Pier update

A grand total of five trips to the pier now made. On the fourth trip (I’m not going to the Moon by the way, Eastbourne’s only about eight miles (13km) east of where I’m staying) I finally made some progress with the research. You can Google and email until you’re blue in the face, but technology will never replace the simple act of walking through a door. The Eastbourne Heritage Centre, a wonderful building itself, built in the 1880s as the home of the man who looked after the (recently demolished) Devonshire Baths, is run by a bunch of lively and mostly retired volunteers. Barbara Hooke (nee Hook… I found that rather amusing) was on duty when I visited on Monday afternoon, and she very happily showed me around the building, eventually leading me to the tiny archives in the basement. Happily I found a small folder containing bits and pieces of writing about the pier, which Barbara was kind enough to photocopy for me. I also got a handful of Eastbourne Pier-related contacts including an architect who recently did a complete structural survey of the pier and a couple of leading lights in the Eastbourne Pier Society (which, because Google doesn’t throw it up, I still don’t believe exists). My job now is to assemble the text, which will then be edited to fit the final postcards. The fourth pier trip itself produced little in the way of photography, although I did finally get to look inside the camera obscura, and was amazed. More of that later on the back of one of the postcards! Yesterday I took my dad along. We bought fish and chips and ate them on the pier in a half-hearted attempt by myself to do a little Method Photography. Putting myself into the role of the ordinary punter who visits the pier as you can imagine was a waste of time, but an interesting exercise all the same. The only other thing of note was the local schoolchildren (see above) I photographed. After taking four pictures and asking the kids where they were from, their teacher warned me that I couldn’t take photographs of some of the children because their parents didn’t allow it. The country’s gone mad. Just west of the pier is a huge Union Jack on the seafront. I want to get a long shot of the pier with the flag in the foreground. The only way to do this is to get inside a room at the Devonshire Hotel. I’m taking my student card and press accreditation there now. Watch this space.