Berwick in Winter December 2010

  I have few memories of my first

 

few years in Brighton. I certainly remember the pebbles in the beech. Over the next few years, we must have visited there for holidays to see my grandmother. When I was quite small, I am told I ran into the sea quite bare, having shed my bathing costume. Despite mother’s cajoling me to return, I laughingly disobeyed and went ever further out. Mother in desperation called ‘Come back here this minute or I’ll fetch a [policeman’. I must have had dire threats of misdemeanour punishable by policemen as I shot back up the beach and was duly made respectable. We were taken along the pier at every visit and I had saved pennies for the slot machines. I tried in vain to catch a sweet in the remote arms of a crane but I was not allowed to try ‘What the Butler saw’. I never did find out. I was intrigued by the saucy post cards though not supposed to understand them. Most were about very fat ladies in undress. We also went to listen to the band and sat on iron seats round the band-stand. I was not excited by this but at that time had been learning to knit which occupied me during these boring sessions. I was knitting a very long thin piece, yards and yards of it in various wool scraps. When asked for an explanation and its