Whispering Smith Column published in the littlehampton Gazette April 9th.2025

There is a grassed corner of a street close by to me that is constantly blighted by litter with the adjacent alleyways cluttered with discarded furniture. The black plastic bags, put out at any old time of the week, are split, some from being lazily tossed out of windows. Unbroken bags are ravaged by gulls who should be down the beach eating cockles, mussels and dead crabs but seem to prefer left over pizzas, Indian or Chinese takeaways and stale bread with used disposable nappies, a popular feature on the pavement, being less so. The council, to their credit, regularly clear the rubbish and cart off the furniture and an eighty six year old local lady named Vi regularly tidies up the area but less so recently as she is incapacitated by a broken limb. I do not know the answer to this problem but it fills me with anger and dismay that people can be so dirty and thoughtless bringing discredit to the very nice area in which they and we are privileged to reside. Ignorance on their part perhaps but surely part of the responsibility must lay with the local landlords and perhaps they are the persons the council should confront and lay charge to for the extra workload burdened upon the ratepayers.

THE dreary arcade has been considerably brightened by the opening of Fireside Books. An excellent store run by real book people and I have already discovered two rather obscure books I have been searching for some time and both at a very reasonable price. If you are a book person I suggest you get along there and be prepared for a pleasant experience.

BEAUTIFUL sunny Easter Monday, not a lot going on in the area but the Littlehampton Carnival’s boot fair on the west green was fairly busy first thing with many once precious pre loved goods for sale. Pity there was not a refreshment stall, what is a boot fair without a bacon sarnie and a coffee in a styrofoam cup?

MY gloomy friend informs me he has revised his tombstone to now read ‘It is what it was.’ Then to: ‘It wasn’t what it is.’ I said, ‘Oh, does it really matter?’ and he said. ‘Brilliant, I’ll go with that.’