KYQ4: Brighton Reprise

Bright sunshine arrived today and we thought wouldn't it be a lovely day if we went to Brighton. The bus across London took an hour as the roads were gridlocked around the Elephant and Castle and Borough. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, still has a long way to go to make buses a mode of choice, let alone more environmentally friendly as they disperse noise and diesel particulates along the polluted London thoroughfares. Tower Bridge station was undergoing a massive refurbishment. It is now spiked by the Shard and against the cobalt blue sky, it looks like an impressive monument to its Italian starchitect, Renzo Piano and a stark symbol of London's mainly foreign property investors. What benefit it has made to local residents is less obvious, other than a home-finding beacon.

The Brighton train arrived on time and knifed its way through the London suburbs and across the heaths of Waitroseshire to Brighton in less than an hour. We were treated to new carriages and an average speed of at least 30% faster than on similar lines in Scotland. It made the Sheffield to Manchester train that I travelled on a couple of weeks ago look and move like something designed by the Reverend Awdry.

Brighton had not changed much since I was last there in 1971. The beach was still stony and tough on the feet, the lanes still a bit tawdry although pinker than they were and it lacked the potted shrimps, trams, donkeys and rock that are the essence of 'real' seaside resorts. We sashayed through the morning shoppers agog at the things that folk buy in this age of austerity (or at least it is up north). Brighton seemed to nurture two economies, one for those on benefits and another for those who are opulent spenders.

Our first objective was the Royal Pavilion, the folly built by the son of King George III, who was undoubtedly more entitled to the sobriquet 'mad'. He had built the Royal Pavilion during his days as Prince Regent when he was a noted womaniser, socialite, and epicurean hedonist. The sumptuous interior decorated in the Chinese style in contrast to its Indian exterior designed by John Nash was quite extraordinary and in its own way has the extravagance of Versailles.

By the time he had finished his grand designs, the newly crowned George IV had consumed too many gourmet meals, had been married several times and enjoyed a bevvy of mistresses. He was King at last but too obese to get upstairs and had to build a tunnel to get him to his stables and horses without being seen and lampooned by the Regency cartoonists. His brothers including the Grand Old Duke of York were also installed in the Pavilion but none of them had sired a future monarch. The Crown passed to Princess Victoria and when she succeeded George IV she decided to sell off the pavilion and build Osbourne House on the Isle Of Wight. All the fittings including chandeliers and fireplaces were taken out and put into storage. It was the town council of Brighton that bought the pavilion to save it from demolition and slowly restored it to its former glory including the retrieval of many of the original fittings.

The beach was coming into season with the easter holidays bringing trainloads of French teenagers. Deck chairs were on hire, the seagulls were scavenging, the pier was open and the big wheel was spinning cash. The fast-food outlets were doing their best to nourish George IV lookalikes.

Before leaving we had time to visit the splendid Brighton Museum and Art Gallery in the former Royal Stables of the Pavilion before catching the train back to London. The final flourish of Brighton was the station's splendid iron arches, a fine testament to 19th-century engineering.