Blimey.
43 years.
That’s how long it is since I started university down in Kent and met some of my closest friends, who I am now going to spend a nostalgic few days with in the county of our mis-spent youth.
Whilst I can’t claim to have made great use of my degree in Theoretical Physics acquired in those few formative years in the mid-eighties, the time in Kent did set me off on a path of enquiry and curiosity still very much alive in retirement. Exposure of a young mind to the wonders of quantum mechanics, combined with copious quantities of real ale can be assumed to have had a warping effect. So much so, that by the end of a 3 year course, I was fairly disillusioned with science, or more specifically scientists, many of whom I felt lacked imagination, or even the requisite curiosity and/or intellectual honesty to actually be decent scientists. This was a time when various groups were exploring the very fundamentals of reality, quantum mechanics and non-local effects (the spooky “action at a distance” which so disturbed Einstein) and a paradigm shift was in the air.
Or at least so I thought, but few of the lecturers had much time for this. It was not until 2022 that Alain Aspect (already conducting these experiments in the 80s) and others would win the Nobel prize for proving that quantum entanglement and non-local effects were real and not just constructs of the maths - thus opening the world up to the possibility that many topics once considered a bit woo might, in fact, have some sort of theoretical basis.
In the time since then, you can almost sense a shift in the sort of topics which scientists will consider as candidates for legitimate enquiry (at least at the fringes, whilst no one is looking), although funding models still make this difficult. Of course, this brief period of enlightenment will probably peter out as those driving it forward hit the brick wall of intransigent mainstream scientists raised on AI, all of which has been trained on the the large corpus of unimaginative, “acceptable” science.
Arse.
Ah well, I am not here to rattle on about the inadequacies of physics. There is eating drinking and nostalgising to be done. Our chosen base is Whitstable, a very pleasant seaside town, not far from Canterbury.
I leave Nottingham in crisp autumn sunshine, only to get to Kent and find that it is still summer and a sunny and balmy 24 degrees, and make my way to the AirBnB cottage where we are staying, negotiating the always fun instructions for key safes, alarm systems etc. It’s a great spot, right on the seafront … although with no parking especially close and the Kent car park fees are brutal!
There is even a weird “secret” bedroom, which we had all assumed was a window at first. I think strictly for kids, given the lack of headroom and the need to crawl in, but probably great fun to stay in as a kid.
Early evening and beer and food calls. A short walk along the seafront is an excellent bar, selling a very dangerous 6.5% hazy IPA which is absolutely delicious but which will, it turns out, discourage us from much further exploration of Whitstable - although to be fair we had other plans anyway.
Now an interesting thing, which had never occurred to me would be a thing, is that this seemed to be a popular spot for gathering and watching the sunset - so much so that the bar gave out plastic glasses if you were heading outside.
I spent a few moments puzzling over this as, to my mind, Whitstable is on the north coast of Kent and has no business with showy sunsets. A couple of pints of strong IPA will bring on these brow-knitting deliberations, but you just have to go with it!
Clearly there is a kink in the coastline which leads to this west-facing aspect. Definitely a recommended spot for a nice (hazy) sunset.
On our first full day in Kent, we are determined to head to Canterbury for a nostalgic wander around and ideally a bimble around the university campus.
Seemed like a plan.
Parking on the campus, after about an hour of circulating, proves to be a non-starter, so we head into town to park (mad that this should be considerably easier in a touristy town like Canterbury) and have a wander around.
It is quite amusing as we try to identify landmarks and remember which roads certain pubs are (or at least were) on. It seems that between the 3 of us, we barely have one memory - I guess it has all moved from fast memory to slow/offline storage over the years - but to be fair it is 40 years since we were all last here. We decide to explore a little before visiting some local hostelries.
We eschew the cathedral as we have all visited previously and none of us are interested enough in a revisit to stump up £18. To be fair, our graduation ceremony was in the cathedral, so we have had some exposure to it … although my memory of the actual graduation is, for various reasons, hazier than my general memory of Canterbury.
I’m keen to visit St. Martin’s Church, which is the oldest church in England - not as old as the original wattle church in Glastonbury of course, but that is long gone. St. Martin’s is still in use and has been since 597!
A bit of history.
