I made a comment in last week’s ‘My Lewes’ interview about some newcomers to town showing inhospitable behaviour. After this my mind turned to what being a long-term resident anywhere meant. One has no choice where one is born. Immediately things start changing around you, things over which you have no control as a minor. The Phoenix Ironworks was shut down in the 70’s. A bypass was built. County Hall was built. Sussex University was built. Kingston was enlarged. Lewes changed, gentrified, civilized, prettified, smelt better and showed off its assets to much advantage. Lewes Festival in the mid 90’s, the run of Sculpture Exhibitions, a burgeoning series of new cultural events including Lewes Live Literature, Guitar Festivals, and Artwave provided good reasons for people to visit Lewes.

When a person or family chooses a town to live in it is different to being born there. The place is chosen for convenience, beauty, history and culture. A product is bought. One could imagine being upset if what you bought changes, one might even complain about that. Lewes is now predominately middle class, the class that knows the systems, knows how to complain. I do not charge every newcomer with this, our present Mayor, Merlin Milner is an exemplar of adaptive positive contribution. But I hold that some complainants may be what they would be horrified to consider, a microcosm of a fractal of globalisation, wearing the town like a designer label, terrified that what they bought into may change beyond the scope of the consumer act. Paul Myles