Then and Now
2002-03-28 || 5:53 p.m.

Well I feel better now I've had a walk. First of all I took the dog. We walked over Temple Hill Estate and towards the river. We stood looking at the Dartford bridge. I wish the traffic went both ways and not only one way. The landscape around the river has changed so much. Lots of the marshland has been drained and businesses built. Environmentally its a fucker. Do you know, Stone marshes was one of the few places where you could see gloworms in the UK? Ebbsfleet valley is another environmental treasure about to be raped by the Council. It is very likely that the Eurotunnel terminal will be built there. Arguments have been raging back and forth about this for the past 15 years. The latest suggestion however has been a fourth London airport. Fucking great.

Years ago, on the marshes, there was a tavern called the Long Reach tavern, 150 years or so ago they used to have bare knuckle fighting out there. It was so dicey getting to it across the marshland without getting into serious danger that they knew the illegal fighting was safe. After that they built an isolation hospital there - for smallpox. That closed in something like the 1950's. At the turn of the Twentieth century Joyce Green Hospital was built. Australian soldiers were sent there to recuperate during WW1. The huts and tracks they stayed in were still visible until really recently.

After I brought the dog home I went down the town to get some tomatoes for my tortillas tonight. I thought I would walk down the main road in case a bus came. It didn't, which gave me the chance to say 'hello' to Fanny Gates who is buried in the cemetery that I pass on the way down. She was only 6 when she died in 1906. Her older sister Britannia Alice is there too. She was 13 when she died. I always think of them when I walk past. Does anyone still remember them I wonder? I went to Sainsbury to get the tomatoes but they were all squishy and horrible. They didn't have any tomato puree either. Why? Why would there be a rush on tomato puree at Easter? Is it some strange tradition that I know nothing about? I was going to buy some hot cross buns as my concession to it being Easter this weekend but then forgot because they weren't on my list.

So I walked round to Safeway. I managed to get both the tomatoes and the tomato puree. I decided to walk home past the river with the geese. I'm quite scared of geese. They hiss and they're big and they flap a lot. They remind me of Johnnie chasing the chickens in 'What Katy Did at School' which I ploughed through when I was in hospital when I was 8. I then walked up the wiggly slope. I like going this way even though it is really steep and you feel like you're egging your heart on to stop on the way up. I like going this way because when you reach the top you can walk through St Edmunds Pleasance. Now I like St Edmunds Pleasance firstly because it has the word 'pleasance' in its title. Most people probably think it means 'pleasant' but it actually means 'a small garden usually attached to a large house'. This means there must have been a large house there once. I also like it because all around the edges are the gravestones that the council moved when they made it into a recreational space. Many of these gravestones are 250/300 years old and the writing has worn away considerably. There's one guy I always go and see - he's called Thomas but you can't read his surname anymore. I like Thomas because he didn't come from Dartford - his stone says he came from Middlesex. Now that makes him a bit of a traveller 250 years ago. I think he was probably a merchant or trader. I have another favourite there too. She's called Sarah Jane and she died in 1837 when she was 25. For some reason (although it doesn't say) I think she died in childbirth. She must have had a rich husband because she's buried in one of those above ground plinths. Now these are a really interesting Victorian fact. The Victorians' religious beliefs were really evangelical and the majority believed that once dead you lay in wait for the day when the trumpet sounded and you either rose (or sunk). The rich built these above ground graves so that when the final trumpet sounded they would have a 10' head start on the poor who were buried 6' under!! Lovely.

The other grave in St Edmunds Pleasance that I often go to visit is the Martyrs Memorial. Dedicated to the Protestant Martyrs who were burnt on the Brent to the whoops of joy from the watching public.

After this I walked down Little Queen Street, interesting because it still has cobblestones. Also interesting to me for years because it is also home to the Tiger public house - but I don't go there anymore. I'm such a man whore that I followed the guys when they changed pub and went to the Ivy Leaf instead.

My walk is now nearly complete. The final part of my journey takes me up Colney Road. I love Colney Road. It has the most gorgeous co-op building which must date from the end of the 19th century. It has an ornate top part decorated with the words 'Newtown Branch'. The houses are nice too. Although they are still Victorian terraces like mine they are slightly more affluent - having bay windows and longer gardens. Colney Road has obvious pretentions to grandeur - it has trees. These trees are great too, they have no leaves. I don't know what they are but they look like giant hands reaching up into the sky. Every time I walk down Colney Road I get a really strong sense of early commuters into London. I don't know why, probably because I'm too fanciful but I always see a female, in long clothes on her way to work in London on a steam train. I imagine her attending the Methodist church at the weekend and going to the adult education centre during the week. I think at this point its safe to say that I obviously have too much time on my hands.

Generally I feel sorry for Dartford. Its got such an interesting past but now its just home to pound shops and pubs. It does have a museum. When we were kids me and Sarah used to go to this museum a lot to see the skeleton. I've no idea why it has a skeleton there but a few years back the big story in Dartford was that a strange looking man with long hair lifted up the glass and stole the skull! The Dartford Times concluded that this new age traveller type obviously wanted it for some strange black magic ceremony and they just replaced the skull with another random skull!! So everyone was happy again.

And that's enough local history for now.