Bank Holiday of (mostly) well-intended recreation

Viewers watching BBC South East were given an extended look at Bexhill as the channel's Deckchair Tour paid a pre-Bank Holiday visit.

The town, and in particular the De La Warr Pavilion, looked good. It was invaluable publicity. Viewers were offered every inducement to pay us a visit themselves.

It was also a curtain-raiser to a weekend of contrasts '“ plenty to see and do but precious little sunshine or warmth in which to relax; lots of people enjoying themselves but a minority element making trouble for the sake of it.

Organisations, from Little Common Flower Club with its recycling-themed festival to Bexhill 100 Motoring Club which managed to draw more than 300 interesting entries to a wet and windy Polegrove, played their part. Rother paid homage to the Olympic spirit with its symbolic flag hand-over ceremony at an equally wind-swept Colonnade.

The De La Warr Pavilion hosted a range of Bank Holiday attractions from live bands to circus skills.

It was all in good, innocent, Bank Holiday tradition '“ even the British propensity to shrug off the effects of the weather.

But behind the scenes lurked wrong-doers with too much time on their hands and too little intellect to know how to employ it usefully. The result was a sickening succession of car crime, petty theft and mindless vandalism.

The old saying that bad weather is the best policeman did not hold true. The morons and the mean-spirited seemed to have been as impervious to the weather as the fun-seekers.

Their actions left a sour after-taste to a weekend which in other respects and with the notable exception of the weather had seen Bexhill at its best.

Sadly, the mini-crime wave during a weekend when police resources were focussed on far more serious matters at Hastings reversed a trend which had seen local crime figures falling.

Let us hope it was only a momentary blip and that the abiding image of the town will be of its many positive qualities.