please empty your brain below

A great read. Anyone making the trip might also want to explore the small network of roads behind the eastern beach where several homes were developed from steam-era railway carriages - weird, homespun architecture. One is even parked on the shingle beach.
I'm guessing you arrived by public transport rather than "driving in your car".
Another musical accompaniment for your post could be the Sussex anthem, "Sussex by the sea"
Thank you for that breath of sea air! I will say that I was getting rather fed up with the purple posts, but I suppose it was interesting for those that will use it.

Long ago in the distant past, my family spent a totally forgettable week’s holiday in a caravan in Selsey. We’d been going to Bognor before, plenty to amuse us children. Then-Selsey, but never again. From the photos, it doesn’t seem to have changed much in the sixty two years since.
Enjoyable read, it seems your view of a place is enhanced if you found the people who lived there interesting. Sir Patrick Moore would have been cancelled in the current climate, yet he inspired so many people.

Madness - their worst record ever.

Have not seen any non-commercial Platinum Jubilee displays in my area.
Another musical accompaniment for your post could be the Surrey anthem, "Saturday's Kids" by The Jam.

"Save up their money for a holiday, to Selsey Bill or Bracklesham Bay".
I think The Undertones name-checked Patrick Moore in a song, but my memory fails to recall its title. Being a Belfast band, they're highly unlikely to have had Selsey as a reference.
The Tussauds' figure of Sir Patrick Moore lives on at the delightful South Downs Planetarium in Chichester.
The Undertones song that namechecks Patrick Moore is "Mars Bars".
Spent two teenage summer holidays in a rented cottage in Selsey. The first must have been ok, because we went back again. The second time the beach and the sea were solid with weed - don't know whether this is a regular thing or unique to one year in the late 70s/early 80s. That was not however our worst ever holiday - that honour belongs to the week we spent in a toiletless, gaslit static caravan in Normans Bay.
You might have enjoyed this way of getting there, but it's so last century.
Sleepy Lagoon instantly brought happy tears to my eyes, with memories of 60 years ago, family sitting around the dinner table where mum would always play Desert Island Discs on the wireless.
Music can be so evocative.

(btw your link is to the pure original Coates piece, the radio programme actually had the sounds of breaking waves and seagulls added).
Thanks - I loved the musical links. Any chance of continuing these in the future?
Your final rail sale trip?

My final rail sale trip was to Chichester on Friday, so just down the road
Great track links!
Track 1: I was very pleased to discover the 'headland' link links to sea shanties!
However, having never heard of Selsey Bill I always thought the Madness line was they'd 'been to Sel Seville' - figuring it was somewhere in Spain!

Tracks 2 & 3: A blast from the past!
I went on two family holidays there in the fifties. Somewhere near Patrick's place, a rented semi-bungalow called White Horses. The first time was by train to Chichester, then bus. I was made aware that there had once been a railway, but I don't think we looked for relics. By the second year we had a car, and used an AA route assembled for us from pre-printed sections. The place had a candlestick telephone.
I think the house must have been demolished, as I couldn't find it on a recent return visit.
It was fun, because it was the seaside!
I grew up in Sussex, but right at the other end, so we rarely ventured this far west and I've never been to Selsey. But it certainly looks to be worth visiting, and 'FarThings' is just brilliant.
Wow, did they really use the phrase "You cannot fail to miss the fiesta feeling"?

As in - "it's only possible to miss the fiesta feeling."

Nice to see my old flat on Goldhawk Road being passed by Madness 16 years before I moved in.
Grew up near Selsey. There is a lot of history underwater including stuff from D Day and an old Saxon Abbey
I'm planning to hop over there sometime - this post has further whetted my appetite. The most troubling issue I', aware of as far as Selsey is concerned is whether the second "s" should be pronounced as an "s" or as "z". The local TV news seems divided on the matter, though the place only seems to be mentioned on the weather forecast, as the location of the eponymous Bill.
I’m the same as Cornish Cockney when it comes to that Madness song, I also always heard it as Sel Seville.










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