in Europe. However, with the coming of town gas, demand for candles collapsed and traders found they had wax coming out of their ears.
A worker at the Frank Dobson Candle Factory, Dartford
Fine metalworking soon took over as a principal industry, and until very recently parts were supplied to the luxury carmarket. At a specialist metal fabrications factory it took one man nearly a year to hand-finish a single radiator grill. So they sacked him.
During World War II, Dartford was the most heavily bombed town in England with large areas being flattened. But when peace resumed, negotiations with the Germans agreed compensation was to be paid for the excellent job they’d done.
The next event of historical interest occurred in 1956, when Dartford’s famous tunnel was completed. It was opened by Her Majesty the Queen, to the applause of motorists queuing to be the first through. When she returned to open the new Dartford Bridge some 40 years later, Her Majesty was surprised to recognise the same ones again. Sadly, the opening of the magnificent bridge, which soars high above the Thames, had to be postponed because of the terrible wind that afternoon, so fierce it threatened high-sided vehicles. Her Majesty apologised to the crowd, putting it down to the tin of beans she had for lunch.
Probably the most famous name associated with Dartford is Mick Jagger. His contribution to Dartford is recognised in the town’s music and arts venue, ‘The Mick Jagger Centre’, where elderly men with bad haircuts can take their pick from a selection of 19-year-old bikini-clad Brazilian models.
The unveilling of a 1:100 scale model of the proposed Elizabeth Taylor memorial at Dartford
CANTERBURY
C ANTERBURY is an historic cathedral city and weekend residence of the Archbishop, who at other times lives at Lambeth Palace. Archbishops have for centuries made annual pilgrimages on foot all the way from South London to Canterbury, all the while singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, ‘Jerusalem’ and of course, the piece written specially for the journey ‘Doing the Lambeth Walk, Oi!’
Canterbury has been the inspiration for many works of literature. The best known must be the tales of Chaucer’s pilgrims, but of course T. S. Elliot was also stirred by the tragic story of the death of Thomas à Becket to write his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cathedral Murders .
Historians have recently established that ‘Thomas à Becket’ was actually simply called ‘Thomas Becket’ and that his night-club on West Street was in fact simply called the ‘Whisky Go Go’.
With its Marlowe Theatre and Marlowe Exhibition, Canterbury will always also be connected with the mysterious Marlowe, though quite why Raymond Chandler should have based his LA gum shoe private detective stories in South East England is even more of a mystery.
Canterbury is set deep in the Kentish rolling green country-side, for centuries referred to as the ‘Garden of England’.However, with the new direct rail link to Brussels from nearby Ashford, Kent has become known as the ‘Patio of Belgium’.
The carving of the Eurostar link through the country’s rich agricultural land was the cause of much controversy at the time, but now with the benefit of hindsight, we are beginning to see the undoubted benefits of rail links with the continent. Parisians can now hail a taxi in the Champs-Elysées or the Rue Montmartre to the Gard du Nord at 11am, speed their way effortlessly at 130 mph through the tunnel before noon, and by two o’clock be stuck at a points failure just outside Orpington.
TUNBRIDGE WELLS
R OYAL T UNBRIDGE W ELLS is a splendid Regency town in the county of Kent. Although Kent was the first part of England to be colonised by the Romans, they never settled in Tunbridge Wells, having been frightened off by the local tribes’ fearsome house prices.
The area suffered a decline in the 16th Century, when a weak and vulnerable populace was cruelly