In the sixth century, Kent was ruled by Aethelbert (a pagan King) and Bertha (his Christian wife). At this point in England, and indeed most of Britain, the old Celtic and pagan beliefs sat comfortably alongside early Christianity. Both had a reverence for nature and were more mystically inclined. Enter St Augustine (or I guess Augustine as I presume that the canonisation came later), sent by the pope to crush the free spirited Christianity of Britain under the jackbooted heel of Roman Catholic authority (or at least under the heel of the shiny red episcopal sandals of papal authority). This marked the beginning of the end for Celtic Christianity (at least in England), a process that was to reach its culmination in 664 at the Synod of Whitby.
Anyway, the church at St. Martin’s was built over a pagan temple by Bertha, for Augustine and was likely the spot where Augustine later baptised Aethelbert. Later Augustine’s Abbey was constructed nearby, and of course the cathedral, of which Augustine became the first archbishop.
I am particularly taken by the specificity of this timeline…
… although, given that one of the main points of contention between Celtic and Roman Christianity was the date of Easter, I suppose it should come as no great surprise.
History mission completed, we go all 21st century and Uber up to the campus.
This is great fun. There has been much building since we were there, including new colleges which, although they have names, I lumped under the moniker of Eyesore College, as they blocked what I remember of the great view over Canterbury. This is further obscured by the growth of the trees since our tenure, but we manage to fined at least one spot…
We naturally have to wander into Darwin College, where we all met and this has barely changed - other than that the bar seems to have been removed. Sign of the times I guess!
I’m amazed that we can wander in and go in search of our old rooms and no one challenges us. I suppose that we look fairly harmless, but it is a residential college. I don’t imagine that this would fly in Nottingham, but then Kent Uni is on top of a hill, so you really have to make an effort if you want to get up to anything nefarious.
Curiosity (at least partly) satisfied, we summon another Uber and head to the Three Tuns pub for a couple of pints of liquid nostalgia. Sadly the beers of our youth are no longer around, We had a great fondness for Fremlin’s Tusker and Truman’s Sampson - the latter being the tipple at the Three Tuns. Sadly no longer, as it is now a Green King pub. We determine not to let this put us off.
Wednesday and the weather takes quite a severe turn towards torrential rain and howling gales. We knew that this was coming (and it does make for an entertaining evening in a seafront cottage that night) and so had planned to visit some museums.
I had pointed out that Ramsgate seemed to have some quite interesting (for nerds) museums - This Museum is (Not) Obsolete and the Microcomputer Museum. Now regular readers may be able to predict how this went. Obviously I had found some places which I thought looked interesting, but not really checked all the details. Neither were open today. I am now firmly in the doghouse with my friends, but rescue it with an appeal to Ramsgate Tunnels.
Ramsgate itself looks really nice, but we don’t really explore too much. Instead we opt for the 90 minute tour of the tunnels, which is great.
None of us had realised that Ramsgate was a so on the front line during the wars. They apparently had a real pummelling from zeppelins during the first world war. This made them fairly sensitive to the possibility of aerial bombardment and so, well before World War II started (or at least pulled Britain in) they determined to build extensive defences, even while the government was denying that war was imminent. Miles of tunnels were carved out of the chalk cliffs (the miles not being for capacity, but to ensure that there was easy access from anywhere in the town).
Quite an amazing achievement, especially given that the government was insisting that local councils had to pay for any defences. Apparently the “mad” mayor of Ramsgate had other ideas and somehow managed to secure funding. The guide regales us with stories of how few people died in Ramsgate and the generations which have followed because of the tunnels. I feel like I am in a scene from Schindler’s List.
Amazing place though.
And then, because we are at the British seaside in the rain, we have to go for fish and chips!
Next stop Margate. Yes, yes, before you say it, I have persuaded people to go to the Crab Museum. Closed naturally. My friends have had a recommendation for an exhibition in the Turner Gallery at Margate (Sophie Calle, which turns out to be very entertaining). Clearly they have more sophisticated tastes than me and the day is rescued once again!
Apart from the exhibition, I am quite taken with the Sunley Window by David Hockney, and the statues on the beach.
And then as we leave, I am convinced I see a ninja on the beach!
Clearly someone just collecting stuff, but from a distance and without the zoom, the pointy bits on the backpack looked like swords. Well, at least to me.
And then there is nothing left to do but to head back to Whitstable for some more hazy IPA and then a taxi out to the gastro-pub for our slap up last meal of the trip.
And as ever, vegetarians catered for, but barely tolerated :-)
This was the vegetarian starter
Yes. It’s some vegetables. Make an effort.
What an epic and poetic way to begin this article!