Sheerness

My Nana (grandmother on father's side) lived in a tiny terraced house about a hundred yards from the seafront in Sheerness. Sis and I used to spend a week in the summer with her when we was young, while my parents did whatever parents do when they drop the kids off with the grandparents. Nana had a background that stopped one generation into North London, Mr Nana was a mystery she never talked about, but he must have left early, because my father couldn't remember him well. She had dark olive skin, and paid half her bills on her winnings at cards. Or that's what everyone told me.

The main employer on the island must be the port, through which a large proportion of imported cars arrive. Also fruit and meat. And timber. There isn't a lot of industry, the tourism is mostly day-trippers during the school holidays, and there is one large school. I think back in Nana's day, the kids went to school on the Sittingbourne bus.

Look up "backwater" in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of Sheerness.

Anyway, we went there recently (no matter your route, you will change at Sittingbourne for the shuttle service). The pleasant promenade with its open steps from the street has been replaced with a nasty lump of concrete, and the amusement arcade half-way along the walk into the town along promenade has all but disappeared. Nobody was selling candyfloss, but we might have come too late for that. There were a couple of bunches of lads playing football, and a lot of old people (which now means 60+ but in bad nick from hard lives) hanging around the streets having old people arguments. Also a couple of girls taking their younger sisters out in the pram ("That must be her sister, right" - The Eels). The seafront looked almost exactly as it did (cough, splutter) years ago, except a) the Council have let the tidebreaks rot, and b) on some of the beaches have been turned into hump-and-ditch "defences", whereas in Nana's day, all the beaches sloped into the water.

There were some geezers fishing, a few people walking and some cycling, but all were locals.

The Robert Montgomery is still out there somewhere, still allegedly capable of producing the largest conventional explosion the UK has or will ever see, but if there was any sign of it, I'd forgotten.

Across the river is Southend and its extension down to Shoeburyness. Not only across the river, but also in another economy.