A DULL WEEKEND IN WORTHING?
IN HIS acceptance speech after being named the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year, tennis superstar Andy Murray revealed he had been shown an article in which he was described as “duller than a wet weekend in Worthing”.
As a resident of Worthing for more than 15 years, I can tell Mr Murray, who apparently has never visited, although his wife Kim is from Lewes only 20 miles away, that the town is anything but dull, even on its many wet weekends. Yes, its sizeable elderly population makes it one of God’s Waiting Rooms on the Sussex coast. And, yes, it hosts major bowls tournaments ( including two World Championships) in a park where there’s a unique memorial to homing pigeons that served in the Second World War. But Worthing, a calmer alternative to its overcrowded neighbour Brighton, is very much the place to be.
In fact, two former Sports Personality Of The Year presenters, Des Lynam and John Inverdale, have homes here. And only six months ago, current host Gary Lineker teamed up with 1970s pop group Black Lace to film one of his commercials for Walkers crisps on its seafront, whose previous claim to fame was a scene in the 1987 movie Wish You Were Here, featuring Emily Lloyd cycling along shouting “Up yer b**” during her brilliant portrayal of a young Cynthia Payne.
What’s more, Worthing has a proud history, particularly in the arts. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife – Frankenstein author Mary Shelley – owned several properties in the area including Castle Goring, currently home to Lady Colin Campbell, who recently made an After Andy Murray name- checks the
south coast town in his Sports Personality acceptance speech, a proud local resident sings its praises unforgettable appearance on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity… and apparently intends to devote her fee to repairing her roof.
Oscar Wilde wrote his classic play The Importance Of Being Earnest in an elegant seaview hotel, sadly long ago demolished in favour of a block of flats, and named the lead character Jack Worthing after the town. Wilde’s former hotel is honoured with a blue plaque as is the Ambrose Place home of playwright Harold Pinter, where he wrote The Homecoming. The 1968 film of his earlier play The Birthday Party was also filmed here, as were scenes from The Exorcist and Dance With A Stranger.
Worthing has also had a walkon part in a top- rating TV show. In the penultimate episode of Men Behaving Badly in 1998, Martin Clunes and Neil Morrissey’s characters get hideously drunk, steal a giant ornamental fish from the lido and try to hide it in their seafront hotel room.
Alma Cogan, the pop star whose career spanned the 1950s and 1960s, spent five years of her youth in Worthing where her father ran a shop. She attended art college here, as did Shoreham- born Leo Sayer who referenced local places, including Montague Street, the main shopping centre, in his hit song Moonlighting. Several years ago Sayer thanked the town with a free concert on Steyne Gardens.
Otherwise known as “sunny” or “windy” Worthing, the town may owe its “dull” association to its smartest suburb, Goring- bySea, aka “Boring Goring”. Yet this district was the boyhood home of future rock superstar William Broad, who was reputedly so inspired by being labelled “idle” by a teacher here that he later opted for the stage name Billy Idol. Two streets away, aspiring singer- songwriter Al Stewart often stayed with the grandfather who gave him his first guitar, sparking a career that culminated in his classic 1976 album Year Of The Cat.
People also travel far just to sit in Goring’s Sea Lane Café, which serves up the best hot chocolate on the planet. Veteran DJs David Hamilton and Mike Read are frequent customers, as was the Reverend Ian Paisley, the controversial Northern Irish Unionist politician. During a holiday a decade ago he lunched their daily, sitting with his wife and three bodyguards.
In 1971, Susan Penhaligon, then 22, made her stage debut at the Connaught Theatre as the female lead in Romeo & Juliet – completely naked. She later recalled: “The director decided that in one scene Romeo and I would have no clothes on. It was played in semi- darkness. My gran came all the way from Cornwall and was disappointed she couldn’t see more of Romeo!”
EVERY Boxing Day, for charity, some of the more doughty locals go for a swim in the chilly Channel, a long- standing Worthing tradition, as is the endearing monthly parade of dachshunds known as the Sausage Meet.
Meanwhile, each August since 2008 has seen Worthing Birdman, in which people try to fly off the pier as far as they can above the sea in homemade contraptions. One ended in a legal battle with the council, another saw a TV presenter badly injured.
And you thought the Davis Cup final was exciting. As Murray concluded, comparing him to the town was “unfair on Worthing”.