Events organiser and rustic flaneur.

How did you end up in Sussex?

My grandparents both lived in Sussex, on Ditchling Common and just outside Plumpton. When my parents got married they lived in Hassocks and I grew up there opposite the Adastra Park. Hassocks in the 70s and 80s was both deeply boring and deeply weird. It was basically the town in Blue Velvet. I lived in London for a while and moved back to Sussex about 15 years ago.

You’re a trustee of Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft. Is there any hope of it opening again?

Yes I am confident the museum will reopen. In 1978, my mother helped Hilary Bourne put on the first group exhibition of artists and craftsmen from Ditchling in Jill Pryke’s gallery/ shop on the High Street. My brother Ewan slept overnight in the shop to act as security guard. The Mid Sussex Times writing up the exhibition referred to my mother as Mrs Ian Clayton. She would not have liked that. When Hilary and her sister Joanna opened the museum in the mid-eighties I was a regular visitor. My dad was the handyman for a long time. My aunt Jenny then drove the fundraising for the new incarnation of the museum that saw it reopen in 2013. The path has never been easy, but it is not about to end.

You run the annual literary festival Caught by the River, in the village of Kingston-near-Lewes, where you live. What are the advantages and disadvantages of holding events in a rural setting?

I worked for Glastonbury for a long time and the weather really can mess things up. I wanted to organise something in a village as the facilities are all near each other and they all have the benefit of a roof. I had been to the Lynton and Lynmouth festival that my friend Tom from The Idler organised in Devon and that was also an inspiration. The two villages are connected by a funicular railway. Sadly, no funicular in Kingston yet, although I am hoping to start a fundraiser next year to install one that would take people up the Downs. Ideally there would be Harris’s fun fair greeting people at the top.

You’ve also brought musicians Jem Finer (of the Pogues) and Jimmy Cauty (of The KLF) to the village. Tell us about that…

I got a call from my friend Jeff, who runs Heavenly Recordings, saying that he had signed a single from Jem and Jimmy and they wanted to spend the advance on installing a standing stone – would I be able to help find a place for it? I went and asked Rich at Lovebrook Farm in Kingston if he might be interested in placing the stone on the land he runs with his partner Hannah. I had never met him before, but his immediate response was: “that sounds like the sort of thing we would be into”. A wonderful leap of faith! A farming contractor installed the stone and we had a blessing from a shaman based in Hove. And Jem and Jimmy hooked the stone up to some buried speakers, so if you put your ear against it, you could hear their music. Jem came back to Kingston in August to play a free concert in the church with the folk musician John Matthias.

Give us some tips about organising a successful event.

All great events are born with someone impetuously deciding to do it without thinking it through properly. The magic is then getting the right balance of amateurism and professionalism.

You’ve worked in publishing most of your life. Any chance of the poacher turning gamekeeper? What would be the subject of a Mathew Clayton book?

I wrote a book a years ago called The Nation’s Favourite. I compiled lots of data from different surveys to discover what people in the country really liked. The answer was Gary Barlow and digestive biscuits. This isn’t very interesting and although The Sun serialised the book it sold about five copies.

Who’s your current favourite Sussex-based writer?

I am going to cheat here and tell you about my current favourite Kentish writer, the extraordinary Rupert Croft-Cooke. I am reading his autobiographical series The Sensual World. There are 23 books – over two and half million words! It has been completely overlooked but is a masterpiece, it provides an amazing portrait of life in rural England in the 1920s to the 1940s. He does also go and live in Tangier for quite a long time, too.

Do you go out more in Lewes, or Brighton? Both are a short hop from Kingston.

I am not sure I could really claim to go out at all.

What do you do for your culture fix? What’s your favourite gallery?

I actually prefer churches and gardens to galleries. I often go with my aunt and brother and after we have been round and are sitting with a cup of tea we review them rather like we are reviewing a restaurant. My favourite Sussex church is on Combes Farm near Lancing – a little Downland treasure.

How often does life take you to London?

I have been two or three times this year. For a while I spent a lot of time on the train. My father and grandfather also commuted to London, from Plumpton. I do like the stretch of countryside you can see from the train between Keymer Junction and Lewes.

Are you more of a gig guy, or a classical concert aficionado? Tell us what makes a good venue.

Pubs are the best venues just because you are close to the performers. They don’t have to over-emote to make a magical connection to the audience. On big stages the performers have to run around and leap up and down. You can do that in a pub but you don’t have to. My favourite ever gig was Pete Shelley at the old Zap Club in Brighton just playing an acoustic guitar. He didn’t leap up and down.

What local pubs can you recommend?

I love our village pub, The Juggs. It closes at 10pm, the food is not great, the beer middling, it has an over-abundance of hanging baskets, and it even features some plastic plants in the garden, but I hold it with great affection. We are very lucky to have it. Walking home from the pub in the moonlight with the Downs in front of you is a peak life experience.

When did you last climb a Down or swim in the sea?

I have been going swimming in the sea at Tidemills every morning this summer. I love doing it. I even saw a pod of dolphins there back in July. I am more of a pootler than an actual swimmer. The actual swimmers go out to the yellow buoys and back. I have never done that.

Tell us a Sussex secret.

In the 17th century, Brighton was governed by a group of its oldest inhabitants known as the Society of the Twelve. It was made up of eight fishermen and four farmers. The taxes levied on the inhabitants of the town were set out by the Society in The Book of All the Auncient Customs. The book was signed by Brighton’s most notable residents, but none of them could write, so each left an individual mark, often relating to their trade. Two copies of the book were made. One was to be kept by Lord Arundel, the other in the town, in a chest protected by three locks. The town’s copy has never left Brighton, it is said. Legend has it that if it’s ever taken across the other side of the Downs, Brighton will be washed into the sea and fire will rain down from the sky.

If you didn’t live in Sussex, where would you like to live?

Ibiza in the 1960s.

Interview by Antonia Gabassi