Piers Of The Realm

Bestselling crime writer Peter James talks us through his gastronomic adventures and keeps us abreast of everything relating to his fictional detective, Roy Grace.

- Peter James

BRIGHTON’S piers played a big role in my childhood, growing up in the city – or the co-joined towns of Brighton and Hove, as they were then. I spent many happy days fishing on the grid at the end of the Palace Pier. I would travel by bus, with a rod, a spade, a bucket and a pocket full of coins given to me by my dad for bait. But instead of buying it, I would dig up lugworms in the mudflats at low tide, then spend the coins on the slot machines. My favourite was the execution of Mary Antoinette. I endlessly watched the guillotine blade, and her head rolling into the basket beneath. It’s a fate I’ve liked to imagine happening to anyone who irks me ever since!

I always preferred the Palace Pier, but there was one attraction on the West Pier that intrigued me, an escapologist, The Great Omani. He would pour a gallon of petrol into the sea below, drop a lighted torch into it, then tie himself up in a straitjacket, jump into the flames and – hey presto – untie himself! I would stand and watch him fascinated, wondering what the big deal was about a man who tied himself up, escaping from his own knots. And every time he would yell at me, “Hey kid, you want to watch me? The minimum price is a sixpence!”