Wells? Think I’ll take in a little light shopping while I’m here. Then get a cab home.’


Beth Miller, 16th June 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith

I dropped into a shanty I used to frequent

When I was at school with Kanga she was as British as binge-drinking, but living in Australia the past 15 years has given her more than just a Queensland twang. Walking round Lewes with her is like stepping out with Crocodile Dundee. She really does say ‘G’day?’ to everyone, and she would doubtless raise her leather bush hat if she only had one. Luckily for me, and Lewes, she’s staying with mates in Brighton - see? ‘Mates’? It’s contagious? - and has popped over here for day trips, and decent pubs.

‘Ohmigard?’ she drawls, blowing the froth off a pint of Harveys. She never was a glass of white wine for the lady kind of person.

‘You seen the blasted hell-holes they call pubs over in Brighton?’

‘Rough, I expect’. I sip my white wine.

‘Hell no? Not rough like the watering holes in old Toowoomba?’ She laughs, a delicate sound that causes everyone in the Gardeners to whip round and fix her with a hard stare.

‘How ya going?’ she chirrups, and they turn quickly away, lest she engage them in conversation.

Born and Bred Boy sidles into the seat opposite us and stares askance at Kanga’s knee-length shorts. ‘What’s wrong with Brighton pubs then?’

‘They’re not pubs? They’re bars?’ Kanga gives his nose a playful flick with a beer-mat. ‘You know, I’ve been really looking forward to bending the elbow in some proper English pubs? Like the ones we went to at school?’

Boy regards me with respect.

‘At least this one’s dinky-di?’ She looks round the Gardeners approvingly.

‘Any idea?’ Boy mouths, and I shake my head.

Kanga drains her glass. ‘Let’s hit the turps, guys?’

Like the Queen interpreting the native lingo, I tell Boy, ‘She wants us to take her on a tour of authentic drinking establishments.’

‘Right ho’, says Boy, going all PG Wodehouse under the pressure.

There are roughly twenty pubs in Lewes, and as we walk, we discount those which Boy deems inauthentic (most of them), those which I deem too far (most of the rest), and those in which Kanga, in her shorts and rude t-shirt, might cause a stir (almost all). That leaves us with the Lewes Arms, although there is a slight contretemps caused by Kanga casually wandering into the front bar as though she were allowed there. However, we are soon sitting comfortably in the back room, watching a game of Toad in the Hole.

'Ah, this is great?’ she sighs, lovingly necking another pint. ‘This is what I dreamed of when I was sinking stubbies in old Fibber Magee’s?’

Boy, trying to turn the conversation away from Australia, begins to explain the rules of Toad. Kanga stands up, says, ‘I know? Was a dab hand at it when I visited the Harrietville Hotel Motel in Victoria? Only table in Oz? Who fancies another?’ and strides off to the bar.

‘What a woman?’, breathes Boy, and I don’t think he means it as a question.


Beth Miller, 26th January 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com