23 AUGUST 1986, Page 17

Seaside views

Sir: Apropos Alan Powers's Hastings litho- graph (9 August), readers may be in- terested to hear what G. K. Chesterton thought: I think the people of this town must be the most lazy, the most Philistine, and the most abandonedly degraded of any people in the United Kingdom, for I have actually seen preparations for making a lift up the West Hill. I should not wonder if a lift up to the celestial city for Mr Christian and his family were the next suggestion.

On the other hand on Brighton GKC has this to say:

The best of this place is that it is so steep . . . a town built on hills is a town of surprises, of sudden ascents and disappearances, of mazes and openings into eternity. I feel quite as if I were in Albrecht DUrer . . cities on hills in the background of his pictures.

Chris Parker

5 The Brow, Friston, Sussex