He always beat me at Subbuteo

Toys!

Yes, toys!

Far as the eye can see!

“Okay,” said Country Mouse, “so there’s still nowhere in town to buy an ordinary pair of socks. But… TOYS!”

The new Clarkes Stationers – don’t let the stationery part of its name fool you – has arisen from the ashes of Clinton’s Cards (which I still miss). Downstairs there’s some reasonably-priced stationery that would have been exciting had Paperchase not stolen its thunder. But upstairs… oh upstairs! Follow me up the stairs to a proper toy shop: Playmobil, Lego, board games, practical jokes, dolls, the lot. A whole Saturday afternoon can be whiled away up there if you have small children, or even if you don’t but just like toys and don’t look too creepy.

“Right,” said Aging Lad, whose interest in these kind of toys is minimal, “If we can get a toy shop we can get the other things we so sorely need.”

“Socks,” said Country Mouse, obsessively.

“Sushi,” said Hoxton Mum, inevitably.

“An independent electrical shop that is willing to fix broken toasters and has a big box of spare springs that cost 35p each,” said Grange Girl, who is nothing if not specific in her demands.

“A Topman,” said Aging Lad.

“Any men’s clothing chain – Gap, H&M, anywhere that doesn’t sell tweed caps in fact,” added Born and Bred Boy.

“A French bistro serving hearty rustic suppers, like they used to have in Paris back in the 20 franc ‘menu de jour’ days,” said Sherpa Sal unrealistically.

“Skylark is great of course, but a bigger bookshop would be terrific,” said Village Postmistress, who was en route to her ‘quit smoking’ classes at the Phoenix Centre.

“A shop that sells ethnic food, like Taj in Brighton,” said Eco Dad.

It was most odd the way everyone I’ve ever known kept passing by, seemingly for no other purpose than to add their own suggestions.

“Marks & Spencers, for flip’s sake,” cried Sweary Mary.

“Yes, with a food hall please,” panted Absent-Minded Girl, running past on her way to a forgotten appointment.

“McDonalds,” said Pells Boy.

Ah. Hang on a minute.

“KFC. Burger King,” he continued. The rest of us fell silent. “A much bigger Tescos. A pound shop. A cheap hotel like a Premier Inn, for instance where the old magistrates court is.”

No-one said anything for a while. Then we all quietly dispersed. I don’t know where the others went, but I popped back to Clarkes to buy some Top Trumps.

Beth Miller. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Katie Moorman

And still it begins, needles and pins

“It’s not just Waitrose vs Tescos you know,” said Pierced Boy, rubbing A&D cream gently onto his new tattoo.

“What’s not?” I asked, filling the kettle. For some reason I’m always the go-to person for Boy’s tattoo after-care. This involves making tea, providing an evening of diverting box-sets, and saying convincingly admiring things about his latest tat. Clearly I had also signed up for listening to his latest theory.

“I’m talking about another Great Lewes Debate,” Boy said. “To add to the where do you shop discussion. Or the are-you-from-Islington or have-you-been-here-since-the-Reformation argument.”

I handed him a cup of tea, but made no other encouraging continue-please signs.

“Biscuits?”

“You only get them for giving blood.”

“I have bled. Look!” He pointed.

“Rather not, thanks.” I averted my eyes and broke out the Rich Teas.

“Where was I? Yes, I’ve realised this is the season for another Great Lewes Debate: Bonfire.”

“Aren’t you away on the fifth as usual?” Despite being born and raised in the environs (Plumpton), Pierced Boy is well-known for his aversion to loud bangs.

“Yes, I’ll be in the centre of London. Nice and quiet.” He put the lid on the A&D. “So, do you want to hear my Bonfire theory?”

Oh god. Still in tattoo after-care mode, I smiled encouragingly.

“I’m glad you asked. Here it is. There are only three sanctioned opinions allowable about Bonfire. One: you love it and you march. Two: you love it and you watch. Three: you hate it. And there are only three reasons why you might hate it, and they are (a) because you misunderstand it (b) because you’re a wuss or (c) because you’re a health-and-safety-political-correctness-gone mad DFL.”

“Wow, you really have been thinking about this.”

“But actually,” he went on, wordlessly indicating that he wished me to direct me the cooling fan I was waving nearer the tattoo, “I believe there are many other different  possible responses. For instance, you could really like and support the idea of Bonfire, wish it well in all its wildness, and yet not necessarily want to be there on the night.”

