Whispering Smith Column published in the Littlehampton Gazette July 27th. 2017

There was a big stink about the town at the end of last week and I tried to get to the bottom of it. I asked on Facebook if any of the locals had any information regarding the origins of the smell and, as I should have expected, I had a multitude of ‘bottom’ jokes as well as some quite funny comments relating to other smelly origins. Some thought it might be Brexit related and that the EU in general was to blame while, more specifically, some readers blamed it solely upon prevailing winds from France. Some ‘experts’ studied upon wind direction and suggested it was the sulphur stink hanging about after the thunderstorms. The next day when the pong had dissipated I visited Ford for an Edgcumbes coffee and while searching the skies for the elusive Sparrowhawk, found the pong was still hanging around the fields and assumed it to be fertilizer. However, I was told by a coal black crow, a bird with which I have much affinity, that it was gas called mercaptyl leaked from a plant near Cherbourg and was, as suspected, the fault of the Frenchies.

WELCOME to a new Surrey Street business in town that isn’t a vape shop. A little coffee bar called LAMBERTOWIE’S Place, a Polish influence and very different.

I learned last week of the passing of my schoolboy chum, Richard Mann. I had heard he had been unwell and had planned to give him a ring. I waited too long and there is a lesson to be learned there. Richard and I were neighbours throughout our childhood, we played together, went to the same schools and were in the same classes. I lost touch with him in later years, he was a well know sportsman and I was a journalist. When I moved back to Littlehampton he rewired my house and all too infrequently we enjoyed reminiscing about ‘old times’. So long, ‘Manny’, another good man gone.