East Dean

East Dean is one of the most remote of Sussex Downland villages. Or, at least, so they say. Actually, with modern roads and so on nothing in Sussex is terribly remote- and East Dean is in the valley which is overlooked by the race track at Goodwood and just down the road from the College at West Dean- both of which draw in lots and lots of people.   The South Downs are, generally speaking, friendly hills.  They welcome people (unlike the Pennines which barely condescend to notice us.) Or perhaps that's just me. I have loved the Downs since I was a boy and have never managed to get on terms with the Pennines- even though I lived in their shadow for thirty years.

East Dean has a pond and a plain little church and used to have a forge. The forge is now a B&B and that's where we stayed. I don't know if it's the same building in which locally famed blacksmith William Peachey worked- but I don't see why it shouldn't be. More on him in a moment.



The village pond



First afternoon we were there I climbed the hill at the back of the village. This is the view looking down at All Saints church.



And here's the top of the hill with its trig point.



Finally the gravestone of William Peachey, now embedded in the church's outer wall. The text reads

1688 Here lyeth the body of William Peachey of East Dean blacksmith who disecased (sic) February ye AOM DOM

Peachey made swords for the Parliamentary cavalry troop known as the Hambledon Boys- and may also have ridden with them. Some of his blades- with their rustic inscriptions- have survived (or been recorded) and provide insights into English as it was spoken and written in rural West Sussex and East Hampshire in the mid 17th century.  It's nice to see he survived the Civil War by over 20 years.

Paul Daniels RIP

Magicians don't win our hearts- not the way comedians do. Comedians are on our side- most of them- fighting against the powers that be- but magicians set out to shock and fool us- and you don't make friends that way. Magicians cultivate distance. In the past that meant robes or evening dress (the hat from which rabbits were extracted was always the hat of the upper classes- a topper) and  perhaps a foreign name- Chinese or French or Italian. The greatest of them all used a stage name that was an Italianisation of the French name of the greatest magician of the generation before. His real name was Weiss. You all know who I mean.

We love comedians for being like us, for being vulnerable and fallible and put upon. A magician can't afford any of that. The essence of his act is control. Our sympathy is the last thing he needs.

Paul Daniels broke the mould in one way- his name wasn't posh and neither was he- but the distance was still there. His persona was brash and chirpy and didn't invite intimacy; there was a hardness. When Mrs Merton got in her cruel and never to be forgotten dig at Debbie McGee- the second Mrs Daniels- she knew she had the public on her side and would get away with it. Daniels and Debbie were wondered at but never loved. She wouldn't have tried that on with Mrs Eric Morecambe or Mrs Tommy Cooper.

Daniels was the greatest magician of his generation- an illusionist with a conscience who eschewed camera-tricks- a master of close-up presdigitation but also of the big, heart-stopping stunt. He amazed us for a decade and then his star faded and we got our revenge on him by maintaining we'd always thought him a bit naff.  That was very ungracious of us.

No, I didn't love him either. But- put it this way; there were- and are- many comedians I'm fond of whose work I don't always bother to watch (and God save us from the never-ending Morecambe and Wise repeats) but I never if I could help it missed The Paul Daniels Magic Show.