End of the Pier

Now Palace Pier is 'Brighton Pier'
And they try to pretend you were never here
Oh West Pier, West Pier, why did you have to go,
With your penny slot arcade museum and variety theatre shows?
And a front with two, looks so much better than one
On a postcard décolletage of Brighton in the sun
It was a dirty weekend when you were set alight
Though the owners of Palace Pier had an alibi that early light
Palace Pier could have stayed flash and scream, you could have been sedate
Tea dances, flicks, vaudeville, nostalgic tribute to the greats
Upmarket visitors would have loved you, as would Derbys courting Joans
And those of us with noise fatigue who also like to leave our homes.
There was room in this town for more than one jewel in the crown
More than one kind of night out, rare excuse to buy an evening gown
Now you're an eerie iron skeleton cast out to sea on bow-legged stilts
And Brighton, though right-on, lacks the money and wrought iron skills
To resurrect your compliment, not competition, to your former-sister pier
Oh West Pier, why did you go west? Wish you were here…

© LS King 2007









* My Brighton grandmother took me to West Pier as a nipper, just before it was closed and condemned. It was a magical place, even more charismatic than Palace (now Brighton) Pier. Now I hear that a 'Brighton Eye' is proposed for the seafront, even larger than the London Eye and shudder at the thought. Mind you it might not look so bad at the end of a newly re-created Victorian pier, the nature of which is to incorporate the odd new amusement as time goes by.

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