My maternal grandparents (Nanna and Bompa) lived in Hastings when I was a child, and most summers I and my sister would spend some time with them. ‘Helping’ Bompa with his vegetable plot, pestering Nanna in the kitchen, and generally just being children, enjoying the freedom to roam the nearby stream and fields, and play on the beach. Their bungalow was at the end of an unadopted road adjoining countryside, now subsumed into a big housing estate. So it was with some trepidation that I revisited the town with my cousin in late August. Was it really as nice as my fond memories suggested?
The answer is “Yes”. My perspective has changed, of course, and I notice things that I might have ignored as a kid (and vice versa). But my visit was a delight, especially seeing Bottle Alley again. I and my sister used to run along the lower deck looking for the more unusually-coloured glass panels, which I remembered being more or less square, though in fact they are actually quite narrow – so much for the veracity of memory!
We visited on the first rainy day after weeks of scorching sunshine, but in some ways this lent a melancholy charm to the old-fashioned delights of the town. Chairs and tables with wet seats, jolly graffiti and so many exhorting signs on the smartly-painted pier.
No visit would be complete without wandering along the picturesque jumble of houses on the Old Town, or seeing the black-painted net shops, though I didn’t get to see all the boats drawn up on the beach, which was a disappointment.
