I WATCHED a film and experienced a film this week.

Genevieve was on the TV and it showed an idyllic 1953 London to Brighton Motor Car Run.

London was spotless with no litter or graffiti as indeed was Brighton and Madeira Drive with its wide, problem-free thoroughfare with rare TREE-LINED area.

I then remembered the day I knew I would some day live in Brighton. In 1978 I was a London boy coming to the Goldstone to watch West Ham, a 15-year-old with my 13-year-old cousin. We hung out the train windows and as soon as I saw the high-banked houses one side and the railway viaducts and sweeping landscape the other, I turned to my cousin and said ‘I’m gonna live ere one day’. To which he answered ‘watchya wanna live ere for?’.

Recently at the age of 56 I managed to move here after experiencing the structural and moral deterioration of East London.

I love this place and have been here two years in which time I am noticing trends echoing that of London.

This hit home when I was picked up from the station and proceeded through the traffic jam and stunt displays of all the takeaway, cars and mopeds parked and riding wherever they wanted in a double yellow line area.

We then turned on to the seafront, all good. Bit shabby, but workable. Turning into Madeira Drive, on top of the once glorious arches, TENT CITY, high and proud with its washing line blowing in the wind.

I hope Jane McDonald isn’t planning on sailing past soon to advertise Great England Beauty Spots.

What a disgraceful insult this must be to natives of this area as it is turning more into Biff Town from Back To The Future now than the glorious splendour of Genevieve. Even my visit in the so-called bad old days of the 1970s opened a 15-year-old kid's eyes.

Not every other shop was a takeaway, polluting the environment and the atmosphere with waste packaging, there weren't polluting mopeds and cars delivering it 24/7, ordered by people using mobile appliances who walk around drinking liquids of all sorts from non-return plastic bottles.

Then there's the nonsense graffiti all over other people's property.

Tell me, please, which generation is ruining the environment. You really don’t realise what you’ve got and how lucky you are.

John Gander

Telscombe Cliffs