“Like you.”

“Like me. Fan down a bit please. Or you might just be kind of indifferent towards it.”

“My arm’s aching.”

“Or you might like some aspects of it, such as the fireworks, but not others, such as car alarms going off in the middle of the night. Have you got any frozen peas?”
“You can’t put frozen peas there!”

“Fair enough.” Pierced Boy stood up gingerly. “Do you like the new body art by the way?”

I looked properly for the first time. It was an image of a blue rookie. “Nice – fits very well there.”

He pulled his jeans up, and taking my arm, limped into the sitting room to watch some pain-distracting telly.

Beth Miller, 18/10/12. Published in VivaLewes.com

Yeah, these are just the rules and regulations

A little known subsection of the unwritten British constitution concerns rules specific to Lewes. These are rarely discussed and remain largely untested. I’m only going to commit them to paper, or whatever this webby thing equivalent is made of, because last weekend I discovered there are two more than I realised. The standard rules, which we all know, are:

(1) We won’t be druv.

(2) Druv is an elusive concept, but essentially means our right to object if anyone does anything we don’t like.

(3) We have to not be druv a lot, because despite living in one of the most prosperous areas of one of the richest countries on earth, rotters are always trying to push us around with regard to our beer and whatnot.

(4) Talking of beer, Harveys is the best in the world. End of.

(5) There is no fence-sitting here. Lewes will not tolerate wishy-washy middle-grounders. You’re either Waitrose or Tescos. You’re either a Tory who votes Tory, or a Labourite who votes Liberal. You either hate DFLs, or you are a DFL. You either think the parking scheme is the greatest example of man’s inhumanity to man, or you say things like, ‘But I can always get into the Needlemakers car-park now and anyway you only get a ticket if you break the rules.’

(6) Bonfire Clause 1. If you’re not for it, you’re against it. Vaguely non-committal is not an option. Anyone who says, ‘Fireworks are pretty aren’t they? Mind you, seen one parade and you’ve seen them all,’ will be drummed out of town.

(7) Bonfire Clause 2. You are not allowed to say anything critical about Bonfire Societies. Unless you’re a member of a Society having a pop at another Society; this is an essential element of Bonfire experience.

(8) No useful shops are allowed to move in. They must all go to Uckfield.

Two weeks ago I went to the Southover Priory May fair thing and found I was falling in line with the hitherto unknown but clearly well-established rule number 9:

(9) Everyone who is within a ten mile radius must attend the May Fair.

Every woman and her husband was there. It was marvellous. I said, ‘hello,’ so many times I ran out and had to substitute the less satisfactory, ‘wotcha’ instead. Thing One was in her element, shooting plastic crossbow arrows, making plastic soldiers out of a mould, and interrogating me as to why there was so much plastic around in the Middle Ages. Thing Two was only interested in climbing teetering piles of Priory rubble, which have stood unmoving since time immemorial but began looking a bit crumbly after he’d happened to them.

Then the drumming started.

(10) There is often drumming at Lewes events. Do not ask why. You will like it. Or if you don’t, get you gone quietly, perhaps to a comfortable hostelry.

You will be pleased to hear that we rule-abiding Lewesians followed this one to the letter.


Beth Miller 18th May 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com and Viva Lewes handbook, May 2012

You can't always get what you want

‘I miss Wards,’ said Cycle Girl, squinting in the unfamiliar spring sunshine. ‘Do you?’
‘No, I don’t like hospital dramas. Not even keen on Nurse Jackie really.’
‘Wards the school uniform shop.’
‘Got you. I miss it too. Thing One needs a plain white PE t-shirt, but the closest I can find is pink with “cute cuter cutest” on it.’

Someone tripped over my chair. Yes, we were sitting outside Bill’s, but there was no need for them to call me that. I am not even posh.

‘Blimmin’ heck,’ said Sweary Mary, crossing her legs and kicking over a crate of apples. ‘You’re not banging on again about the flipping gentrification of the high street and the concomitant lack of basic goods and services therein, are you?’
‘I don’t know, I can’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘It’s very simple,’ said Hoxton Mum, swishing papaya juice round her glass. ‘Lewes is perfect for darling little pressies. For everything else, there’s the internet.’
‘But what about people who can’t access the internet?’
‘As they obviously haven’t got the money to shop anyway, it’s hardly a problem.’

