• Home
  • Vision
    • Access
    • Brighton and Hove City Downland Estate Plan
    • Chalk grassland
    • Climate
    • Management
    • Food and farming
    • Health and wellbeing
    • Heritage
    • Light
    • Water
  • About
  • Maps
  • Blog
  • Chalk it up!

Chalk it up!

Creative writing about our downland

​


There are many rich historical writings about our Downs but this page is about contemporary voices of all ages and backgrounds from our community that speak of our times.

Over thousands of years our chalk grassland has become a unique landscape, but its fragile and its future hangs in the balance. We’d like to hear from a multitude of voices on its behalf. 

Submissions may take the form of poetry or short pieces of prose or flash fiction. There is no lower or upper age limit. Poems or prose should be no longer than 200 words maximum. You can include an original photo to accompany your writing, but we ask you to verify that it is your own work for copyright purposes. 

Email submissions to chalktalk2021@gmail.com 

Therapy

I pull the cap down over my ears and start walking. The air is cool and fresh on my face, a relief after the stifling fug of disinfectant and sickness of the hospital.

I’m still breathless but I keep going. I struggle with the gate, then I’m through and follow the springy green path, gently downhill.  

I collapse on to the damp grass. This is my ‘go-to’ place. Below me now the rusty, worn remains of the barns and the donkey wheel from times gone by. Sheep move aside for me, munching, and new grass peeps through the tilled earth with its flecks of white and brown. 

I lie back and absorb the warmth of the sun. The trilling of the skylarks and the distant bleating provide the music. 

I’ll be here when the wheat is tall and I can breathe in the scent of freshly cut grass. When butterflies cover this path with their iridescent blue, shimmering in the summer heat. When the men gather these sheep and transform them into skinny white creations. 

These Downs are my therapy and their beauty and life will nurture me through.


Jo Harper March 2021

The Lost Village

Deep in the  Downs  no  sign  is  seen
of  hidden  homes  in  fields  folded;
no  infant  sprawls  upon  the  sward;
no  tolling  bell  tells  of  the  dead,
for  even  death  itself  is  fled
now  ev’ry  soul’s  departed.  Yet,
if  nothing  of  a  nave  remains,
where  once  a  people  knelt  and  prayed,
still  their  stories  trouble  the  brooding  earth,
beneath  these  sky-borne  larks,  rejoicing.

Chris Arthur

Chris has lived in Brighton since 1965 (when he joined the University of Sussex) and has
always loved the Downs.

Balsdean was inhabited until the Second World War, when the population was evacuated and the
buildings were used for artillery practice. These were never rebuilt, and the people never returned. A
slate marks the site of the vanished chapel.
The Downs
By Amaya Daphne Paun                                          
Age 10, from Brighton
 
Chalky white hillsides,
Views of blue sea tides.
Grassy green slopes,
A place of great hopes. 
 
Tall trees young and old, 
Coloured flowers bright and bold.
Plants slowly towering,
Crops gradually flowering.
 
Sheeps and cows,
Munching on leafy boughs.
A range of insects hovering,
Buzzing bees pollinating.
 
Spring flowers rise up,
Summer picnics with reusable cups.
Autumn leaves fall,
This is a winter walk for all.
 
Spring, summer, autumn or winter,
Come here for a daily linger.
Walk around the dusty mounds,
All here at the grassy Downs. 
 
Nature is only a walk away,
It’s in your life every day.
But here is a place where nature will be found,
Our beautiful, wonderful Downs. 

Six Downland Haiku
Colin Gibbs


High above Saltdean 
A butterfly emerges...
Brief lives on old hills

Lepidopterist
Smile mirroring the downland
The first Chalkhill Blue

A darting hawk moth -
Drawn to towering thistles
Over sward jungle

Alive with insects
Fields of flowers on chalk downs...
Small joys on the way

All colours are here
Butterfly kaleidoscope...
Just green from afar

Ancient farmers’ toils
Rich carpets of life remain
Will we protect them?

Picture


​THE THINGS WE MOST VALUE


It’s a sparkling morning
Hear up on the hill
The skylarks are singing
O’er the old rugged mill

The sward is all silvered
And sugared with frost
The things we most value
All come without cost


I wrote this poem recently for my brother whilst walking my dog Monty on our local Beacon Hill LNR. Marc, my brother, I knew was struggling with his senior management job - most of his workforce furloughed or isolating and himself in recovery from Covid-19. I texted the poem to him whilst walking. 

It was one of those crisp frosty mornings - the larks always lift my spirits. The photo (taken on my iPhone 6) is from the bridle path heading south east towards Rottingdean windmill which is just over the horizon.
​

I am a founding member of Friends of Beacon Hill and Co-founder and Trustee of the Beacon Hub Brighton project - a charity with the aim of establishing an Eco-education and Visitor Centre in the abandoned golf pavilion adjacent to the windmill.

Kind Regards and keep up the good work!
Jay Butler
Health Walk on the Chalky South Downs

Every time he went on a Health walk on the Chalky South Downs, Joe would pick up a piece of flint and inspect it. It fascinated him.  This was a relic left by a Neolithic ancestor. He would hold it in his hand and feel the smoothness of the black stone surrounded with white chalk. He would imagine it being used as a sharpening tool or for scraping fur. He would breathe in the air, squint his eyes and imagine himself 6,000 years ago. Part of a tribe of people, possibly a hunter gatherer looking out for bits of flint to make arrow heads. They would make their way up to Whitehawk Hill and look around this wonderful landscape.
Life would have been harder yet simpler. Tess, his wife, would have appreciated his skills. She would have needed him. He would have been useful. Instead of being under her feet. At home, he googled Palaeontology and there was an open university course. He was just about to sign up when Tess said, 

“Make yourself useful and sort out the recycling bin.” 
​

“Yes love,” he replied, as he closed the laptop.     

​


Karen Antoni

Organisations, experts and individuals campaigning for downland ecosystem restoration, community-led food growing and open, free public connection with the public downland of Brighton and Hove.
  • Home
  • Vision
    • Access
    • Brighton and Hove City Downland Estate Plan
    • Chalk grassland
    • Climate
    • Management
    • Food and farming
    • Health and wellbeing
    • Heritage
    • Light
    • Water
  • About
  • Maps
  • Blog
  • Chalk it up!