Categories: uncategorized
Date: 09 July 2006 09:31:17
I live in a slightly run down sea side town, with reasonable high proportions of (i) old people, (ii) people who are classed as care in the community & (iii) chavs. There are alot of reasonably normal people who live here aswell, but it is def a lower middle class / upper working class town which relies to a certain extent on tourists, primarily of a similar socio-economic background and the care home industry. That's just how it is and so a few weeks ago when it was basically described as such in this article by Frank Partridge in the Independent a couple of weeks ago I'd say it was fair. The local paper may try to disagree, but it's how it is.
To understand why this is the case (however much some would like to pretend it isn't) one has to understand that we are part of a bigger council, in whose interest it is to maintain this, to a certain extent. Our local council also covers Canterbury (a cultural university city with a world heritage site and impossible house prices) and Whitstable (a seaside town with quaint charm, a vibrant artistic community & rapidly inflating house prices); they need a reasonably sized backwater for the lower classes and we need somewhere we can afford to live (and sadly die)! That said they also understand we need the tourism and so market us accordingly. We have some amazing firework displays - particualarly during the festival and other wierd events every so often. Today we have what is being billed as The Big Picnic, an event which in theory sounds like it might be quite good with live music and so forth, but I still can't get my head around why the multicouloured fish things which have been flying from the lampposts, on the road leading down to where the event is being held, for the last week are there. Over the last 6 years though I have learnt not to question just to smile to myself as I accept it's just the way it is here.