With reasoning skills of that calibre, can the role of Big Society Tsar be far from Hoxie’s grasp?

‘Mind you,’ she continued, ‘I struggled to find a mid-price frock for the party Lysander and I are hosting.’

I was about to insist she define ‘mid-price’ for the comic value, when I realised I hadn’t been invited. She warbled heedlessly on: ‘It was either cheap tat or far beyond the absurdly restrictive clothes allowance Lysander deems sufficient.’

‘We used to have Next here, you know,’ said Cycle Girl.
‘I don’t think Next would have been quite right, dear,’ said Hoxie pleasantly. ‘I called in a London favour; Oscar sent me the most gorgeous little taffeta thing.’

The rest of us telepathically exchanged the message: don’t ask who Oscar is.

‘Blokes’ clothes are even trickier,’ said Eco Dad into the silence. ‘Especially if you want fair trade. I have to cycle to Brighton to get my tighty whiteys.’
Cycle Girl mouthed at me, ‘What did he say?’

There were now so many elephants lumbering about Bill’s Pavement - the identity of Oscar, Eco Dad’s smalls, Hoxie’s resemblance to Margot Leadbetter - I decided to launch the distracting ‘shops we used to have’ conversation.

‘Who remembers Roberts Electrical?’
‘I could have done with them last week,’ said Grange Girl, ‘when I wanted a lead to connect my iPod to the stereo.’
‘How have you even heard of an iPod, Grangey?’
‘Or a stereo?’
‘I am large and contain multitudes,’ Grangey said mysteriously. ‘Currys only sell tellies, so I had to shop on the interweb thingy.’
‘Okay,’ said Cycle Girl. ‘Quick list of things we can’t buy in Lewes.’
‘Cheap clothes.’
‘Shoes for the larger-footed lady.’
‘Electrical goods.’
‘Basic underwear.’
‘Toys.’
‘School uniform.’
‘Vibrators.’

‘Don’t worry,’ cried Sweary Mary, biting into a fallen apple. ‘We’ll be able to get almost all those things when the blimmin’ big Tescos comes.’

Beth Miller, 23rd March 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com. Picture by Alex Leith

Tomorrow I'll be glad, cause I've got Friday on my mind

Wordlessly, Grange Girl seized my arm and dragged me from Waitrose, scattering organic carrots and fennel in her wake. I clung to the automatic doors and then to the leg of the Big Issue seller. But Grange Girl has been regular with the pole fitness lately and is strong as a Duchy Originals ox. As she swept me up the hill, not even letting me look in the new shoe shop, I begged her to tell me where we were going. But she was too enraged to speak. Steam snorted from her nostrils.

At the War Memorial she barked, ‘What day is it, young lady?’
I always go blank under pressure. I’d be no good at those old people tests when they ask the name of the prime minister or what year it is. I’d be put on medication and only allowed milky puddings before you could say ‘Is it Ted Heath?’

I tried to sneak a look at the date on my phone but Grangey dashed it to the ground where it was trodden on by a passing Afghan hound.

‘It’s Friday!’ Grange Girl snapped.

‘Oh. Is this something to do with Crackerjack?’

‘On Friday mornings we don’t go to the supermarket, do we?’

Light dawned. Grange Girl has been banging on about the marvellousness of the Friday market since it began, possibly even before it began, but I never remember it’s on until Friday evenings.
When she saw my contrite expression Grangey softened, and handed me a Waitrose Bag For Life. ‘Less picturesque, but more capacious than a wicker basket,’ she confided.

Hitherto known to me only as the cut-through with the waving Tom Paine, the markety thing was now full of stalls and busy shoppers. I stopped to inspect some cheese but Grange Girl said firmly, ‘There is a particular order in which one does the market.’

Under her despotic guidance, I discovered the brilliant fruit stall where you can buy a mix of different apples because they all cost the same. You can taste them too, but I didn’t get the chance before I was yanked off to the excellent bread stall. There were stalls selling jam, meat, cakes and vegetables, all terrific stuff, and much more homely than the Farmer’s Market. Normally shy, unless terrorising her friends, Grange Girl was on fine bantering form, swapping century-old badinage of the ‘squeeze me and I’m yours’ variety with the merchants.

On the way out we inspected a cute map with pins showing the locality of the produce. Three pins were just outside the magic circle of however many kilometres you’re allowed to stray from Lewes before being shot. I made a mental note to buy whatever those rebellious items were next week. Long as I remembered the damn thing was on.

