VANORA LEIGH

IRECKON I live in one of the nicest little roads in Brighton - quiet, yet very near shops, good schools, pleasant parks and bus routes. Unfortunately, the area is also a magnet for kerb crawlers.

Until I started commuting to London and arriving back in Brighton mid-evening, I never realised what a problem it had become.

Now, as I walk home, I'm aware of vehicles with softly purring engines and dipped headlights accompanying me at about 3mph down some poorly-lit street.

Iknow only too well what brings them here, what they're looking for, what they want and what they need. A Parking place.

Desirable though my urban plot may be, there's one thing it lacks - a garage.

My neighbours, not just in my road but throughout the area, are similarly lacking and as most possess at least one, sometimes two or even three cars, parking spaces are at a premium.

Consequently my road and its fellows look as if they've been annexed by NCP, with special privileges for double parkers. And boy, can this wreck the tranquillity of our suburban paradise.

Parking is a very emotive issue. An Englishman's castle, let it be known, doesn't start at his front gate but in the road directly outside his house.

In law, of course, it doesn't and it's just tough luck if you return home to find a tinker's truck (and tinker) parked outside Chez Nous.

But emotionally this has nothing to do with the law - it's a territorial issue.

It's about an Englishman's right to park his nearest and dearest in a place where his wife can keep an eye on it from the living room window when he's down at the pub.

Neighbours of mine, with two cars plus a motorbike, once received anonymous threatening notes (yes, very Agatha Christie-ish with the letters forming the words cut out from newspapers) warning them of the dire consequences if they continued to park outside houses other than their own.

The police were called and, well, that's another story. But it proves what formidable passions are unleashed by a spot of promiscuous parking.

Personally, I don't care who parks in front of my house, though for appearance's sake I have to admit I prefer a T-registration Saab to a scruffy transit van.

The reason for my indifference is the fact that I don't have a car. That's right - I do not own or drive a car.

How do I manage? Very well, actually. I take the train to London every day (now come on, would you drive?) and at weekends I walk the mile or so from my house to the centre of Brighton.

Sometimes I jump on a bus at the end of my road and occasionally, after a big shop, I catch a cab home.

Most importantly, I have friends with cars who grumble about being taken advantage of, "....it's not my bodywork, it's the car's you're interested in...." sort of thing. Offering petrol money usually shuts them up.

Praising their driving skills "....gosh, aren't you clever parking something so big in such a small space ...." is also to be recommended, especially when it's deserved, as it invariably is when trying to find an unoccupied piece of tarmac outside my own home.

You know, it's not more homes this country needs, is it? It's garages...at least in Brighton.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.