London to Brighton Bike Ride 2015

Today, Brighton celebrated the arrival of the 40^th annual London to Brighton Bike Run, organised by the British Heart Foundation charity. Twenty-two thousand riders poured into the city – among them Pippa Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister, and the charity’s ambassador.

The 54-mile route, starting from London’s Clapham Common, moves south from the capitol’s crowded roads through narrow, quiet country lanes down to the sparkling blue Channel at Brighton. There are 15 rest stops on the route with toilets and refreshment stands.

It was a perfect day for cycling with temperatures in the mid-60s Farenheit (18 Celsius) and a strong, cooling westerly breeze. The stream of riders came pouring into town, along special lanes separated from the traffic by traffic cones, but stopping for red traffic lights, as commanded by marshals.

  

   

Then it was off again when the lights turned to green.

This rider was delighted to see the spires and domes of the 18th century Royal Pavilion, only a couple of minutes before the Finish line.

But first you have to continue down the Steine, past the end of the Palace Pier and then hang a left turn into Madeira Drive.

And, as he passes the Palace Pier, this Superman takes a selfie:

Passing the Brighton Wheel, its capsules rising to 50 metres above sea level.

Now, in front is the Finish Line and, behind it, the cranes mark the site of controversial new high-rise housing being built at Brighton Marina.

As the exhausted riders pass under the Finish Line, to hyper-excited commentary on the loudspeakers and the applause of the waiting crowds, they are welcomed with offers of cool water, first aid - and a medal!

I didn't have time to wander around and check out the riders but it's clear there are a variety of reasons for people to undertake this exhausting ride...including fun and celebration.

Before I left the seafront, I glanced out to sea and saw a ketch running parallel to the beach under furled job and mizzen - and if you look closely, just ahead of it to the port side is a jetski. It's funny, pictures of sea conditions rarely convey the apparent situation - it looked quite fresh out there with lots of white caps!  

 

And so, to home, the seafront still crowded...

Brighton’s Secret Catholic Archives

The purpose of the exhibition was to display photos and memorabilia from Brighton’s Catholic history. It was arranged by St John the Baptist Church, which is situated in Kemp Town, Brighton, and is doubly famous for being the oldest remaining Catholic Church in Brighton (founded 1835) and the only church to have as benefactress Maria Fitzherbert, a woman who had been married – but invalidly - to George, the Prince of Wales, also known as ‘Prinny’ (who would later become King George IV).



Maria Fitzherbert by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1788

I thought this would be a normal exhibition – but I had reckoned without the genius of the organisers.

A normal exhibition would have been publicised widely, be opened by someone of stature (our new Bishop or the Mayor of Brighton & Hove or Canon Foley), be professionally displayed, well attended and hosted in a familiar venue.

...Not this exhibition.

It was due to open at 11am this morning and then run from 11am-6pm each day for a week until 25^th June. The venue is the Fitzherbert Centre, an empty shell of a building owned by A&B Diocese. Once the Centre was a thriving primary school - it even served as a day resource for up to 40 homeless and isolated residents; however, a devastating arson attack in 2007 and what looks like a subsequent failure of imagination or funding left the building isolated and largely empty.

Peter and I arrived at just before 11am and managed a brief ‘hello’ to the departing Canon Foley. Was this an omen? There was a certain lack of spectators...well, there were none except possibly one lady who was wandering round, inspecting the exhibits very closely. The curator, Dr Sandy Kennedy, who was hurtling around at high speed arranging things, also disappeared on an errand.   

The Exhibition Room

We waited for the opening ceremony...and waited...and waited in vain. At ten past eleven we concluded that the exhibition had indeed opened but that we had missed the precise point at which this event happened. There were several display tables, a number of boards with photographs, and two or three areas with bunches of photographs waiting to be sorted and/or exhibited.

The central table contained a display of items owned by Maria Fitzherbert, companion to the future King George IV, patron of St John the Baptist Church and inspiration for the name of the building we were in.

Maria's Things

They were mainly secular and precious items; gold shoe buckles, gold bracelet, earrings, diamond hairpin, a gold watch, an ivory fan and so on.

I'm a Fan of Maria!

There was no display poster describing the importance of her faith to her, why her last marriage was invalid and the part that her Catholicism presumably played, a description of her philanthropy or even her character...a missed opportunity. (But, to be fair, there was a newspaper clipping from 1971 which credits her with accelerating the growth of Catholicism in the town through bringing her own priest to Brighton and offering local Catholics access to Mass at her private oratory).  

By all accounts, Maria was a strong and attractive character. Although her decadent, extravagant and serially-unfaithful ‘husband’ Prinny disowned her to marry Princess Caroline of Brunswick, he seems to have been besotted by Maria to the end of his life, keeping all her letters, even – allegedly – being buried with a picture of Maria’s eye (an eye-miniature). And Maria? Well, the story is that King William IV offered her a dukedom as compensation for her shoddy treatment by Prinny but she refused on the grounds that ‘she had borne through life the name of Mrs Fitzherbert; that she had never disgraced it, and did not wish to change it.’ Quite a lady!

The First Church!

There was a picture of the very first building in Brighton used for Catholic worship – something I had never seen before...rather unprepossessing - but its appearance is irrelevant.

