This grand hotel harks back to an era of quirky seaside glamour

• I have a photograph of me aged six on the beach at Eastbourne, with the town’s iconic Grade II-listed pier in the background. I’m wearing my favourite towelling robe. It’s white and covered in a pattern of black seahorses. I’m beaming, because I’m on holiday with my mum and dad, and I’m clearly on a sugar high from whatever I’d demanded in lieu of lunch. We were probably planning to go and fly my kite on Beachy Head later that afternoon.