Sentimental Journey Part 5

The mundane poetry of Southern English place names I find as comforting as the murmuring of the sea. These are the places we went through from Brighton (In slightly the wrong order). It's as soothing in its way as the Shipping Forecast:

Hove, Portslade by Sea, Southwick, Lancing, Goring by Sea, Durrington by Sea, Worthing, Angmering, Ford, ("Welcome to Ford: Home of The Engine Shed") Barnham, Chichester, Southborne, Emsworth, Havant, Warblington, Bedhampton, Cosham, Portchester, Fareham, Swannick, Hamble, Sholing.

Any one of these could be a pal of Bertie Wooster's down the Drones club or a place where Dad's Army go on manoeuvres. The shabby gentility, the well-tended gardens, the high walls. The smallness of the houses and the irreversible decline; the owners of these houses are getting too old to look after them. Young people won't be able to afford to buy them. They will disappear, consumed by the insatiable appetites of property developers until there is nothing left. All those jealously guarded and hard won little lives eaten up by flats and boutique hotels.

The south coast of England was my first home. But that was a long time ago.