Dover 27th October 2006

Some towns are the geographical equivalent of pubescence, an unpleasantness you just want to get through with as little delay as possible. Dover, or Swindon-on-Sea as I like to think of it, is one of those places and it knows it. It’s pretty much given up. Many towns have a welcome sign beside the road as you enter – Dover should have one saying, head straight for the ferryport, folks, there’s nothing for you here.
Next time you see the white cliffs on telly, filmed from the sea, notice how the camera never pans left to take in the grey concrete bleakness. The town exhibited at least two symptoms of the English disease. There was the usual interchangeable pedestrianised rank of the usual shops. And there was a shining example of the modern passion for making up new names for old things when we're a bit unsure what to do with the old things any more. Late in the day, with time to kill I spent an irritating 40 minutes hunting the town's library. I couldn’t see any signs for it. Eventually I relented and asked for directions from a woman in a nearby shop. When she'd finished I said, 'Oh, right. So is it near the Discovery Centre?’
She seemed almost embarrassed by association. ‘That’s it, yeah. That’s what they call the library now.’ Christ! See also Wigan.
Dover did have its good points. There was a huge British Heart Foundation furniture store which was having a disco. In the shop, in the afternoon. To celebrate Halloween. All the staff were in fancy dress. Either the manager's some crazed martinet who dictated it should be so, or even odder, the staff decided collectively that this was a beezer idea.
People say there aren't any truly local shops these days. They probably haven’t been paying charity shops as much close attention as I have. But then, who has? I often spot trends in local trading patterns for old tat and cast offs. In Dover’s chazzas, remnants of old wallpaper are all the go. Either Dover's home-decorators are chronically indecisive, or a kleptomaniac's been trawling the local DIY stores shoplifting, and has now come over all Robin Hood. Any road up, if you’ve got a lot of exercise books to cover, head for Dover.
Early afternoon I headed to the Land Army museum. It was tiny, housed in a converted outhouse on a nearby farm, and unstaffed. Reasoning that if there was nobody to pay I couldn’t be expected to pay the admission fee I bunked in for nothing. It’s not the first time I’ve scammed free admission to a museum.
I did something similar at the Energy museum in Amsterdam; the lights were off and nobody was inside. Oddly, on occasions like this, on the way out, I often think the visit was interesting, but just short of interesting enough to warrant the admission fee.
The Land Army museum housed a bijou mix of artefacts, and personal testimony in the form of letters and diaries. I'm strangely drawn to anything about the Home Front. There’s something I find oddly comforting about the period.
I think my generation were the last generation to have proper parents. Not proper, good parents, but proper parenty parents. Parents of a distinct generation who’d been a bit old to swing in the Sixties; parents who didn’t aspire to aping their own kids for as long as they could pull it off.
My mum was formed by the war. She'd learned to cook during rationing; pilchard fishcakes, cheese potato cakes, risotto made with leftovers of sausages and anything else that was knocking about. I can just about remember us having a bucket in the corner of the kitchen filled with a liquid called isinglass which we used to store eggs. It all seems a bit Victorian now.
The final retro flurry of the day took the form of whiling away the last half hour before the coach in a weird little teashop down a backstreet. It impressed me on two fronts. Normally, the ceiling price I’m willing to pay for a cup of tea is fifty pence. As this place was charging 40p I thought I’d push the boat out and have a slice of malted loaf too; price ditto.
As a sideline they sold dried goods loose from large plastic barrels; porridge oats, washing powder, raisins etc, and yet the place wasn't full of smug hippies. Result.
In fact the only other customers were what seemed to be a brother and sister, in late middle-age and apparently living together. There was a child-like innocence about the way they spoke about the evening to come, what they would have for tea, what they’d watch on television. I sense that people like this are fewer or less visible nowadays; not odd enough to be pathologised, too off-kilter for the mainstream.