We should try to conserve the things we cherish

Posting on Facebook the other day, Geoff Strange made me smile by talking about the old Parrott Records shop in Lower Bridge Street.

Parrott was a fairly big shop, staffed – if memory serves me right – chiefly by a plump bespectacled bloke with curly hair. It was good value and unpretentious.

The joy of such places lay in flicking through the 12-inchers and coming across some chance gem or even something you’d never heard of. But Geoff has a wider point, remarking that in an age of downloads and Youtube, he’d “gone back to buying records”, writing: “With paywalls and the dominance of Apple and Google, I have also gone back to buying newspapers and searching secondhand bookshops for books.”

Geoff is not alone in this respect. Many people are suddenly pausing for thought in this age of accelerating technological change.

They know that while these technologies serve a purpose, what they destroy or supposedly render obsolete might actually be worth cherishing and preserving.

Next month sees the death of The Independent newspaper. Amol Rajan told Spectator readers last month that when he became its editor in 2013, he knew he was to be its last.

If the reports in Private Eye are anything to go by, The Guardian may well be next to fall.

Newspaper groups are beginning to realise that their pathetic obsessions with internet clicks and social media are not just self-defeating, but ultimately self-destructing (viz The Independent).

At the other end, Private Eye puts little content on its website and its sales continue to rise.

Bemoaning the departure of the physical Independent newspaper, writer Patrick West points out that Twitter and other social media encourage readers to create “echo chambers, in which groups of like-minded people coalesce to agree with each other”. He goes on: “Newspapers represent the dissemination of information and opinion from above and from without. They represent knowledge bestowed with authority, integrity and privilege. You read what’s put in front of you, learn what you do not seek.”

This is one of the reasons I like the way Geoff Strange connected his liking for both Parrott Records and newspapers. Parrott was like that. It had albums you would take a chance on with the couple of remaining quid in your pocket. I bought a Sham 69 album like this.

And like Geoff, I too remain firmly in the physical book camp. It is to Canterbury’s credit that we retain some marvellous bookshops.

For new books, there is nothing better than spending 20 minutes in the basement of Waterstones in St Margaret’s Street, which is managed by the immensely likeable Martin Latham.

Just down the road is the Chaucer Bookshop in Beer Cart Lane, owned by Sir Robert Sherston-baker, a specialist in antiquarian books. Vinyl is making a comeback, too, forcing its way back into a world used to devices as small as a thumb upon which to store music.

I notice that Whatever Comics in St Peter’s Street, which has undergone a change of ownership recently, now displays an array of classic 12in records in its window.

The message may well be that while newspapers, books and records have all been under assault in the age of digital information, it is worth recognising the importance of trying to conserve those things we truly cherish. Failure to do so will lead to their irretrievable loss.

It is impossible to resist sharing the words which appear on a notice at Chilham’s Woolpack pub.

They were discovered by ghost tour operator John Hippisley, who had been lunching there, and are a joy for those who enjoy wordplay:

An oxymoron is usually defined as a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are brought together: 1) Clearly misunderstood; 2) Exact estimate; 3) Small crowd; 4) Act naturally; 5) Found missing; 6) Fully empty; 7) Pretty ugly; 8) Seriously funny; 9) Only choice; 10) Original copy; And the mother of all… 11) Happily married.

More from our rail network: A few days ago I took the train down from Victoria to Canterbury East.

Getting on with me in London was a woman with 30th birthday balloons and two of her friends.

They were in predictably high spirits and when the conductor arrived and spied their balloons, birthday girl yelped: “I’m 30 today. Can I have a free ride?”

Without detecting her playful mischief, he replied: “I’m afraid I’m not authorised to do that.”

Ah, reminds me of the days of British Rail.

The girls got off at Sittingbourne for the birthday celebration. From the window of the train I spied a Pizza Hut, a KwikFit and the internationally renowned Forum shopping centre – so who’s to know what joy awaited them?

A bloke got on at the next stop, Teynham, without a ticket.

When the conductor asked him his destination, he replied: “This is going to sound weird, but I don’t know where to go – I just know I’ve got to go somewhere as my girlfriend is working at home today.”