I waited till Grangey toiled up the road and disappeared. Then I went to Tescos. I needed cheese strings and rice crispies, and she was much less likely to find me there than in Waitrose.

Beth Miller, 2nd November 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com

How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn’t see?

I had a free morning and was planning to do something I’d never done before, but I ran headlong into an angry mob. I assumed from the Lewes Pound badges that it was a protest about our town not transitioning quickly enough, but a belligerent woman in a Stella McCartney boiler suit prevented me passing through the picket line. So I stood back to read their banners.

‘Support small shops!’ said one. ‘High Street Assassin!’ said another. ‘Kinnock must go!’ said a third, confusingly. I think it was held the wrong way round.

‘Are you objecting to the encroaching hegemony of Tescos?’ I asked a man clutching a Tom Paine bag. I was so blown away by my use of big words that it took me a while to understand what he was saying.

‘We’re fighting a far greater menace’, he said, pointing to the building behind us. ‘It’s devoured swathes of local businesses.’

‘The library?’ I asked, with some surprise.

‘Whatddawewant?’ yelled a man with a loudhailer.

‘A freeze on library tickets!’ replied the crowd.

‘Whendowewantit?’

‘Pretty soon, please, if possible’, they chorused.

‘Look at the facts!’ said boiler-suit woman, thrusting a pamphlet at me. ‘The library starts lending DVDs, next minute, all the video stores have closed.’

Tom Paine bag man nodded and said, ‘Yes, and there’s no internet café in Lewes, because the library brazenly offers free access.’

There was a brief kerfuffle as one of the group quietly tried to post an overdue DVD in the library letterbox and was ejected as a scab; they rolled her down the ramp.

‘Worst of all is this ridiculous business of lending books for free’, said loudhailer man. ‘The Lewes book-selling industry has collapsed. Bags of Books is on borrowed time.’

When the picketers settled down for elevenses, I snuck into the empty library. The staff were sitting around, smoking and giggling.

The thing I had never done before was enter any part of the building other than the children’s section. Always I am dragged there and forced to read out such stories as ‘Timmy Tiger Jumps into a Box’ (plot twist, he jumps out again). I wanted to see the rest of the place, even if it was a cultural oppressor throttling the life out of the High Street. To my surprise, there was an upstairs, and I went to have a look.

Straight away I realised the protestors had a point. Free newspapers and a coffee machine - surely it was only a matter of time before even WH Smiths and Café Nero went to the wall?

I returned a pile of overdue books borrowed by Man of the House. To my horror, the chuckling staff extracted a five-pound fine.

‘You needn’t worry’, I told the protestors, who looked bemused when I appeared from the wrong side of the cordon. ‘It’s not free in there at all. It’ll never catch on.’


Beth Miller. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith

Somebody’s tears are in this onion, and the market is in our blood

First Saturday of each month, Pells Boy gets up early and goes into town, wicker basket on his arm. Decked out in his finest shabby-chic gear, he walks purposefully, heading towards the bustling Farmers Market. It’s become something of a tradition.

Then, abruptly, at the very last moment, he veers ostentatiously to the left in front of Boots, and goes to Tescos. He buys a few trifling items there, puts the carriers in the basket - Tescos logo uppermost - and returns to the Cliffe to parade up and down, swinging the basket for all to see. If he doesn't quite chant, 'Ner ner ner ner', it's only because he hasn't thought of it.

It’s hard to pinpoint what troubles him about the Farmers Market, because he’s incoherent on the subject.

‘It’s just, so, you know!’ he rants.

‘So…?’

‘So, so, so, so!’ he splutters, then resorts to specific abuse of the customers:

People buying gluten- and dairy-free cakes (‘Pointless. Chipboard tastes better’)

People eating courgette pakoras messily on the street

People queuing to buy cherries (‘When there are perfectly nice cherries in Tescos’)

People saying, ‘You can’t beat the quality of Boathouse pork’

People buying chutney (‘Why, Pells Boy?’ ‘Because chutney is completely smug’)

People saying ‘Ooh look’ at the Pretend Parmesan stall

People buying produce purely because it’s seasonal (‘Even chard, and no-one likes that’)

People doing all this in the cold and rain because of the warm, dry, virtuous glow they get from not shopping in a supermarket

Grange Girl is appalled. ‘I love the Farmers Market’, she cries, trugulently swinging her trug.

