Copy

 

View this email in your browser

West Pier Newsletter March 2021

Sunsets and starlings

 
The first two months of 2021 included some magnificent Brighton and Hove seafront sights. The sun, low in the sky, illuminated the Regency terraces, squares and crescents with a magical light.  There were many fine sunsets and the early-evening starling murmurations made for fascinating spectacles. (Image: West Pier sunset, 27 January 2021).

In the newspaper equivalent of a Donald McGill saucy seaside postcards, The Argus had some ribald fun with the shapes created by the swirling and swooping starlings.
 
 Apart from sunsets, piers and starlings, there were many other sights to be appreciated on the seafront. In these coldest of months an extraordinary number of people enjoyed swimming, bathing and playing in the bitterly cold but exhilarating sea.

 

The Guardian carried a photographic essay, ‘locked down in Brighton’, featuring, appropriately enough, the often gloriously rusty locks and bolts of Hove’s seafront beach huts.

Trio


Trio is a 2020 novel by William Boyd (Viking). Centred on making a film in 1968, the darkly humorous story follows the intersecting lives of the film’s producer, the leading actress and a novelist.
 
Apart from people, the author also has fun with places, principally London, post-student uprising Paris and seaside Brighton and its environs where the shooting of the film takes place. Brighton emerges as a star of the book. Filming a scene under the West Pier is described atmospherically (‘there was a strange smell in the air – fishy and industrial at the same time’), a tragedy is comically averted in Rodmell and the making of a hapless pornographic film in suburban Brighton is unexpectedly disrupted. 
 
Two of the book’s characters discuss the ‘particular strangeness’ of the town ‘as a kind of rackety conscience-free zone for Londoners’ … ‘old norms of behaviour were more easily abandoned there, as if the town’s reputed loucheness were contagious’.

West Pier Talks

To view the latest two West Pier Talks online, please visit the News section of our website www.westpier.co.uk 

In the December talk Faye Davies, the specialist conservation architect, discusses the plans to restore a seaside jewel, the brilliant West Pier kiosk. Look out for more talks soon...

Discover, Learn and Explore … all about the Rampion Wind Farm  

The Rampion Visitor Centre is a brand new, free attraction, located on the Brighton seafront in the newly refurbished Kings Road Arches.
 
The aim of the visitor centre is to increase awareness and understanding of the Rampion Wind Farm story, as well as offshore wind energy and global climate change. This is done through exciting, hands-on and immersive installations and content, where you can discover how electricity works and how the wind farm was built. Learn about the relationship between electricity and climate change and explore the VR experience which takes you on a journey out to the wind farm and allows you to climb up a wind turbine! You can even try out the hand generator and make your own electricity. 

The visitor centre opened its doors in September 2020, with rave reviews from visitors including its first guest Caroline Lucas MP. 
 
The centre has something for everyone, from fun activity packs and games, to more in-depth information about turbines and the wind farm planning process. Schools will be able to bring classes down to learn all about how a wind farm is planned, constructed and operated, as well as learning why renewable energy is so important for all our futures.

The team hopes to be able to deliver a series of school visits in partnership with some of our other local Brighton attractions, such as the West Pier Trust, as soon as it is safe to be able to do so. 

By Katie ScanlanVisitor Centre Manager
For more information, please visit: 
https://www.rampionoffshore.com/visitor-centre/
Copyright ©2020 West Pier Trust, All rights reserved. hello@westpier.co.uk
Brighton West Pier Trust · West Pier · 103 - 105 Kings Road Arches · Brighton, East Sussex BN1 2FN · United Kingdom 
Press Contact: hello@westpier.co.uk  t: 07768900072
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list



 






This email was sent to <<Email Address>>
why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences
Brighton West Pier Trust · West Pier · King's Road · Brighton, East Sussex BN1 2FL · United Kingdom

Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp