My Mum’s a GILF (Isle of Sheppey)

Neptune Cafe

The Internet doesn’t like the Isle of Sheppey. Widespread opinion seems to be that it’s violent and grim. Our pre-trip research reveals reams of poisonous and condescending lines written on the place; it’s the fight capital of Britain, second roughest place in the UK after Chatham, a holiday spot for cockney hardmen too lazy to go to Spain and so snarkily on. We also learn that it’s home to several major industrial installations, a sprawling dockyard, 3 prisons, an army of caravans and a thriving population of scorpions. It sounds like just the Lost Promenade’s kind of place, but, as we park, in the island’s biggest town, Sheerness, the baleful stares of loitering teens seem to confirm the stereotype. However, our worries are misplaced; everybody we speak to is incredibly friendly and we generally have a bumper fun-packed time.

untitled

We knew it was going to be good, travelling over the bridge onto the island, “oohs” and “aahs” chorus through Lindsey’s car as we spot exciting looking industrial structures – complex pipes like metallic entrails, a mysterious long blue tunnel-type thing – the first charity shop we visit has a poster that says ‘Happy as a Pig in Shit’. They must have read our minds.

untitled

Back to that first charity shop and Nhung and Lindsey head blankly and simultaneously towards a video called ‘Ice Road Truckers: The World’s Deadliest Roads’ as if hypnotized. They only just manage to conquer a perplexing urge to buy it, and Nhung is able to save her pennies later for a WW1 flying helmet she falls in love with.

labour hall

The town centre is fairly unmemorable. And every SINGLE charity shop has an old wedding dress in it. Could this be the island where romance goes to die?

There’s a sign that says ‘Swimming Pool Chemicals’, apropos of nothing, lots of wrestling posters and a mill without its sails hidden behind some gates, but as we peer into one window, we see people making lanterns (for an upcoming parade) accompanied by two others on harmonicas. And best of all, we find an amazing eating spot – the Beano Café. Its theme is of course, the comic and the walls are covered in homemade drawings and knitted figures of Dennis the Menace. However there’s also a random mixture of other images; Elvis, Spiderman, the Royal Wedding and a poster of Michael Jackson with the slogan “King of Pop.” It would have been nice to have some Freddie Krueger snaps to compare jumpers with Dennis, but you can’t have everything.

Tantra

The seafront is surprisingly bleak with a pebbled beach and a grey concrete seawall. There’s one amusement arcade, a barren looking nightclub called Tantra and a big sandpit. There’s not much to see here, so we head to the outskirts of the town, and the area called Bluetown, originally built to house the dockyard workers.

untitled

We park near a garden gnome factory with a forecourt full of stone ornaments that seems to never end. Life-size Roman centurions, scantily clad goddesses, yawning eagles and cod Easter Island heads all crowd surreally into one space like a concrete platoon. This area is fascinating; eerily quiet, cobbled and full of boarded-up old pubs and a sex shop, in which we overhear, perhaps one of the finest Lost Promenade quotes of all time; “My mum’s a GILF. Not that I’d like to fuck her. But people do.”

untitled

It’s going to take a lot to top that, so we decide to leave Sheerness and have a quick drive around the rest of the island. Amongst the caravans and suburbs, we spot a heartbreakingly derelict art deco house, more amusement arcades and a burned down hut and we try to get near the prisons, but it’s restricted access. We console ourselves with some fries and milkshake action at Mickey’s Rock Diner – all retro décor and posters advertising future Chicory Tip performances – despite it being on the wrong side of the motorway to get home, we can’t resist.

untitled

Perhaps I haven’t made enough notes for this trip, but for some reason; my memories of the actual appearance of the island are remarkably hazy. But I do remember we liked the place. The Internet may not care for the Isle of Sheppey. But the Lost Promenade do.

untitled

Lost

1930s wedding dress (the nicest of the charity shop wedding dresses, but too small for any of us)

Ice Road Truckers: The World’s Deadliest Roads video

A pier (we understood from our research that Sheerness had one, but we didn’t see it)

A peek at the prisons

Chicory Tip show

Memories of Sheppey

untitled

 

Found

Brown v-neck jumper with a fish motif

3 Mills & Boons books (Nhung has decided to start collecting them for the cover art)

Holiday souvenir Florida mug

Lint comb

WW1 flying helmet

Scorn for internet bullies

untitled

untitled

Bus, Baps and Barbarism (Bexhill-On-Sea)

De La Warr Pavilion

Bexhill-On-Sea, East Sussex. Home to Milly Molly Mandy (well, Joyce Lanchester Brisley, her author), Fanny Cradock and the highest proportion of residents aged over 100 years old in England and Wales. Also, and most importantly to the Lost Promenade, it’s the site of the second death in Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders. We’ve been here many times before singly, but never for an official Lost Prom excursion, however here we are at the end of summer and Bexhill’s day has finally arrived.

untitled

Nostalgic Vintage is a shop that we’ve long wanted to go to but has always been closed on past visits. We’re not disappointed. Not only is it open but it’s excellent; stuffed with dead stock 1960s & 70s clothes and homewares, in a jewel box array of man made fibres. Reasonably priced and run by a knowledgeable proprietor, the shop is a lesson in how to sell vintage well, and we leave laden down with trophies.

