Good for the sole

Felipe Fernández-Armesto pots some shrimp

SEAGULLS SQUITTER OVER-head. Cracks in the pavement trip your feet. Potholes tear at your tyres. The precipitate topography of Hastings wears down ill-advised retirees, who stagger between slope and strand. Rubbish overflows from bulging bins. On the beach the stones stick in my dogs’ paws. Along the esplanade civic vulgarianism has vandalised such fragments of faded elegance as Hitler spared. But there are compensations: the gaunt, ruined outline of the clifftop castle, the rickety charm of the unspoiled old town, the delightful church of St Mary Star of the Sea on the High Street, the inspired eclecticism of Bayte — an off-seafront bistro in St Leonard’s — and the wonders of the fishmongers. Fish for sale no longer strew the beach as they did in Turner’s paintings, but the varieties…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2024

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