Radio Brighton

Radio Brighton is the broadcaster that employs Sue Gates after she leaves advertising and London. The novel identifies it as the setting for her professional advancement: she obtains a job there and soon becomes a producer. The station is not described in detail, but Sue’s work there links her independence to the practical demands of balancing a career with caring for her son, Ben.

Sue Gates’s Employment

After her divorce, Sue moves to the south coast and takes a job at Radio Brighton. The position marks a decisive change from her former work in advertising, a field she had come to associate with the life she wanted to leave behind. Her progress to producer establishes that the move is not simply an escape from London: she develops a career of her own.

That advancement brings a cost in time. Radio Brighton’s work occupies much of Sue’s day, and she worries that she is seeing less of Ben. He stays with his grandparents for much of the time, but Sue makes sure they meet nearly every day and has him with her on most weekends. Her concern is therefore not an absence of attachment but the strain of fitting work around the care she wants to provide.

Role in Sue’s Circumstances

The station’s importance is chiefly personal rather than institutional. Through Sue’s job and promotion, Radio Brighton represents the independence she has secured after divorce, while the demands of the work sharpen her anxiety about being less present for Ben. Her career also forms part of the complicated balance she maintains with Gerry Fenn: she worries both about seeing less of her son and about becoming too involved with Fenn.

Place in the Novel

Radio Brighton is named as Sue’s employer, but the novel supplies no account of its programming, organization, or editorial policy. Its established role is narrower and concrete: it gives Sue a profession and occupies enough of her time to affect her family routine. The station thus anchors her life in paid work without resolving the tension between professional self-reliance and the time she wants to give Ben.