Littlehampton… ahh the memories. Having only moved to the place when I was 16, I missed a lot of the pre-teen **** activities and groups that may have tainted my life and sucked me under.. I managed to get into the ‘normal’ crowd, but even then the chavity is un-avoidable. Many an evening would be spent sitting on Mewsbrooks park bench on a freezing December night in the run up to Christmas drinking cider and singing ‘The Fairytale of New York’.. Sometimes there would be a stereo attached to the back of someones bike.. someone would inevitably end up in the river, someone else snogging their mates sister.. I fell in love with my first boyfriend after he decided to run into a wall..
Ahh the romance, walking down by the river Arun, past the chippy (the best in the south apparently) feeding the malnourished swans bits of kebab.. sitting on the pier (I think they had the cheek to call it one) pretending to be Kate Winslet on Titanic.. cycling down the promenade, dodging the syringes and nappies and … no the beach was actually ok, apart from the lack of sand… if you crossed the river and walked far enough one could find the (rumour has it) nudist beach..
Apparently there’s a *** shop in town now. I still have yet to find it. Would have sent a murmur of disapproval throughout the older generation of rustington/LA border old biddy homes… which there are plenty of.. what a place to come to die…
But I spent the majority of my late teens still glowing with the novelty of a small town and lots-of-friends-who–know-each-other-and-probably-slept-together who like to sit on the beach and drink cider.. (most have left, gone to uni or had a baby.. to join the crowd of Saturday afternoon mums cavorting down the high street with pushchair and 3 screaming kids in tow, shouting ‘Britney, get over here’.. you get the drift..)
So yes, welcome to LA, famous for Roy Whiting, Britains second highest teenage pregnancy stastic, and Fred’s fish and chips. And The Body Shop… betcha didn’t know that!
