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Andrew Kay, Lancashire lad, on why he finds Sussex so exciting

It is 33 years since I first moved south. I grew up in the heart of industrial Lancashire. It was a small, industrial town that specialised in making glass and it was indeed world-famous for just that. That and being the home of Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and wit.

I never disliked St Helens, how could I? All I had to compare it with was Wigan and Widnes and any number of equally drab, northern, working towns which, at the start of the 1960s were looking pretty grimy and unloved. I know now that they have all been re-invented with canal side developments and warehouse conversions – all very chic. Back then it was all back-to-backs and outside lavvies, black puddings and barm cakes. Bread came by horse and cart, as did coal, milk, fizzy pop and the rag and bone man.

"All I had to compare my town with was Wigan and Widnes – drab, northern, working towns."

Eee, it were grim up North. It had to be – it said so in books and on the telly, how could it be anything else? Which is why when I made my first trip to the real south, to the smoke, I was so, so disappointed. I was 17 years old and had an interview at the very prestigious Chelsea School of Art. Note that it was ‘school’ and not ‘college’ or ‘university’ or, dare I say it, ‘polytechnic’. No, we were all very proud of the fact that Chelsea was a school.

I took a coach with two school chums and we set off south, almost, but not quite, carrying sticks with spotted handkerchiefs tied on the ends. The M6 and M1 are dreary roads, but back then they were fast, and pretty soon we arrived on the outskirts of London. What followed was to haunt me for years.

From the edge of greater London to its heart is one vast and incomprehensibly ugly urban and suburban sprawl – utterly vile and deeply depressing. I had grown up in the belief that where I lived was all dark satanic mills and Coronation Street-like cobbled terraces. I had been deceived. This was far, far worse.

Yes, where I lived, the town centre was soot-black and industrial, but two miles out, our modest council house sat beside a pretty lake, between two working farms. Along the road were the sandstone walls that snaked around the boundaries of Lord Derby’s estates, and not so far away we had The Dales, the Trough of Bowland, The Lake District, Snowdonia and miles of sand that ran almost from Liverpool’s Pierhead to Blackpool and beyond. For respite from all this we would be dragged off to the ‘Lakes’ for camping holidays and later to South Wales. How deprived were we.

London was not the land of milk and honey I had been promised. Okay, I concede, it does have some lovely parks, some pretty green bits, and I did grow to love the excitement and the danger. Although I also hated the fact that my clothes were permanently filthy and blowing your nose was a very unpleasant experience.

I was 31 when I escaped and I came here to Sussex, landing as so many exiles do in Brighton. It didn’t take long for me to discover that Brighton, like St Helens, was a tiny place on the edge of some of this country’s most beautiful landscapes. Before long I was as familiar with the winding lanes of Sussex as I had been with those of my childhood. I learned that Lewes was great for beer and Morris dancing, the latter of which I resolved to ignore. Worthing was great for buting fish, Firle had the best farm shop even back then, and Chichester, a lovely cathedral. I discovered Bloomsbury Sussex, farm and church, long rope skipping and near-pagan bonfire rituals that had me cowering in shop doorways. I did grow to love the excitement and the danger, but now it was from bee stings, real ale-induced headaches and the chance of drunkenly saying, "Of course I would love to join your Morris team".

Letting isn’t easy

Back in the days when I used to invest in property – when I had enough money to indulge in such pastimes – I was an avid reader of supplements and articles relating to investment in bricks and mortar.

Increasingly – and, as more and more people became investors – a surfeit of investment, design and décor magazines and supplements appeared. I have managed to steer away from such literature for the past year or so, preferring to re-read favourite books like The Magus, which is much more fun than reading about someone in Norwich’s vast portfolio, or how an elderly couple from Humberside converted a barn in Tuscany using their own surplus facial hair, on a budget of £5.

The only newspaper I buy nowadays is The Guardian on Saturday, if only to get rather annoyed by the smugness of it all, and also to be petrified by the thought that I could be turning into a typical Guardian reader. In spite of its wholesome parts, the Saturday tome regularly recommends expensive restaurants, clothing and furniture in a rather The Daily Mail in The Guardian’s clothing type of way. So I was therefore quite alarmed to read the recent backlash against buy-to-let landlords in the Money section. Talk about biting the hand that feeds it.

"A great deal of time was spent taking calls from tenants at 5am because the loo seat wobbled"

I was an early buy-to-let investor and a great deal of my time over the past ten years has been spent plumbing, painting, financing, re-financing and taking calls from distraught tenants at 5am because the loo seat was wobbling.

