Five things to do in Crowborough

For the first time in almost a century, when Arthur Conan Doyle was buried in a Turkish carpet in his garden, my hometown of Crowborough is in the news.

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For those fortunate never to have been, Crowborough is a small place in the Weald of about 20,000 souls. The cadet training camp, where my school pals and I endured a week of army exercises and tinned rations, has been turned into a migrant hostel for more than 500 asylum seekers, sparking a furious reaction from the local residents. I have much sympathy with them – but also for the young men who have been sent to live there.

Kim Bailey, leader of the protest group Crowborough Shield, calls the decision to house migrants in the town ‘disgusting’ and a ‘disgrace’. ‘There is nothing to do in Crowborough,’ she adds. ‘They will have to make their own entertainment.’ It is good to know nothing has changed.

We lived in a large Edwardian house on the top of the Beacon in the 1970s. It is about 800ft above sea level, and the second highest point in East Sussex. It was my father’s proud boast that my brother and I slept in the highest bedrooms in the county. It rained most of the time, and when the rain stopped, the clouds remained. The town is between Tunbridge Wells in Kent and Ashdown Forest in East Sussex. You could travel from both of those places in sunshine and by the time you climbed the hill to home, it was either raining or foggy.

It is hard to convey what a miserable place Crowborough was in the 1970s. Neither urban nor rural, there was nothing of, say, Laurie Lee’s glorious Gloucestershire landscape and life, nor was there much in the way of recreation. It is heartening to be told that there is still little to do, although at least the town is now more populous, so there are more people hanging around on street corners.

Before we got there the town had been popular with retiring colonials. Graham Greene, after a visit to his friend the disgraced spy Kim Philby, who had taken refuge at his mother’s house, dubbed it ‘the poor man’s Surrey’. House prices were half that of Guildford or Reigate, so he had a point, but there were some glorious large properties in the Warren with gardens full of croquet lawns and rhododendrons. There was a decent golf course with sloping fairways, a tennis club with squash courts, and not much else. About the most exciting thing that had ever happened there was when Doyle was buried in a Turkish rug in his garden at Windlesham Manor, but that was in 1930. The Talking Heads would have found it heaven, because nothing ever happened.

To help the poor young men who have been driven under cover of darkness to the cadet camp, and thus depriving the poor local army cadets of their training ground, I’d like to offer a few suggestions of how they might best spend their days in Crowborough.

First, check out the local pubs. In 1977, the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks, we used to drink in the Blue Anchor, which was the closest pub to us, just a short walk along the Beacon Road. I was only 15, but there was no nonsense about asking our ages – a bit like the young migrants themselves. Indeed there was a pub closer to the army camp called the Harvest Moon, where we used to drink at 14. A pound note would get you a pint of beer, a sausage roll and ten John Player cigarettes. Nowadays a pound coin just about gets you the loan of a shopping trolley. Of course many of the young men may not be drinkers, for health or religious reasons, so this outlet may be closed to them. Or the Labour government may have forced the pubs out of business. However, there are other diversions.

It is heartening to be told that there is still little to do, although at least the town is now more populous, so there are more people hanging around on street corners

For instance, shoplifting at Waitrose. It was one of the most exciting days in Crowborough’s history when Waitrose came to town, a clear sign of gentrification, and one in the eye for Rotherfield or Battle. I was not a great shoplifter, but I had friends who regularly made off with cans of cider and jars of pickled onions and scotch eggs. This was considered very daring in those days, though I understand now that it is de rigueur to walk out of supermarkets without first paying for the goods, which will perhaps lessen some of the excitement.

Three, walk to Ashdown Forest and look for Winnie-the-Pooh. I am not sure if the young men will be familiar with the furry bear and his friends who lived in the forest, but I vividly recall the day my parents took me in our Ford Granada to hunt for Winnie, Piglet and Eeyore. We parked under a large pine tree and walked along a heather-strewn path. I ran ahead shouting: ‘Winnie, where are you?’ After a while my parents tired of this game, and instructed me to go back to the car. ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘We haven’t seen Winnie yet.’ They gave me an old-fashioned look, and told me to stop complaining.

Four. The only takeaway restaurant was a Chinese beside the paper shop. When we had some money we would go there and order spring rolls. The owner would say ‘spling lolls’, and we would howl with laughter and say no, spring rolls. He and his family were probably the only foreigners we had ever seen. How fortunate the young people of Crowborough will be to have these newcomers to assimilate with.

Five. Go somewhere else. What summed up Crowborough for me perfectly in those days was the fact that there were bus stops at the bottom of the hill, but none on the top where we lived. You were forced either to get off early and walk up in the rain, or plead with the bus driver to stop as you sailed past the house – something he never did, because in those days it was one of the perks to be able to piss off the passengers – and then walk back up the hill in the rain. But the good news is there are buses either to Brighton or Tunbridge Wells, and a stop just outside their camp.

Back in the day people used to go to Tunbridge Wells to take the waters at the Pantiles, although I’m told the town no longer has anything as mundane as water in its taps. I suggest the best entertainment for the young asylum seekers is to catch the bus to Brighton, where they will be sure to find a congenial welcome from the loafers, cadgers and multiculturalists who call it home, and no doubt entertained on the pebbled beach until it’s time to return to their congenial lodgings in the clouds.