A wry look at Worthing

There were a token 21 sheep present, huddled forlornly in a pen on Nepcote Green, and many people waxed lyrical about the times when the green was covered in thousands of sheep watched over by bearded shepherds resting on their crooks.

Having said that, Sentinel was pleasantly surprised at the vibrancy of the fair and he believes that, sheep or no sheep, it will continue long into the 21st Century.

He would respectfully suggest to organisers an expansion of the event, perhaps adopting the finer points of the now defunct Worthing Victorian fair, which included model traction engines, horses and red-coated soldiers drilling in Steyne Gardens.

One stall in particular caught Sentinel's attention on a weekend blessed by glorious weather. It was run by the West Sussex Metal Detecting Society, which earlier this year scoured Nepcote Green for finds that were on display in a case.

The haul included four musket balls, seven buttons, one 1841 Victorian farthing, a George V penny, a live Second World War bullet and part of a toy gun.

During other sweeps members had found hundreds of items, ranging from an Essex Regiment cap badge dug up at Castle Goring to a barnacle-covered gun from Worthing beach.

Driving along the seafront last week, Sentinel noted workmen at Windsor Lawns, Brighton Road, cutting down the trees as part of a scheme to make the area more attractive.

He also observed contractors putting up railings on the prom opposite Marine Gardens, West Parade, to stop young skateboarders (who smashed up the concrete bollards) flying into the road.

Sentinel had great pleasure in attending a charity talk by the dreadfully-injured Falklands War veteran Simon Weston at the Dome cinema.

It was a brutally honest speech, with typical barrack room humour, featuring bodily functions quite prominently alongside a healthy disdain for officers.

The former Welsh Guardsman, who was paid a pint of lager for his services, stayed the night at Gifford House in Boundary Road but was up at dawn to race back to South Wales so he could see his children off to school.

Before the speech, the audience enthusiastically applauded a detachment from the Durrington Sea Scouts who raised more than £3,800 for Gifford House during a sponsored Brighton-Worthing walk.

Tom Wye, who organised the evening, said we heard so much about the teenage scumbags terrorising the Durrington area that this often overshadowed the fact the majority of youngsters, typified by the Scouts, were a first-class bunch.

And the yobs, who will ultimately achieve nothing in life, are not even fit to lick the undersoles of their polished boots.

Worthing's caf culture has come on leaps and bounds in recent years so it was with interest that Sentinel was informed Costa in Montague Place has been undergoing a refit, put at £330,000 by some speculators.

While Sentinel has no idea whether the figure quoted is accurate, he is certainly aware that the cost of a cuppa at Costa is substantially more than at local cafs, sometimes in the region of 30 per cent.

The question is, why?

Sentinel was very sorry to hear of the death of Goring councillor David Marchant, a softly-spoken, articulate man who served the town well during his short tenure.

Worthing is all the poorer for his loss and Sentinel's condolences go to his family.

Sentinel was intrigued by the comments of West Sussex County councillor Tex Pemberton when he visited Worthing to view the town's rapidly diminishing red brick paving, so popular in Victorian health resorts elsewhere in the country.

If cost and maintenance are such a problem, why did the county council lay so many red bricks in Liverpool Road and Montague Place just a few short years ago?

Black Tarmac may be cheap Councillor Pemberton, but it is also looks dreadful and further lowers the appeal of this fine old town of ours.

Not that West Sussex County Council gives two hoots about Worthing!

With yet another card shop opening in Warwick Street and another in Montague Street, Sentinel wonders how Worthing's population can sustain so many outlets selling the same product.

Sentinel took time out last week to read a paper in the sunken garden in Steyne Gardens and his attention was drawn to a plaque dated 1980, which heralded the opening of a scented garden for the blind, paid for by the three Rotary clubs of Worthing to mark the 75th anniversary of Rotary International.

Sadly, the garden has fallen into a state of bland mediocrity and Sentinel was wondering whether Rotary could revisit the site with a view to an overhaul.

Many people fear the money being raised in taxes for the National Health Service is likely to disappear into a black hole with little discernable improvement in treatment.

As if to illustrate the point, Worthing's health managers not so long ago spent thousands of pounds on smoking shelters, similar to bus shelters, where nicotine addicts, many of them patients, could puff away to their hearts' demise.

Sentinel now learns smoking is to be banned, which suggests that the shelters were a total and utter waste of our hard-earned money which could have been put to a much better use.

Sentinel was fascinated to read that in the early years of the 19th Century, the construction of seven tall houses side by side in Montague Place caused a sensation.

Apparently, hordes of peasants came in from surrounding villages on Sunday afternoons to stare with curiosity and awe at the "astonishing" architectural feat.

How times change - a point highlighted by the fact that Marine Place was then known as Copping's Row, a favourite holiday abode of the fashionable elite, who arrived in coaches pulled by four horses, depositing ladies who "coquettishly" sipped tea while standing on the steps.

Today, Marine Place is renowned as the site of the Worthing Churches Homeless Projects' day centre, where those on the lower rungs of society enjoy hearty free breakfasts which would put most cafes to shame.

A few weeks ago, Sentinel pondered the probability that High Salvington windmill, with its grandstand view of the English Channel, must have witnessed many thrilling maritime incidents over the centuries, from ships being wrecked in storms to sea battles with the French.

Sadly, in the days before local newspapers, the majority of incidents went unrecorded by human hand and many pages of history will remain blank until the end of time.

But Sentinel can relay the details of one encounter during the Napoleonic Wars which happened on the morning of August 26, 1805, and was thankfully written down, to the eternal delight of posterity.

With Old Boney expected to invade at any moment, there was much agitation along the Channel coast and nerves were frayed.

So there was great excitement in Worthing when a Revenue cutter apprehended a French privateer off the town.

According to contemporary accounts, the privateer had been lurking close inshore during the night and, early in the morning, captured a small sloop laden with sugar and tea.

The alarm was sounded and the Revenue cutter, commanded by Captain Remus, set off in pursuit.

After an hour, the sloop was recaptured and sent into Shoreham Harbour, this time with an English prize crew on board.

The cutter then went after the privateer, which she overhauled after three hours' hard sailing. A few well-placed cannon shots persuaded the Frenchies to haul down their colours and the privateer was taken as a prize into Littlehampton.