I have now sold all bar three of my flats. Of these, two are let on a long lease at a much reduced rate to a housing charity which supports vulnerable people. Since I have been a landlady, I have always purchased Christmas gifts for all my tenants and attended meetings with freeholders and cared for the buildings where my flats are situated.

BTL has certainly created competition between landlords. Frankly, who would want to go back to the cruddy lets and dodgy landlords of ten years ago? But, I agree that a proportion of new BTL investors are only interested in the money.

On the subject of money, it annoys me when people who should know better bleat on about ‘tax breaks’ for BTL landlords. Yes, landlords get tax relief on running costs, but they also pay tax on profits on an annual basis. And that’s without including the dreaded capital gains tax. When I sold five flats to pay off my ex-husband, roughly 30 per cent of the money went to the Inland Revenue as CGT. The other 70 per cent went to my ex-husband, who then bought another house with it. So the amount of money that I earned after eight years of hard work was precisely zero.

But there’s always a bright side. Because of BTL, I almost own an exceptional house, which, because of selling another BTL property recently, I can afford to a) renovate for the first time in ten years and b) live in without lodgers for the first time in six years.

Because of BTL, after I’ve paid the tax man, I shall have enough left over to buy a few nice things for the kids and I. Which is just as well going by the style recommendations in the Saturday Guardian magazine, because you need to be a property tycoon to afford them.

Katie says that texts with the ex is worse than sex with the ex, especially if that’s all that’s on offer

It’s 1.26am when the text message from my ex arrives. You know, the ex. The ex I was with for four years. I dumped him, he ran off to a cider festival, met a girl, married her two weeks later, broke my heart and now thinks we can just be friends. That ex.

"Fancy a game of friz?", the message asks, as if none of the above had ever happened. I could kill him. I try not to notice my heart leap, my stomach clench or that my lips break into an involuntary grin. Instead I remind myself of the party line on this particular ex: that I hate him. That he ruined my life, my bank balance and possibly my liver. And that when he gets in touch with me I am cross about it.

You must remember to be cross, I tell myself, fumbling around in the darkness for a cigarette and a Sinead O’Connor single. Perhaps, I think, climbing out the window and sparking up one of the Camel Lights I had hidden under my mattress (I’m trying to give up), that I am still in love with him. Either that, or I’m just not getting laid enough.

I look at the message for a good ten minutes. I read it backward, in search of cryptic clues – like a Metallica single.

"Zirf fo emag a ycnaf," it says. Now I do feel cross.

"The only time he came to the ballet, he got drunk and started a football chant from the balcony"

Eventually, when I have decided it will yield nothing more, I tiptoe across the corridor and into my flatmate’s bedroom. Simon is sitting, playing guitar on his bed. I show him the text message and he looks back at me wearily.

"Do you think it means he still loves me?", I ask, throwing myself dramatically onto the bed. "No" Simon replies, pulling his guitar slowly to safety, "I think it means he wants to play frisbee"

I discuss potential replies with Simon, or at Simon. All of them sound too needy, too bitchy, too friendly, too unfriendly or just too pathetic. I try for neutral. But "I’m busy right now" just doesn’t seem to cut the mustard when you’re dealing with the ultimate pain and solitude of losing the only man you’ve ever loved.

I walk back to my room thinking about what to write. By now half an hour has elapsed since the original message arrived. This will only look worse, I think, in panic. I sit on my bed and toy with the options. I considered ‘loving’, ‘small talk’, ‘flirty’ and ‘normal’. But finally, I decide to go for ‘bitter’.

"Polite notice," my text reads, "please delete my number from your phone as I have deleted yours from mine". I refrain from adding, "because I have your number memorised"

Beedibeepbeepbeep, a text pings back almost immediately. "That’s not very polite. Are you sure?"

Am I sure? Am I sure? I can’t believe he’s treating me like an indecisive five-year-old. Of course I’m not sure. I’ve never been more unsure of anything in my life. And then suddenly, here in the middle of the night, I have a revelation. An epiphany. And it’s about to change the whole course of my life: I hate frisbee. And I have always hated frisbee. I spent four years flinging myself hopelessly towards a flying disc, only to land in the mud beneath it. And I hated every minute of it. In fact, come to think of it, I hated most of the other things me and The Ex did together too.

I hated the pubs, the lounging around getting stoned all day, the working as a waitress, the waiting for him to come home from the pub. I hated his friends, his collection of 2000AD comics, his obsession with pinball. I hated the fact he always thought we’d move back to where we grew up – ideally next door to his parents.

