A-Z of Worthing celebrates the town in new book

He is in print with A-Z of Worthing (Amberley Publishing, £15.99, available from Amberley’s website plus all the usual online retailers).

“The book is a mostly light-hearted alphabetical selection of stories of people, places and history from the South Coast’s most underrated seaside town,” Kevin said: “It follows on from, but makes no claim to be anywhere near as detailed as, the work of D Robert Elleray’s wonderful Millennium Encyclopaedia of Worthing History. I think it will appeal to people as it hopefully provides something for everyone, whether visitor, Worthingite or anyone worldwide just with a love of Wonderful Worthing.

“I was asked by the publishers (to write the book) following the success of my previous book in the series, A-Z of Brighton, which keeps selling well. I’d previously been a resident of Worthing for nearly ten years and had run a number of walking tours and talks, one of which was called A-Z of Worthing so I already had a lot of resource material. I’d also run a slightly silly alphabetical bingo walking tour of Worthing where those on the tour had to tick off features from A-Z on a bingo-style card as we went around the town.

“This all meant I picked up lots of tales and titbits over the years, some of which made it into the book. I was very fortunate as well to get to know the greatest and most prolific author on Worthing of late, Anthony Edmonds, who has written books on both Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde’s time in the town as well as lost buildings and a collection of postcards so was fortunate to have a friend to have excellent discussions on the town’s past with.

“As a massive bibliophile also I’ve built up a huge Worthing section to my library at home of books, resources, publications and images of the town so it was great to find a use for some of these.

“It was great fun to take the tours and turn them into passages in the book so people can use the book to take themselves on a self-guided tour, especially as I don’t get as much time myself to run the tours these days. At the risk of sounding like a bit of an idiot, I found I chuckled a lot at some of the things I ended up writing, such as the idea for a Back To The Future Day outside Worthing’s town hall or the mild barbs aimed at the great Yoko Ono so hopefully that’s a good sign that others will find the book amusing too.

“The starting point for the book is the premise that people don’t know as much about Worthing as they should – and that they need to love the town too! As I mention in the book, it’s got both a fascinating rivalry of sorts with Brighton and an unusual relationship which needs exploring. It’s also got a wealth of unusual and quirky facts, figures, claims and stories which more people should get the chance to enjoy as befitting what is West Sussex’s biggest town when not overtaken by Crawley. People don’t always realise it boasts around 100,000 people when you add in all the areas that make up Worthing or that it has broken a number of records and has a number of claims to fame. It’s got a number of great features too such as family-run eateries, a great beach, some worthy architecture and the majestic Downs to its north which make it a wonderful place too.

“It’s the second of books I’ve now written in the A-Z series for Amberley. I’m not currently planning any more books on Worthing but working instead on two novels that should appeal to a Doctor Who-style audience. The first one, The Ghost’s Train is about a girl (rom Steyning who can see an old long-demolished railway station nobody else can and the trains on the old Steyning line. The other one is called Victoria, Cross and it’s about a girl not allowed into libraries. You’ll have to wait until its release to find out why . When I get a chance to write the next novel in my Chronophobia series, it does feature Worthing but that’s a few years away.”