HIS beach gigs will live long in the memory.

But now Fatboy Slim is leaving the seafront with a different kind of legacy in the form of a pirate play-ship.

The DJ broke a bottle of fizzy water over the stern of the HMS Big Beach yesterday as excited children scrambled around the structure.

The Big Beach Cafe, owned by the DJ real name Norman Cook and managed by Danny Stockland, paid £20,000 for the timber ship in the children's playground at Hove Lagoon, next to the cafe.

Speaking at the opening of the play-ship, Mr Cook said: "Danny and I both brought our kids up in this park and have seen things come and go.

"About a year and a half ago we noticed there was a gaping hole in the middle of the playground where a climbing frame had been.

"So we just thought it is an excellent way of giving something back to the community that had supported us with the cafe."

He added: "Me and Danny secretly always wanted to be pirates."

The ship is made from robinia timber and features a climbing frame, deck, slide and hideouts and is surrounded by a rubber floor, treasure chests and sharks fins.

Brighton and Hove City Council paid for its installation.

Mr Cook added: "I got back from tour yesterday and the first thing I did was came down with Nelly my daughter, (five) and we climbed over every inch of it and it is great fun.

"I got quite emotional yesterday watching kids play on it and climbing all over it. I thought, 'that only exists because we helped build it'. I am beaming with pride."

Robert Nemeth, Conservative councillor for Wish ward, praised Mr Cook but said it was "somewhat unfair" that public works in Hove had "only been possible though the intervention of a very generous local resident".

Mr Cook added: "To give the council their credit, when we asked them about it they did say there was money earmarked but would not be available until November, so it is not us doing the council’s job, it is just speeding things up."