It's a Dirty old town ...but its my dirty old town ...

 

 

BACK in the latter part of last year I was given the task of interviewing a local M.P and one of the subjects we touched upon was having a real love for the town /city you are representing.MEDWAY ,lets be honest, doesnt have the best reputation  as one of those loveable area's but if you look deep into your families history you can sometimes see a little bit of beauty shining through the dog shit and fag ends in the gutter .

 

 

REASONS WHY I LOVE MY MEDWAY PART ONE:ROCHESTER CASINO

NOW , I'd be the first to admit that I have on more than one occasion turned my nose snootily up at the phrase "LET'S GO DAAAHN CASINO'S " . The thought of going out to a place where dayglo orange is the only acceptable skin colour and staggering about like a newborn giraffe across rochesters cobbled street's in the latest studded stripper heels while some bloke tanked up on Jagermeister thinks its acceptable to grind his credentials into your back has just never appealed to me.In fact during a chat recently I realised the one and only time I had ever been there was way back in the 90s when a fellow SHOE EXPRESS workmate and I treated ourselves to a night out  to see "Voulez-Vous"an ABBA tribute band complete with compere ( CATCHPHRASE legend Roy Walkers son Mark , fact ! ),disco and all you can eat buffet.
However if you look way back into the past of  " CASINO'S " before Aaron stone was even a twinkle in his dad's or maybe even his grandad's eye the room's were roaring not with the latest dubstep or drum and bass but the rumble of skate wheels.
For back in the forties and early fifties the craze of choice in medway involved racing round a rink with wheels strapped to your feet not boy racing round a carpark in some souped up excuse for a penis extension .

My dads parents were two of the enthusiasts who spent their nights there and it was here no less that they first met . My grandad Sid was a member of Medway Roller Dance club and also a keen player of roller hockey , it was during one such match that my nanna Joyce spotted him across the rink and declared  to her friends "see him , thats the man I'm going to marry " and she wasn't wrong !

The casino's history in my family doesnt end there though. They married  on 15th April 1944  at All Saints church in Frindsbury and their only son ( my dad ) Ian arrived a year and a bit later in July 1945. As he grew up the roller skating bug bit him too and he competed in many a roller dance competition as a young man.

It wasnt all just skating on the entertainment front at the Casino's though , wrestling was another big crowd puller and whilst clearing out some old books in my grandads room when he sadly passed away in 2010  I found THIS tucked into its pages . This isn't the hyped up stylised american wrestling we 're used to today , its the good old fashioned stuff that you'd see all the old grannies getting their bloomers in a twist about on " world of sport " while blokes in swimming trunks hurled their beer bellies at each other !And I recall fondly the stories both my grandparents and dad told me about those nights as they sometimes helped out behind the scenes  , my favourite being that they once had to make tea for ODD JOB from GOLDFINGER .

 

So there you have it , the first of the little gems that shine out from beneath the grime in MEDWAY for me and theres plenty more where that came from.

Like I said ,  yes it's a dirty old town but its our dirty old town and we all have little reasons why we love it .....even if maybe we don't admit to them

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