We can’t resist a stop at Alfredo & Sue Silva’s café, with its intriguingly wide-ranging specialism of “British, Swiss and Spanish cuisine” and its 18 flavours of milkshakes. In the pleasant garden at the back, Nhung orders Spanish chicken and Tamsin the evocatively named “Alfredo’s Egg Special” This turns out to be an omelette in a bap. But it’s a very nice one.

untitled

It’s back to shopping; Bexhill is brimming with charity shops, bric-a-brac emporiums and furniture reclamation stores. We’re pleased to see that Mein Kampf is no longer in the precious things cabinet in one charity shop as it was last time Tamsin visited, however we’re still astounded by just how many vaguely racist antiques seem to exist in the world and especially Bexhill. We’re also shocked by the actions of another vintage/pre-worn clothes shop in Bexhill – they’re selling a leopard print 1950s style raincoat which the Lost Prom recognises as being from Primark, because it once owned the very same model. However the label has been removed and it’s been priced up at £52. They do have some nice golfing jumpers, but this mis-selling, (sharp practice or just ignorance?), plus other inaccurately labelled items leaves a sour, earwaxy taste so we leave with nothing. The proprietor of another shop is nicer though; when Nhung buys a school prefect badge, he says “You know you can’t wear this don’t you?”, “Can’t I?” replies Nhung, slightly confused, “Because it says ‘prefect’ not ‘perfect’” charms the man. In the same shop we also hear a mother saying to her child, “Please stop licking me”.

Amusements

We have a cup of tea in Di Paolo café on the seafront, another one of our beloved Italian seaside ice cream parlours, but this time sadly there’s no original 60s décor, although it’s going for a 1980sish approximation with plenty of seaside pastel colours and powder blue serving counters. Nhung is sure she’s been there before, but can’t put her finger on it. What the hey, it’s time for another craft fair. The last few Lost Prom trips seem to have been following the same formula; charity shops, Italian ice cream parlour, milkshake, craft fair, so why change a winning formula?

Clock Tower Court

This is another fairly old-school event, held in a church hall, and offering proof that despite the presence of the cutting-edge De La Warr Pavilion (see below), and the opening of a few new cafés and chotchke shops, Bexhill is still firmly stuck in the past and stubbornly non-metropolitanised or trendified. Our favourite stall features homemade cards and for some reason, a single lonely cucumber. We also buy some nice hand-crafted soaps, including one called Sophia’s Snow, so-named because it snowed on the maker’s grand-daughter’s birthday so she used freshly fallen (hopefully un-urinated-upon) snow as one of the ingredients. All of a sudden, whilst discussing the intricacies of soap making, we hear a church organ strike up with Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. A newly married couple and wedding party spill out through a doorway and start a stately walk through the craft fair, past at least 3 different elderly ladies knitting and onto the outside. It turns out the church hall had been double booked. That still doesn’t explain the cucumber however.

De La Warr Pavilion

If you google Bexhill, you won’t have to look far down the page to see references to its ageing population: the zimmer frames, the sleepiness, the inconsequence and incontinent. However there is one exception – the De La Warr Pavilion, designed by Erich Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff in the 1930s and one of the first modernist public buildings in Britain. When it was first built, George Bernard Shaw apparently said, “Delighted to hear that Bexhill has emerged from barbarism at last, but I shall not give it a clean bill of civilisation until all my plays are performed there once a year at least.” Sadly, over the years the building fell into a poor state, and the lumbering beasts of barbarism once more roamed free in Bexhill until 2005 when the building was renovated and re-opened as a contemporary gallery and arts venue. And since then, it has fought a heroic fight to stave off both barbarism and boredom , with interesting installations and unexpected gigs (Henry Rollins in Bexhill! I saw it with my own eyes!)

‘Ang on a minute….

Currently, the De La Warr is sporting a full-size bus teetering off the edge of its roof; a piece by artist Richard Wilson in homage to the film The Italian Job. What it has to do with the Pavilion is not clear, however it looks cool and that’s what counts.

untitled

As we stare out over the promenade, a sea mist develops making everything under its veil look mysterious. A stranger approaches Nhung and starts telling her about the onion-domed houses next to the Pavilion. Apparently they were built by an Indian prince to “house his eunuchs”. Later research proves this claim (which Tamsin thought he’d made up) to be more or less true. The Maharajah of Cooch Behar stayed in one of the houses (it was already built though) in 1900, unexpectedly dying there after only a few months. A water fountain was erected in Bexhill by his son, in memory of him and originally stood on the site of the De La Warr Pavilion. When the Pavilion was built, it was moved to a nearby park until the 1960s when it mysteriously disappeared. Its whereabouts have never been discovered.

untitled

The last thing we do in Bexhill is to visit the park in question. There is something very 1950s about its arrangement – boating lake, curves, serenity, shouts of children in the late summer. It’s like something from a Ladybird book and has a sense of the slightly unreal. Much like Bexhill as a whole really.

Criterion Cafe

Lost

Criterion Café (what Nhung thinks Di Paolo’s was before, with red walls)

Bexhill Museum (closed)

Sugar pot that Nhung decided not to buy because it had a crack in it

Poirot jigsaw puzzle (we wanted to, but it was too big to carry)

A turn on the pedalos (maybe next time)

The Maharajah of Cooch Behar’s memorial fountain

De La Warr Pavilion

Found

Prefect badge

Tweed blazer

Brown & white spriggy floral print blouse

3 handmade soaps

Brown leather barrel style 1960s handbag

2 RSPB badges

Welsh wool navy & white geometric woven 1960s coin purse

1950s sewing pattern

2 1960s/70s striped knit tops – 1 aqua & white, 1 red, blue & white

2 elasticated 1980s belts with enamel buckles

Mint green polyester blouse

2 bags of toffee crumble