Looking at you I'm filled with the essence of, the quintessence of joy

What a strange League of Gentleman place Lewes seems when you read about it in the papers. All right, there’s no need for that. A town awash with burning crosses and people looking at you sideways if you run out of Lewes Pounds: it don’t seem like the Lewes I know. But when I pondered how else to sum up the place in a sound-bitey way, all was blank. So I undertook a small survey of what residents consider to be the very essence of Lewes.

‘Easy’, said Cycle Girl. ‘Only this week I went to a disused foundry to look at some chairs. Not Chippendale or anything. Just ordinary stacking chairs. One of them’, she went on, ‘had brown clay splodged onto the seat. It looked exactly like our chair at home after Cycle Kid’s happened to the playdough. But we all admired it anyway.’

‘Quintessential Lewes?’ said DJ Mama. ‘Crossing the Bell Lane rec and meeting that woman who walks a ferret on a lead.’

‘The window of Crumbs’, grumbled Maximum Diner, ‘with “cakes” made of cloth. Sums up the whole blinking place – twee, useless and pretending to be creative.’ This was, it must be said, one of his better days.

‘Taking the Beast to the cinema to watch a Buster Keaton movie’, said Pells Boy. ‘She kept asking when the colour and sound and action were coming in, but otherwise she enjoyed it. Course she did. She’s a Lewes kid.’

‘Seeing Hoxton Mum in the window of a cafe, mouthing “I’m very busy”’, said Born and Bred Boy.

‘My essential Lewes’, said Honesty Girl, ‘is watching the Rooks lose at home.’

‘The smell of hops and Arthur Brown in Neros’, offered Viva Girl, and I was just about to ask what Arthur smelled like when Grange Girl said, ‘I had a long conversation in the parking shop today about what happens to recycled batteries.’ This was quintessentially Grange Girl for sure, but was it typically Lewes?

‘I was able to tell them about batteries in great detail, plus recycled milk bottles.’

It’s not often I feel sorry for the people in the Parking Shop. Grangey is well-informed because she reads the council’s Waste & Recycling Link avidly. That is very Lewes: the fact that everyone (except Grange Girl) dutifully recycles their Recycling Link without reading it.

‘Walking to the Friday market and buying mud-covered vegetables’, Decaf Man contributed, ‘and lugging them home in a used plastic bag with spindly handles.’ Despite only having been there five minutes, the Friday market is already very Lewes. ‘Then having to go to Waitrose by car to get a proper amount of vegetables.’

I was writing up my findings in Costa when Hoxton Mum sat next to me with a big phew and ordered an almond Americano. ‘Just a quick one’, she said, ‘I’m very busy. What? What’s so funny?’

Beth Miller, 22nd September 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com

Guilty feet have got no rhythm

An air of gloom hung over our table in Nero’s.

‘What’s up, chums?’ I asked cheerily, slopping moccachino down the leather sofa. I gave it a half-hearted flick with a napkin and sat somewhere else.

‘We’re all suffering from the same malaise’, sighed Cycle Girl.

‘Too much caffeine?’

‘I’ll tell you about mine’, said Hoxton Mum. ‘I’ve been trying to keep things local, so I gave up my intimate relationship with Beowulf at Toni & Guy’s, and started going instead to -’. She named a well-known Lewes hairdresser. ‘We could have been so good together. But she only knows one cut, and that’s the cut I get.’

‘Hair looks nice, Hoxie’, we fibbed, kindly. There’s no comfort in the truth.

‘Yes, that’s because I went grovelling back to Beowulf, cap in hand. Cap on head as well, to hide the mess. But now, whenever I see [Lewes hairdresser], she gives me a hurt look. I should have known better than to cheat a friend.’

‘That’s nothing’, said Grange Girl. ‘Yesterday, there was only one parsnip in my veg box, but the recipe called for two. So I had to buy one from a supermarket!’ She groaned, and clutched her stomach. ‘My parsnip and caper curry was disgusting. Serves me right. Maybe it’s better this way.’

I wondered if it was merely the provenance of the parsnip at fault, but said nothing.

‘At least your veg box people are still in business’, said Pells Boy. ‘Did you know that Seymours closing down was my fault, because I didn’t like their irons? Though it’s easy to pretend, I went and bought one from Woolies. Next thing I knew, Seymours was gone.’

‘Didn’t help Woolies, though, did it?’ Cycle Girl murmured, in a careless whisper. I could barely hear her: tonight the music seemed so loud.

‘The one that gets to me’, said DJ Mama, clutching her brow, ‘is the agony when you refuse Lewes Pounds in your change. We hurt each other with the things we want to say.’

I was puzzled. ‘What are you all on about?’

‘I know you’re not a fool’, said Cycle Girl. ‘Lewes Guilt, of course. It’s highly contagious.’

I suddenly felt bad about my casual coffee-spilling, and dabbed the stain diligently with my scarf.

‘Don’t even talk to me about restaurants’, said Absent-Minded Girl, though we hadn’t been. ‘Every time I passed it, I thought, mustn’t do to Guidos what I did to Circa. But every time I’d forget, and get take-out from Yummy Yummy instead. Oh, the guilt, the guilt.’

I wished that I could lose this crowd, so I went home. As I walked past Anne of Cleves House, I noticed it was shut. The sign on the door said it would be closed till March, owing to very low visitor numbers. I swear I’d been planning to take the kids there at half-term. I stumbled home on non-rhythmic feet, and took to my bed, lain low by this most virulent virus.

