Whispering Smith published in the Littlehampton Gazette August 15th. 2013

I REALLY do love Mewsbrook Park, it is part of my growing up, part of my history. My sister swam in its lake as a girl when the beach was inaccessible and too dangerous for bathers littered as it was with its tank traps, barbed wire and mines. Later I fished in it for fish that did not exist but my dad insisted were in there bountifully. Then we young boys and girlfriends experimented in the semi-privacy of the deco shelters – the windows of which were glazed back in the day – and maybe tasted our first Woodbine cigarette and learned to ‘snog’, what a strange word that is? The Park was wilder back then, unkempt even, but not now. Last evening I walked the pond and counted seventeen dogs but not a single trace of their passing was apparent. Two boys invented a game of ‘rescue the football from the lake’ by using a lifebelt and safely returned it to its rack when the game was over. People nodded or said ‘good evening’ with a genuine smile. The grass is well kept and the place has an air of usage, but also of care and respect. On the borderline of Rustington and LA it is cared for by the ADC and, to its credit, you don’t hear me saying that too often, they do an exemplary job, as do the Park Support Group of volunteers who also lovingly care for the place. Only one note of irritation and that is the unfriendly gate signage in Hendon Avenue leading to the park saying ‘NO TURNING PLEASE’. Uhmm, luckily the public road is wide enough to turn a vehicle without straying onto their hallowed ground, else it would be difficult to drop off an aged parent for a morning coffee at the splendid, open all the year round, café. On August 18^th.from 11.30 there is a charity fund raiser with bands, a disco, stalls, bar and other stuff to raise funds for two important charities, Breast Cancer and Enable Me. Be there! 

PULP FICTION: Why does Arun perpetuate the myth that they are trying to sort out the cinema club and provide ‘suitable projection equipment’ – according the Summer issue of Arun Times – when there is ‘suitable equipment’ gathering dust in the Windmill projection room? 190 days since that equipment was last used and counting…