What It’s Like to Be a Young Person in the Oldest Town in the UK

Eastbourne seafront is a familiar sight. A 19th century white pier, shingled beach and a row of hotels along the traditional Victorian boardwalk, it's a near-clone of nearby seaside town Brighton. Only, there's none of the fun or culture – unless you count the fact the seafront here was used as a backdrop for Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, and that it's Eastbourne we have to thank for Toploader.

Strolling along the beach on a sunny day, I found a big eerie empty bandstand playing wartime tunes on tinny speakers. Famously genteel, Eastbourne is a model town for the elderly. According to ONS figures, a large part of the town – Meads – has residents with the highest median age in England Wales, with the average person aged 71.5 years old. It take an hour to an hour-and-a-half to get to Brighton on the bus – a fact people kept reminding me of. They also kept reminding me that nightlife here is shit. This, it seems, is not a particularly fun place to be young.

I took the train down with photographer Imogen Freeland to capture what it's like post-Brexit, pre-election to be one of the few young people living in the UK's oldest town.

I love going to the Downs [hills] and the beach, where I work. Nightlife is the one downfall. I'm not one to get fucked on the beach. There aren't good clubs. We'll just go to Spoons and drink, and then Cameo. It smells like cheesy feet in there. I can't go out on a Saturday because it's £7 entry to Cameo and all the VKs are double price. I just wish there was more enthusiasm and atmosphere here. We'll just go in other people's cars and go to McDonald's. Dating is a real tough one here. You're lucky if you find The One in Eastbourne. There aren't many 18-year-olds around. I don't use Tinder; I just think: 'If it comes, it comes.' Most of my mates will go for people who are slightly older rather than my generation.

I feel like I can talk to old people easily. The amount of people I talk to behind here about politics is crazy. We have a nice debate about it. I'm voting Labour. We need to get the Conservatives out. My granddad sits me down and talks to me about what his generation did as young people. It's very different to us. Lots of the old people enjoy an ice cream when they're walking along the seafront.

I want to see the world eventually, but I want to come back here and have a family. I'm very close with my family.

On a nice day like this I'd rather be inside playing games, to be honest. I think I got into playing my card games because there's not much to do. Everything is aimed at an older generation. When this shop opened up, I jumped on Magic: The Gathering and went straight in head-first. This shop is where I have my hobby. I've made so many friends through it and it's nice to have a place where I can go day and night, because in the evening there's nothing to do. Unless you want to go out and drink, which gets pretty boring. Here, I can be myself: I can chill out, be with friends, have time away from home.

I'm very aware of there not being young people here. Growing up my entire life, you sort of get friends when you're tiny and they're your friends for your entire life. It's quite nice because it means you're in a circle and that's it. There's no one else coming in to interrupt. I don't tend to go out dating either. I've got an other half and that's it. We met through college and that's it. I'll never leave this place.

I am going to vote. I actually didn't know about the election until about two or three weeks ago, when my parents told me, but I've researched it and I've looked up. We don't tend to talk about politics here as young people. You end up having an argument with someone and it's not worth it. I got in an argument with my mum about Brexit. I tend to keep myself to myself and that's it.

I was very easily influenced in Brighton and London by the whole party lifestyle, and I wanted to experience what it's like to be in a peaceful place for college [so I moved here]. You get a kind of wisdom and calmness around older people. They're much more mature and kinder to each other, and they have a completely different way of living because they have so much respect for the environment around them and to each other as well. They teach you maturity and it teaches you to grow up much quicker.

There's no art or music in Eastbourne. There's not much politics, either. I did try to bring it up once in college, and they were like, "Why would you talk about politics?" I don't think there are enough young people in Eastbourne to actually come up and stand up together and create a kind of group or feeling.

I haven't been able to make any young friends. The youngest of my friends is 19, but my friends go up to 45 because all of my friends are from work and they're much older. The young people here are in university, so they've already got their cliques. For some outsider who doesn't really integrate with them to just approach a group of people and be like, "Oh hey, I'm about the same age as you - how about we be friends?" is a bit weird.

I guess, if you want to, you can go out to the clubs in Eastbourne. You're probably really lucky to meet someone on a club night and have a one-night stand. That, or an application like Tinder, maybe. Everyone knows each other in Eastbourne, so most of the time if you're going to go out with someone, there's a very high chance that you already know them.