This is why I keep my friends separate.

‘It’s perfect for catching up with people’, Grangey says. ‘I just stand in the middle of the Cliffe, and sooner or later everyone I know passes by. I can do all my socialising in one morning, then I don’t have to do any for the rest of the month.’

Aging Lad is also pro-market, because his second-favourite past-time is chatting. ‘That’s fascinating’, you can hear him say to the attractive young hippy at the Transition Town stall, as he leans in a little closer. ‘So buying Colombian coffee with Lewes Pounds cuts right down on carbon emissions? Tell me more.’

But Born-and-Bred Boy is anti. ‘Lewes is too crowded nowadays’, he says. ‘When I were a lad, it were always nice and quiet on a Saturday in’t town centre. You could hear the tumbleweed blowing across t’street, and that’s how I like it. Ay-oop.’

Boy holds the belief that a cod-Yorkshire accent strengthens his argument.

The other night when Pells Boy dropped in unexpectedly at supper time, all I had in the freezer was a splendid spinach and lamb pie from the Farmers Market. He scoffed it down happily. Once I’d cooked it, obviously.

‘Is this a Tescos Finest?’ he asked indistinctly, mouth full of pastry. To avoid a terrible scene, I told him it was. He nodded.

‘Thought so’, he said, ‘Excellent. Is there any more?’

Beth Miller, 14^th August 2009. Published in VivaLewes.com

Pretty Green

As I was hauling Thing Two to the shops, amidst the usual bribes and random shouting, I bumped into Pells Boy doing the same with his child, The Beast of Playgroup. We ambled companionably down School Hill, chatting and smiling vaguely as our toddlers rammed, cackling, into the backs of old ladies’ legs. Then we crossed the road at Boots and suddenly we were at the Great Lewes Divide.
Thing Two ran into Waitrose as if it were his second home, which it pretty much is. I started to follow, when I realised that Pells Boy was standing incredulously at the threshold, fending off a Big Issue seller and holding the squealing Beast two inches off the ground by her collar. ‘Waitrose?’ he spluttered, ‘we don’t go there. We go to Tescos.’
Tory or Liberal, Catholic or Bonfire; there’s nothing that divides Lewes residents quite as much as their preferred supermarket. Yes, there are a few floating voters who use both, and a few who pretend not to use either, but generally you say tomato and I say vine-ripened. I reasoned with Pells Boy. ‘Look, you’re never going to get The Beast to schlep all the way to Tescos.’ He hesitated, and I coaxed: ‘They’ve got this brilliant thing for kids at the exit.’ Pells Boy looked left and right, pulled his balaclava over his face and slunk in.
We whizzed briskly round the aisles, stopping occasionally to kick broken eggs or jars discreetly under shelves, and to allow Pells Boy to clutch his heart and gasp, ‘Lawks a mercy, £3.99 for a punnet of blueberries’ (though actually blueberries are now half-price in Waity’s, bargain hunters). At the check-out, the cashier – clearly deluded - thought the children were cute and gave them extra green tokens. ‘Pretty’, gasped the Beast, and tried to eat them.
‘The kids love this’, I explained to Pells-Boy, as we tipped the Beast upside down. ‘They can bung these in that slot thing over there.’
Pells-Boy likes to read the instructions, and informed me that each slot in fact represented a local charity. ‘Poor old Camera Club’, he said. ‘Fancy pitting them against the Lifeboat Society. That’s like Jimmy Krankie being drawn against Roger Federer.’
It’s true that the Lifeboat Society had about four million more tokens than its rivals, who included the Monday Club, a group of self-proclaimed grumpy codgers whose pitch, I felt, needed some work.
‘We can even it out a bit’, I said, and lifted Thing Two so he could reach the Camera Club’s slot. However, he subscribes to the doctrine that to those who have shall be given – he’d just experienced a classic toddler Christmas – and he donated all four of his tokens to the lifeboats. The Beast, who’d had her tokens removed in the interests of health and safety, threw herself to the floor and began screaming, ‘I WANNA GO TO TESCOS!’ Pells Boy carried her out proudly, and I heard him whisper, ‘That’s my girl’.

Beth Miller, 28th January 2009. PUblished in Vivalewes.com and in Viva Lewes magazine, June 2009. Photo taken by Alex Leith.