When I got into the car the other morning to take my kid to school, the radio defaulted to BBC 6 Music and I immediately heard something I recognised. It was ‘Treasure’ by HotWax and once the song finished, Lauren Laverne was gushing about them being the ones to watch out for in 2023. At this point, I had already interviewed the band for Get Hastings but even in that short period, their potential had grown so much.

“Why!? What’s he done?” Louisa, the landlady of the Tower pub asks when I mention that we’d like to take some photos to go with my interview of James Endeacott, the subject I had left sitting on a sofa in front of a pictorial shrine to the Arsenal football team.

An interview with street photographer JJ Waller.

Anyone who knows me will know that I’m very much an advocate of gender equality: I’ve written children’s books about it, created animations and made t-shirts and I’m not shy to shout about my feminist agenda and how much inequality angers me. So when a member of the Get Hastings team suggested that we do a feature on Hastings United Girls Under 12s, I jumped at the chance.

Approaching Doon Mackichan’s doorstep, busy with its flower-filled plant pots, I am brandishing a bunch of roses and a packet of Dead Fly biscuits (AKA Garibaldi). From the doorstep, I hear her on the phone, to her agent as it turns out – how showbiz! She opens the door and I’m greeted by two large, very friendly grins: one from Doon, and the other from her elegant Staffordshire bull terrier, Stella, who wants to show me her ball.

In 2012, we decided to move to Hastings. Although I had never been, I had read and heard great things. It sounded right up my street and so we thought we’d give it a go. Before our move we had excitedly perused the internet, finding out as much as we could about what was going to be our new home and the thing that got me the most excited was not Pirate Day (although I was pretty chuffed about that), nor was it Jack in the Green. It was in fact Crazy Golf