I can see myself maybe retiring here at a much, much older age. I did come here for complete solitude, and I got that, but one year's enough. Definitely more than enough.

I didn't want to go anywhere too far for my uni, because my parents kind of left me and my brothers a house here while they're abroad in Abu Dhabi for a year. I thought: 'I don't want to be in halls when I've got this house, so I'll go Eastbourne instead.' The sports campus is here, too. It's not fun nightlife, but I've kind of got a girlfriend right now, so I don't do a lot of things that are fun. Usually I actually go out in Brighton if I'm going to have a lad's night out. If I'm going to go out here in Eastbourne I'll probably go to Cameo or Atlantis for a little bit of clubbing. I don't really do much in Eastbourne other than walk past everything on my way to the gym.

There's loads of keen girls out clubbing, and lots of guys and girls just looking to get with someone and not give a crap about it. I am aware of drugs happening, but I personally can't say for myself that I've taken anything. I actually one time got offered cocaine while getting off the bus in Eastbourne; it's definitely not completely dry. But I don't really like it enough to live here. It's quite a nice place to experience, but personally I'd want to live somewhere a bit more exotic.

I didn't have anywhere else to go. That's why I moved here. It was a couple of months ago now. I don't really like it because I don't know anybody here. It's like a mini Brighton, almost, but a lot of old people everywhere. It's like "middle aged" doesn't exist. I know there's one or two nightclubs, but I haven't been to them. If you want to go out, you go to Brighton, don't you? That's where all the nightclubs are – that's where all my friends are. That's where everything happens.

I work in Brighton, I travel there every day on my bike. I want to move back to Brighton, but I need to get a better job. The restaurant I work at doesn't pay enough. They don't understand how expensive Brighton is. The London living-wage is much more than ours is in Brighton. That winds me up a bit, to be honest.

Like I say, I'm the only one of my friends that lives in Eastbourne, and I don't think any of them will ever move here. They're like: "Haha, you live in Eastbourne – you've got, like, an hour-and-a-half bus journey." I'm the poor one of my friends, if you can say that. They've all got nice jobs, live in nice places or live with their parents sort of in and around Brighton. I keep myself to myself, me.

My parents were moving out of London so they said, "Why don't you go to Eastbourne College," where my dad went. It's a private school in the area. Everyone you see is old. Like, everyone. You sort of become immune to it, but then, when I'm in London, I remember people are young.

There's one club – or two, I think – which is quite funny. Everyone goes to that one club for our leavers' ball, and it's tragic. I'm gay, so there's no one here [for me], if that makes sense. There are some gay people here, but they're all middle-aged. I have a boyfriend in London, thank god for that. A few of my friends end up dating the same people like all the time. The dating pool is so small.

Being in Eastbourne has made me more considerate of old people in a weird kind of way. We have to volunteer a lot at school, and we used to go into old people's homes because there's so many. It's chock-a-block. Sometimes, if I'm having coffee, an old person will smile and I'll smile back and, like, have a chat or something. There are a few old people that I've befriended over my four years at school, which is quite nice. I'm going to Edinburgh [for university], so there's hopefully going to be lots of young people there.

Eastbourne's a place for old people. Growing up, it's not so bad, because you're with your age group. But I think when you leave school and you go your separate ways, it shows. Now out of school and being a mum, I'm always with old people rather than with younger. I've dated a few older people, but I'm with someone I went to school with now.

I didn't mind being a teenager here – there are a lot of walks to do, we'd go for barbecues on the beach or up the Downs. Brighton's better to go out clubbing and drinking in for young people in the town. There's not much here, but there are, like, one or two boring clubs in Eastbourne.

I work in a nursery just up the road. I've worked there for eight years now. I can't complain as a mum – you've got nurseries nearby, you've got the seafront, you've got parks, you've got the shopping. When you've been here a long time like me, though, you get quite bored and you'd like to leave and explore somewhere else. I probably won't leave, though.

@hannahrosewens / imogenfreeland.com

UPDATE 23/05/17: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Eastbourne's residents are, on average, the oldest in the UK. It is in fact only one area of the town, Meads, in which residents are the highest median age in England and Wales.

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