A new David Bowie was born on a beach near Hastings in the summer of 1980. Bowie was on location filming the video for Ashes To Ashes, the song that would become his second No.1 single, when something happened that, he said, profoundly changed him.
Director David Mallet was filming Bowie as he walked up the beach dressed in the pierrot outfit he wore on the cover of Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), when an old man and his dog walked into shot. The director and crew yelled at the guy, asking him to get out of the way. The man – who probably walked there every day – was unfazed: “Screw you,” he said, “this is my beach”.