I hated Lynyrd Skynyrd, the days out in Weston-Super-Mare, the polyester football shorts, the bad haircut, the bagatelle, the shoe boxes full of memorabilia, the stupid, dusty, little plastic toys he’d insist on keeping around the house. And I hated the drinking, the drinking, the relentless drinking.

I hated the sci-fi, the crime fiction, the obsession with Walter Mosley. I hated the fact he’d moan when I bought new clothes and that he never had the money, the time or the enthusiasm for any of my interests. I hated the fact that the only time he came to the ballet, he got so drunk that he started a football chant from the balcony. I never loved this bloody man – I just fancied the pants off him. And now he’s married, the only thing we ever had in common is out of bounds.

I realise, just as Sinead reaches the final chorus, that I only ever wanted one thing from H, and it wasn’t bloody frisbee. Overcome, I grab my phone, my thumb moving like lightning and tell him what I should have told him months ago. I finish my text and look down at it, triumphant: "Call me when you’re divorced".

Comments, queries and general chitchat can be sent to: katie@thelatest.co.uk

Celebsussex with Jo Brooks: Who are the biggest names living in Sussex? We find out where the stars live

Welcome to the shiny, new celebrity column for the whole of Sussex. Now you can read all about of your famous neighbours in Celeb Sussex. Let’s face it, we all like to know what’s been going on in the lives of the rich and famous and this column’s aim is to keep you right up to date.

If you spot a famous face walking up Horsham High Street, pushing a trolley around Waitrose in Burgess Hill, or looking for bargains in T K Maxx, Worthing, then I want to know about it.

If you run a business and have a good story connected to a celebrity, then I also want to hear from you! Get your business mentioned and email me at: info@jb-pr.com. Don’t forget to take a picture! To get things started, this month let’s take a look at my current top ten Sussex-based celebs.

1. Jack Dee, comedian

The straight-faced funnyman and one-time winner of Celebrity Big Brother lives near Chichester with his wife, Jane, and four children. Locals in the area report that they are yet to see him crack a smile.

2. Heather Mills, charity campaigner

The ex-missus of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. Over the last year Hovebased Heather has been in and out of the papers more times than a former Big Brother contestant falls in and out of limos outside nightclubs! With her high-profile divorce case, tireless campaigning for animal rights charity PETA, and recent appearance on hit American show Dancing With The Stars, this Sussex sexpot’s life is anything but boring!

3. Bryan Ferry, singer

Not a lot of people know this, but the Roxy Music frontman now lives in Sussex with his girlfriend Katie. Another little-known fact is that Ferry’s father was called Fred and was a farmer who also used to look after pit ponies.

4. Chris Evans, broadcaster

The ginger millionaire recently married part-time model Natasha Shishmanian, and I’m pleased to report the pair have since built a lovely love nest in mid-Sussex.

5. Holly Willoughby, TV presenter

Fresh-faced Miss Willoughby, who was born and raised in Brighton, also recently tied the knot with producer Dan Baldwin, who she met while working as a presenter on kids show Ministry Of Mayhem. The ceremony took place at Amberley Castle in beautiful West Sussex.

6. Norman Cook, DJ

Brighton’s very own superstar DJ – better known as Fatboy Slim – lives on Hove seafront with wife, Zoe Ball, surrounded by celebrity neighbours. His young son isn’t a celebrity yet, but chances are, that with a name like Woody Cook, he will be one day!

7. Natasha Kaplinksy, broadcaster

Thinking man’s crumpet Natasha lives in the wilds of mid-Sussex with her investment banker husband Justin Bower, just a short commute from her job reading the Six O’Clock News each night. Interesting fact: she was actually brought up in rural Barcombe and, at the age of 16, attended Varndean College in Brighton.

8. Nick Cave, musician

Aussie singer and rock god Nick Cave leads the group Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, with a wild reputation that has garnered him legions of fans worldwide. He has recently swapped the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for a peaceful existence in coastal Rottingdean.

10. Greta Scacchi, actress

The star of hit film White Mischief now lives near Ditchling.

It looks like more celebs could be hitting a high street near you soon, as rumours surround certain A-listers looking to buy places in Sussex at the moment. The hot one at the moment is Robbie Williams – has he or hasn’t he got a place in Crowborough? Let me know if he is your neighbour! Also actor Jude Law, most famous for his roles in The Talented Mr Ripley and Alfie, has been spotted several times around Lewes, looking for property. I will keep you posted on that one as the story unfolds.

Until next time, keep spotting and don’t forget to send any celeb sightings in to info@jb-pr.com