Yesterday, in the spirit of the last week and a half, which has been mainly spent re-acquainting myself with the recent past — dropping in at my old school, going back to the pub where I work, etc. — I went to Brighton. Nothing too heavy, just a little light clothes-shopping, but enough to retread my usual paths. It got me thinking about how misrepresented the city is, quite possibly through my own doing. In the first term, whenever anyone asked where I was from, I’d say “Brighton,” or “near Brighton,” which makes the majority of people immediately think “gay”. Not of me, necessarily, but the place — it does, of course, have its reputation.
But seeing it again yesterday made me realise just how skewed that notoriety is — the whole gay thing is just a part of what I see as the main quality of Brighton: that the whole place radiates an arty, alternative, free-spirited vibe that I’m yet to find in any other city in this country. Just driving in and out, as I did yesterday, you pass so many little places — galleries, studios, tattoo and piercing shops, record shops, skate shops, crazy clothes shops — for the most part independent, unique places with more than just a facade, places you could get lost in.
It might have its rough spots, it might be full of chavs, but there’s that something about it which you can’t really describe, you have to be there. That is why I will keep defending it, not because it’s my home town (it isn’t) but because it has that quality that makes it the place where revolutions start, where ideas happen, where creativity is encouraged and supported. Not something that can be said of Coventry.
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