Rottingdean Bluegrass

Saturday afternoon. I had just cycled into town, and was pedalling nonchalantly up Trafalgar Street in the North Laine when what should I spy but a four-piece Bluegrass band, a-pickin' and a-strummin' and a-wailin' and a-clatterin', live there on the pavement. How very Brighton, I thought, as I parked my steed and wandered over to suss them out. To be honest I was half expecting them to be some well-meaning but a bit rubbish. Dang me if they weren’t smart as a whip. Competing with the rumble of delivery trucks they made a fine old noise, with some lovely high-lonesome harmony singing and some seriously mean Banjo. After their set that drew enthusiastic applause from the denizens of the Great Eastern pub, I enjoined to enquire after their name. They are Amy Harrison and the Second Hand String Band, and a nicer bunch of unassuming music-lovers you couldn’t hope to meet. Catch them live if you can. Later that evening I dragged some friends out to a pub in Seven Dials to see them again, where, with a proper PA and more intimate surroundings, they sounded even better.


I’m resting my bones after a quite delightful Sunday excursion to Rottingdean, East up the coast from Brighton. It’s an interesting place, home to Rudyard Kipling at the turn of the last century, where he wrote Kim and some of the Just so stories. I also know it as home of the Copper Family, a folk-singing lineage, whose CD ‘Come Write me Down’ I have owned and cherished for about two years. Anyway, I had only been once previously, on a misty Easter morning bike ride with one of my old housemates, so it felt good to check it out properly. We got the bus out to Roedean school (a posh looking private boarding school on a hill out by the Marina), and hiked over the Downs, taking in an archaeological dig on the outskirts of Ovingdean, a climb over Beacon hill, past the windmill, and a final saunter down into Rottingdean in time for some lunch. We then lazed around on the beach, I answered the ocean’s siren call and had a much-needed dip, before finally moseying back along the coast path to Brighton. Lovely.


Term starts tomorrow. I am ready. Are you?