Beth Miller, 3rd February 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com

Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy

Ooh ladies, isn’t it beastly when you open your purse and find that the house-keeping will barely cover a large sirloin for the Man of the House and a stale crust for you and the kiddies?

That was almost exactly my situation last weekend, except for the 1940s setting, and the fact that actually my purse was full: of crackling green local tender. This was the inevitable result of all those times I’d felt obliged to say yes to a Lewes Pound in my change; saying no gets you into a lengthy explanation which is bound to make you miss the bus.

I bumped into Grange Girl en route to Tescos to see if they accepted the Pound, but she whacked me with a rolled-up Guardian and told me it was my chance to Shop Local. I protested that Tescos was jolly near, but she hit me again.

‘Here’s a challenge, you apolitical ostrich’, she flattered. ‘Can a family survive a weekend only on items bought with the Lewes Pound?’

‘I don’t know, can they?’ I said, not realising it was an order. She turned me firmly towards Cliffe High Street.

‘Keep calm’, she said, giving me a shove that rattled my teeth, ‘and carry on.’

I’m scared of Grangey so I dutifully edged crab-like down the Cliffe, the roadworks having expanded like a hefty Yank about to win an eating competition. Many windows displayed a friendly ‘We accept the Pound’ sign. I popped into Landsown Health Shop and although they did have lots of nice-looking food, something about my mission turned me into Felicity Kendal, except without the pert bottom, and I bought a bag of spelt flour. They happily took my Pounds and gave me change in real money.

Emboldened, I visited May’s, Ben’s Butchers, Harveys and Bills. Then, laden with hessian bags, I staggered into the Lewes Arms, thinking I could cobble together the price of a gin with my change. But lo! They take Pounds here too. Marvellous. I used nearly all my wedge, and much later weaved into Catlins to spend the rest. Well, someone’s got to buy our way out of this recession.

The Man of the House’s upper lip stiffened as I emptied out the bags. He smoothed on more Brylcreem and asked what we were meant to do with a hatching alien and a pair of pink lurex gloves. I explained that despite all the food in May’s, I’d got distracted by the fascinating section at the back. He harrumphed.

‘I got some fruit in Bills’, I said, ‘Two Rambutans for a tenner.’

He went pale. ‘What are they made of, gold?’

I sat him down before revealing that the rest of my purchases were wine from Harveys and Revels from Catlins.

‘Did you’, he said, trying to control his emotions, ‘actually buy anything proper to eat?’

‘Of course’, I slurred, proudly waving the sirloin I’d got at Ben’s. Forgetting, of course, that my dear Man is a vegetarian.

That’, he said grumpily, as he fried some spelt flour pancakes, ‘is the last time I let you do the shopping’.

And that, ladies, is what we call a result.


Beth Miller, 3rd March 2009. Published in VivaLewes.com.

Not many of them to the pound

So I was with a few friends in a Lewes restaurant the other day, celebrating my birthday. No, I never mind presents being late, it's fine. Chocolates, flowers, anything glittery and expensive. Just send them care of lewes.co.uk. Anyway, the pink champagne was flowing (actually the pink Cava, in these straightened times), and Cricket-Girl said, 'I nearly gave you a Lewes pound as part of your present'.

Oooh, the rest of us said, have you SEEN a Lewes pound? Well knock me down with a chollah if she didn't whip one out of her purse there and then, and it was passed round the table to general amazement.

Blackberry-Man offered to buy it from her for a fiver, but Cricket-Girl is honest to a fault and told him there were now many more pounds in circulation, thus dampening the previous ebay-generated hyper-inflation.

The note got passed to me and I examined it closely, though that was mainly because I could see two of them, a 100% increase caused by too much pink Cava. It looked like real currency if you held it up to the light, and like toy money if you didn't.

'Do you know', and here Cricket-Girl dropped her voice to a whisper, which was awkward as the restaurant had foolishly agreed to play my new birthday CD which was blasting out 'Part Time Punks' at top volume, 'Do you know that I went into X Shop and they had been bullied into accepting the Lewes Pound?'

She didn't say X Shop, obviously, she was more specific, but I'm being discreet, like. 'How do you mean, bullied?' we all gasped.

'The owner had loads of people coming in and being rude about them not taking the Lewes Pound, and people even saying they wouldn't shop there unless it was brought in.'

I was so appalled at the thought of our town, famous for its democratic insistence on democracy, behaving in such a fashion, that I gulped down considerably more Cava in one go than I should have.

'Ordinary punters were saying that?' I spluttered, 'Or was it whoever's in charge of the Lewes Pound?'

I've never been very good at knowing who's in charge of things. I still have no idea what the difference is between the Town Council, District Council and County Council. For all I know, our bin collection is organised by the British Council.

Cricket-Girl put me straight. 'Transition Town Lewes brought in the Pound', she said, 'And there is absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that they have been hassling people into accepting it.'

Well, that's all right then.

'But here's some really good gossip', she said, and lowered her voice still further, though by now the manager had ripped my CD off the deck and reverted to Mantovani, so I could hear just fine, 'Rumour has it that not only were no shopkeepers surveyed about whether they wanted the Lewes Pound, but there wasn't even a vote taken amongst the members of Transition Town.'

'Allegedly!' everyone yelled hurriedly, mindful of the dreadful import of any implication that the proud town of Thomas Paine should be involved in such an un-constitutional business. We all took a slug of Cava to wash the very thought out of our mouths.

Then Cricket-Girl made me give her back the pretty Lewes Pound. I wasn't going to keep it, honestly. Even if it should have been my birthday present.

Beth Miller, December 2008. Published on Lewes.co.uk