Bexhill may have one of the highest percentages of retired people in the country, but this fascinating town does not deserve its reputation as God-s waiting room. The town was developed by the 7th Earl of Sackville as a seaside resort in the late nineteenth century and gained a reputation for health and longevity, as well as becoming home to around 300 independent schools before the outbreak of the Second World War. It has always been a pioneering place: the birthplace of British motor racing, the first resort to allow mixed bathing, the town where colour television was invented, and the venue for Bob Marley-s first gig in the UK. A wonderful array of fascinating characters, and a fair few true eccentrics, have called Bexhill home, including pioneering motorcycling rector Canon Basil Davies, and a hoax inventor of a death ray. The town has been immortalised in a Goon Show sketch by Spike Milligan, who trained with the army there in the Second World War, and celebrated by native Eddie I