St Thomas More - and visitor

There was a nice, workmanlike, but limited display from St Thomas More Church; a fine display from St John the Baptist; a large and varied display by the Poor Servants of the Mother of God; photos from St Joseph’s Convent;

 

some nostalgic photos of well-attended activities from St Mary’s; a rather puzzling display on the illness of the Vicar-General of Southwark in 1898; an extended history of relevant developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; some large bibles, colourful memorial displays and a variety of other items – including press cuttings on a claimed descendant of the presumed ‘love child’ of Prinny and Maria...from the sublime to the not-so-sublime.   

SVP Relief Books

As expected, the Saint Vincent de Paul (SVP) display was well set out and informative. I’m naturally biased, I contributed three Relief Books from Sacred Heart Church’s SVP group; these detail the weekly assistance given to needy people in the parish, the oldest book on display dates from 1916. The SVP Conference at Sacred Heart is the oldest in Brighton & Hove, being registered in 1907.

No, I don't know what it is!

Initially, I was puzzled at the lack of publicity, material, organisation and visitors to the display but it then struck me that this was a clever imitation of the Vatican’s famous Secret Archives - not publicised or easy to access, restricted to devout and dedicated enquirers, not all on display and parts open to interpretation.

I’m sure there is a great story waiting to be told about the history of Catholicism in Brighton & Hove but it will take time  - and funding – to conduct and assemble research, gather all the relevant artefacts, interpret them and document and display them in a way that does them justice.

And, perhaps by then the Fitzherbert Centre will be a Catholic Social Community Centre offering support to the elderly, isolated, homeless and the plain needy?             

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The sun was shining and a quartet was playing near the Royal Pavilion Cafe as I walked through the Pavilion Gardens on my way to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.

It was almost exactly 200 years ago that the architect John Nash started transforming the old Pavilion building into the Indo-Islamic fantasy and royal residence that we know and love today. It will always be associated with George, Prince of Wales, who became Prince Regent in 1811 and loved to escape to the Brighton seaside where he could enjoy discreet liaisons with the twice-widowed Maria Fitzherbert. He even married her secretly in 1785 (secretly for several reasons, one of which was because she was a Roman Catholic) and, although the ‘affair’ had blown over by 1794, he never really got over her, keeping all her letters to him and even clasping a memento of her when he was on his deathbed in 1830. Maria died a few years later and was buried in the first Catholic church in Brighton, St John the Baptist, which she funded.

Today, crowds were sprawled on the lawns enjoying the sun, children were playing, two guys with afros and rasta beanies were busking, lost in their own rhythm.

Brighton Museum and Art Gallery is hosting the 2014 Wildlife Photographer of the Year touring exhibition with 100 of the best photographs on display. The 2014 competition was the 50^th annual event, which is run each year by the BBC and the Natural History Museum.

The photographs were displayed on panels in darkened rooms – that also held stuffed birds from the local Booth Museum and other displays to supplement the exhibition. Each item had an accompanying description that included the relevant photo-taking details (camera make and model; lens; aperture; shutter; ISO; flash used etc).

(I’m a bit of a camera anorak so I made a tally of the winning camera manufacturers. As expected, the big two manufacturers, Nikon and Canon, accounted for 97% of the photos exhibited, and each provided roughly half of the entries with the Canon 5D3 and the Nikon D800 well represented).

Here are some of the photos that I found particularly memorable:

THE LAST GREAT PICTURE – the overall winner - the sun’s setting rays warmed Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park and the rock outcrop on which a pride of 14 lions lounged, most asleep, some watchful. The photographer, Michael Nichols, tracked the lions for six months before managing to take this stunning photo – in black and white.

THE MOUSE, THE MOON AND THE MOSQUITO – this is the first photo that you see as you enter the gallery. It was taken at night, with flash, as a deer mouse, whiskers aquiver, perched on a giant puffball mushroom, looks at a hovering mosquito caught in the light of the full moon, which is rising in the background.

TOUCHÉ – a sword-billed hummingbird uses its giant beak to ‘see off’ an attacking collared inca bird. The hummingbird uses its long bill to suck nectar from deep flowers – it is the only bird with a bill longer than its body length (excluding the tail). The photo captures the split-second drama of the battle and was taken with a flash lasting one ten-thousandth of a second!  

HOLLYWOOD COUGAR – the photographer Steve Winter had the idea of photographing a wild cougar in front of the ‘Hollywood’ sign outside Los Angeles so he set up a camera with a tripwire – and waited 14 months until one night a cougar set it off and photographed itself against the famous illuminated sign. Cougars (also called mountain lions or pumas) are seven to eight feet long, weigh 100-150 pounds and are domestic to the Americas, ranging from Canada to Chile. Big pussies!

CARDINAL SPARKS – this photo was taken underwater and is an explosion of colour involving intricate twisting sinuous tentacles of anemones and flitting cardinalfish; a natural and colourful underwater ‘spaghetti junction’.  

The exhibition is on until 6^th September 2015 (non residents beware: the Museum & Art Gallery, which formerly had free entry, introduced an entry charge - £5 for adults – from three weeks ago).