Smelled the spring on the smoky wind, dirty old town

I used to be a right old snob about Newhaven, but since having kids I’ve become fond of the place. Its lack of gloss now seems the very opposite of unappealing. Pealing, possibly. And I don’t mean the paintwork.

When I worked in Newhaven ten years ago, there was only one sandwich shop for lunch. If you didn’t like it, and you probably didn’t, tough. Get you to McDonalds you whinging posho. I don’t know if the sandwich situation has improved, but certainly the town retains its bolshy realness. Unlike our own dear Lewes, it doesn’t care what you think. Take it or leave it, that’s Newhaven’s official motto. And plenty of people go for the latter option, such as the French teenagers who pitch up from Dieppe with their Serge Gainsbourg haircuts and leap straight onto the nearest charabanc to Brighton.

Of course, I love Lewes. I’m all for nice cafes and decent sandwiches and unboarded shop fronts. But gritty Newhaven is a great place to entertain kids because it has – implausibly - two major attractions. I’ve mentioned before my beloved Paradise Park. Where else but Newhaven can you find animatronic dinosaurs, a slightly dangerous rifle range, and a large garden centre, all under one roof, and for around half the price of Drusillas? So it doesn’t have ring-tailed lemurs and Thomas the Tank Engine. Pshaw! It has Koi carp and a darling little unbranded train in which you are encouraged to scream when going through tunnels.

This weekend we paid our first visit to the other amazing Newhaven site: the Fort, which has just re-opened. Like Paradise Park, at which you can inadvertently find yourself wandering aisles of watering-cans if you lose concentration, the Fort doesn’t entirely put its best foot forward. The car-park signs are vague; the dozy punter (ahem) can easily wander off in the wrong direction. The entrance to the Fort looks closed and you find yourself trotting up dead-ends and closed-off staircases before entering, as Banksy might name his sequel, through the gift shop. Once in though, the welcome is warm and friendly. The Fort, in short, is a metaphor for Newhaven itself: coyly hiding its charms, but full of surprising pleasures once you’ve penetrated its inner sanctum. I expect Playboy will hire me when they read that sentence.

We had a brilliant day at the Fort, and I learned a great deal about war. I didn’t realise, for instance, that Morrison shelters and Anderson shelters were two different things. I’m keeping hold of this information in case the topic comes up in conversation. Which I’ll make sure it will. I also didn’t realise how terrific the views are from the top of the cliffs, nor how nervous a fake air-raid can make a small child.

There are other Newhaven treats yet to explore: the Lifeboat Station and the Castle Hill Nature Reserve. And perhaps a drink in the extremely un-Lewes Drove Pub before we head happily home to Pleasantville.

Beth Miller, 16th March 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith

Baby, it's cold outside

Whenever I hear someone’s thinking of getting a puppy, I always ask if they’ve considered a toddler instead. There are similarities – boundless enthusiasm, weeing on the floor – but toddlers have the edge because they’re reluctant to go out in bad weather. They won’t stand by the door holding their reins and looking hopeful. They will resist vigorously, clinging grimly to inadequately earthed items such as crystal vases.

But though they object, pre-schoolers, like puppies, need to go out every day and romp off some energy. Where to, when it’s cold and wet?

Expensive:

Monkey Bizness. Massive cushioned aircraft hangar. Not dear in money terms, if you take just one toddler and stay all day. Costly, however, in terms of the toll on your sanity.

Lewes Castle. Marvellous dressing-up room in which to enact fantasies of being a thirteenth century toddler. Town model will hold pre-schoolers’ attention for just seventeen seconds.

Paradise Park. Unbeatable for indoor activities. Most toddlers are terrified of the implausible looking dinosaurs but the kind staff will let you bypass them.

Budget:

Library. The children’s section is very good. Not free, as your child will force you to rent a Pingu DVD which you will fail to return, incurring enough fines to have bought the damn thing outright.

White Hart. I’ve never tried this but am told that toast costs about 50p and you can watch swimmers in the pool below. The White Hart does not market itself as a ‘toddler hang-out’, so use sparingly.

