Evils of drink in Church Street

Drawing by David Sawyers, North Laine resident

Extract from 'Brighton As It Is', 1836

By Jackie Fuller, North Laine resident

This is what was written about Church Street in 'Brighton As It Is' (Wallis's Royal Edition, 1836):

"Go along there any night and you will see hideous old women, drunken old men, young men and sometimes mere boys, hopelessly intoxicated, reeling and staggering in the road. There is also of course the usual amount of cursing and blasphemy, which is sometimes varied by an occasional fight which terminates in the ordinary manner with broken heads and black eyes."

[Previously published in the North Laine Runner, No 53, January/February 1985; and reprinted in No 201, November/December 2009]