Postcards from the Edge
Improved rail links with London have encouraged a cultural boom, but there’s also a downside, says local resident Mary Kenny
Deal, on the Channel coast, has been named (in a survey by the Sunday Times) as the third-best place to live in the south-east of England (Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, came first, and Chadlington, Oxfordshire, second).
My late husband, who chose for us to move to Deal in 1997, would have been dismayed. Richard liked Deal because it seemed unfashionable, quirky, offbeat, a little bohemian and reminiscent of 1950s England. I thought it a little too quiet.
But now Deal is attracting hipsters and trendy types, and the survey recommends its Georgian (sometimes Jacobean) architecture, smart bars and high-quality restaurants. And ’tis true that Deal’s amenities have multiplied over the past twenty years or so. We now have a stunning art gallery, two lovely delicatessens, the revived Astor Theatre, a film museum, pretty dress shops, tasteful, arty antique shops and coffee houses that weren’t there before.
But what made the big difference to Deal’s prosperity was the arrival of the high-speed train service in 2014.
As often happens in a community, the energy and commitment of a local pressure group played a key role in bringing a glossy train service to the town. Tom Rowland, a 65-year-old journalist, with the support of a Labour councillor, Ian Killbery, successfully galvanised the campaign.
The high-speed train, which started from Ramsgate in 2009, originally just passed through Deal without stopping. Southeastern maintained that it wasn’t viable to serve Deal, and some local politicians weren’t enthusiastic.
But the Trains4deal pressure group finally persuaded it that it was. It makes sense to use existing track and encourage commuters off the roads. And thus the high-speed locomotive came to Deal in the autumn of 2014. That, essentially, is what made the town one of the top locations in the south-east. Working commuters can now get to St Pancras in 85 minutes. A late last train is also a boon to West End theatregoers.
There are more DFLS (Down From Londoners) who have purchased second homes in Deal since the advent of the railway, and this has brought something of a metropolitan buzz. Some houses, however, remain empty through the winter months and there are grumbles about that. Deal-ites think that, where you have a property, there you should commit to regular involvement. Quite so.
France will mark the évènements of 1968 with a special anniversary celebration in May at Nanterre University, where it all began. Danny Cohn-bendit – credited with starting the ‘French Revolution’ of 1968 – has declined to grace the occasion. He’s fed up with May ’68 and, anyway, nowadays he supports President Macron, who is striving to halt another series of strikes hitting France this season. Ironic.
The year 1968 was significant in terms of cultural change: there was Paris, there was Grosvenor Square, and there was – maybe most significant of all – the Prague Spring. There was also the rise of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, challenging the status quo caused by the partition of Ireland – haunting us still around the Brexit dilemma. Most of us oldies remember it well. I was present both at the Paris student revolts – I reported them, on a bicycle, for the Evening Standard – and at the Battle of Grosvenor Square, led by Tariq Ali (still with us – a courteous and benign grandfather).
I intended to be at Grosvenor Square anyway, but the editor of the Standard, Charles Wintour, also asked me to keep an eye on his daughter Anna, who then had a Maoist boyfriend and was keen to participate. Anna Wintour apparently spent much time anguishing over what she should wear.
Well, it’s a serious question for a gal who’s destined to become the editor of American Vogue – what does one wear to a Left-wing demo?
Afterwards, my recollection is, we had tea at the Dorchester, Vietcong flags folded away discreetly. Shameful, really.
Pope Francis is due to visit Ireland during the summer, and isn’t there great excitement about that? Er, not really. Crabby arguments have appeared in the public realm about the cost – the bill will be about £18 million, of which only £4.4 million has been collected from churchgoers. Atheist Ireland – quite an influential lobby these days – and secularists are cutting up rough about the taxpayer possibly having to provide the remainder.
And the minister for children, a very capable American-irish lesbian called Katherine Zappone, has warned His Holiness that LGBT families – gay couples and their children – must be included in the category of ‘family’; to which point the Holy See has responded with some apparent confusion. Francis may have to exercise all his charm – and whatever the Argentinian definition of blarney is – to make the trip a success.