Ocean Adventure at the Leisure Centre. Tiny, low-rent Monkey Bizness. Has a crèche most mornings so you can have a grown-up swim/quick nap. Hot chocolate from the machine is better than the tea.

Toy Library at the All Saints. Toys, biccies, tea, company. Only open on Wednesday mornings, no point banging weepily on the door at other times.

Toddler groups. There are enough of these in drafty church halls that you could spend your whole week lurching from one to the other. Terrific if you find like-minded parents. Beyond depressing otherwise. (LDC keeps a list.)

Free:

Wyevales Garden Centre. Much missed is the unfenced koi carp pond, but there are lovely wooden playhouses (boring people call them ‘sheds’). There’s a café so you might have to spend money at some point.

Inside Outside. New ‘creative playgroup’. Their website hints they’ll be outside whatever the weather, before admitting they have a nice big warm tent. Untried but it looks good.

Toys R Us. Before your child realises this a shop, tell them it’s a toy museum. Don’t buy anything or the gig is up.

Booth Museum. Only if you can face explaining the principle of taxidermy. Thing Two set off an alarm last time.

Grange Gardens. Technically outdoors, but on cold sunny days before the café opens the benches near the hatch are bathed in warmth. Toddlers, sprinkled with Grange magic, will play happily for ages. Thing Two and I are often the only people there, so keep it to yourself.

Beth Miller. Published in VivaLewes.com

I've been to Paradise, but I've never been to me

‘I know what you can write for your column’, said Thing One this morning, startling me twice over. Firstly (causing me to mis-chop a carrot), because, spookily, at that very moment I’d been wondering what to write. And secondly (causing me to drop the knife on my toe), because I didn’t know she knew I wrote a column. Now she’ll find out I’ve called her Thing One, rather than, say, Princess Fluffy Tinsel, and she’ll lose all respect. Must stop helping her learn to read.

‘What’s your idea darling?’ I asked, as graciously as someone can when they’re wiping blood and carrot juice off their foot.

‘You should write about something in Lewes, like the London Eye’, she replied.

Well, out of the mouths of minors, but I’d been thinking I might have to branch out from the sacred enclosure of Lewes Town into the heady wilderness of Lewes District, particularly in my quest for Activities For Small Children That Don’t Involve Watching Telly. So, at the risk of this column eating itself, here is Thing One’s idea, though we didn’t go quite as far as the South Bank (apparently London isn’t in the Lewes District). Instead we went to the Anti-Lewes.

I worked in Newhaven ten years ago and still have a soft spot for the place. I know you’re snorting into your weetabix, Midwife Girl, but we had some laughs there didn’t we? No? Oh. Everything that Lewes is, Newhaven isn’t. Lewes is soft and squashy; Newhaven is hardcore. Lewes is Wickle; Newhaven is Peacocks. Lewes is a leisurely spliff by the river; Newhaven is a hasty snort of Evostick round the back of Somerfield. Metaphorically speaking.

I like Newhaven’s gritty realism. I used to enjoy watching the expressions of squeaky clean French teenagers off the Dieppe ferry when they first saw the High Street. And I absolutely love Paradise Park. Today, my kids spent the happiest five minutes of their little lives in the Park’s arcade, spraying water from high-pressure hoses at some plastic figures that didn’t do anything, 20p a go. You can’t put a value on memories like that.

Paradise Park is great for kids because they can be scared witless by the unconvincing animatronic dinosaurs. Adults like the astonishingly huge landscaped garden, where it’s possible to get properly lost. You just keep going further away from the café until you start to hear real jungle noises and get a bit freaked out. Aaargh! And then, when you’ve clawed your way back to civilization, there’s a huge garden centre, and plastic toys, and jam in little oblong packets still for tea. What’s not to like?

Disclaimer: The Park’s management has not paid me for this cornucopia of praise. Though they can if they like.

After today’s Newhaven visit, Thing One said, ‘If we lived here, we could go to Paradise Park every day and have fun all the time.’

It’s encouraging that, despite being called Princess Fluffy Tinsel, she appreciates a bit of the old urban grit too.

Beth Miller, 22nd June 2009. Published in VivaLewes.com