In My View – Danielle Dunfield

By Danielle Dunfield, CEO of The Great Sussex Way and Chichester BID Board Member

“I have three teenage sons, which can be quite daunting as I stare down the barrel of a long summer holiday. It’s a lot of food, washing powder and shoving off the sofa into the real world.  Trying to find something that inspires them can be thankless; their monotone responses making Andy Murray, in comparison, sound positively delighted.

This week, however, we struck gold with Chichester Cinema at New Park. The boys caught the number 60 Stagecoach bus for £2 each from Midhurst to Chichester, then walked to the cinema to watch a film talk called ‘Journey to the Stars’.  It was all about Wes Anderson’s cinematic universe from ‘Bottle Rocket’ to the new release ‘Asteroid City’.  Do you know what we did then?  We had a good old fashioned conversation.

The online life of teenagers can become very complicated and remote, as can frankly ours.  We can be so connected and isolated all at the same time.  All the more reason to go back to basics and enjoy life’s real pleasures, cake. After buying a boardgame at Comics Games and Coffee we went to a garden table at the back of Serendipitous Bakery on St Pancras.  That bakery is sublime.  You must go, particularly if you have hungry teenagers.

The boys then wandered off to the canal to hire a row boat and I did some High Street shopping.  When we met up, the iphone inevitably came out, but instead of texting who knows who about who knows what, they started filming each other walking along the Roman Walls. Admittedly it wasn’t footage worthy of Wes Anderson but there was fun and laughter and a very jolly bus ride home. It was easily the best day of the holidays, and not just because it was day 1.”