Today marks the 18th annual Sussex Day. Only introduced in 2007 it aims to promote all that is wonderful about our fabulous county.
In Hilaire Belloc’s 1911 novel “The Four Men: A Farrago” (A Farrago meaning a mixture) he recounts his travels across Sussex from Robertsbridge to South Harting, with three imaginary characters he meets in his local, the Sailor, the Poet and Grizzlebeard. It is effectively a ‘pub crawl on foot’. They never use each others real names, and throughout the novel Hillaire is referred to, by all, as “Myself”. Each day comprises drinking which invariably ends in singing. In one drinking song, in the third verse, they sing:
“From Crowboro’ Top to Ditchling Down, from Hurstpierpoint to Arundel town, The girls are plump and the ale is brown: Which nobody can deny, deny …. If he does he tells a lie!”
Hillaire Belloc lived in various Sussex villages including Slindon and Shipley, and was often referred to as the Poet Laureate of Sussex. He is buried in the Roman Catholic Church in West Grinstead.
