with me currently still living in the sticks in France (chuffing cold BTW!!) and with the impending Brexit I have decided that I may just move back to good old Blighty, and have got many options as to where Plymouth and Portsmouth being 2 of them, but then I realized what about "home" , i was born in Canada house in April of '76 so I am hoping my fellow Gills fans could let me know what Gillingham is like nowadays, not been anywhere near the place for over a decade and do miss the games. sorry to bring in politics (i would have voted Leave even being in the EU) let us know please Many Thanks UTG!!!!
Highest crime rate in Kent i believe, not just the highest but nigh on double the next nearest town/city in the crime crime stats. Also throughout a lot of the Medway area, they've started to ban kids from places like McDonalds, the trouble with local youngsters got so bad, an age limit was enforced in some establishments. Basically it's a ****e hole these days. But feel free to pull your caravan up alongside me on the future GFC development land and i'll roast you a few squirrels on my huge bbq. Where i am is fine, some local club wants the land but i believe we will be fine here until at least 2050. Hope that helps Ps. If someone called a Mr Scally starts asking after me, you don't know me right, in fact you've never heard of me.
As a Northern exile (I actually moved up here before you were born!) I only make occasion visits to Gillingham, though more frequent ones to rural Kent where my mother lives. I couldn't argue with brb's assessment of Gillingham, but there are plenty of places in Kent that are very pleasant, although as usual the more pleasant, the higher the price. If you have francophone tendencies (politics aside) then obviously the benefit of Kent is that it's easy and relatively inexpensive to get the France, though I guess that is one of the reasons you're looking at Plymouth or Portsmouth. Of those two I would personally favour Plymouth (or in the countryside outside it, as I'm not particularly fond of towns).
James - don't believe a word that brb's written -- Gillingham is not a ****ehole ! ---- It's not nearly that desirable. Sadly there is little to redeem the place - especially the centre parts. If you must return to the Medway Towns, I'd choose somewhere a bit rural.......... don't go near where brb lives - the people all look like each other ( and their pet dogs )
I may not have been there for quite a few years but the description of the "Medway Towns" isn't quite how I remember the place. I first went there in 1965 where I did my Naval training at the Supply School which was HMS Pembroke. I was only 16 at the time but did manage to find a few pubs to have a quiet beer in. You walked out of Pembroke, turned left outside the gate and through what we knew as the Kyber Pass to Gillingham High Street. The Kyber Pass was a lane through some allotments on both sides of it I think. I went back there in 1975 to do a Petty Officer qualifying course and was posted to Flag Officer Medway's staff after finishing it. I lived in an MQ on the fairly new estate of quarters built on what I remembered as the allotments. My son was born ironically in Canada House in June 1976. He could almost be your twin JAMES................. Bottom line to all of this though is I don't remember the area being a s***hole even if I haven't been back since.
Let me help define the place a bit better since them days ... https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/gillingham-kent-medway.html Gillingham, Kent, a quaint little sh–ehouse situated on the river Medway. Once upon a time, it was separate from Chatham and Rochester and was a decent thriving town, a good place to live. The people of Gillingham had a different accent to their p–ey inbred rivals from Chatham, who are easy to distinguish since the geezers are all half puggy and most of the fat lardarse bitches are on the game [allegedly]. Since being merged into Medway against the will of the inhabitants, we have lost our council housing to these scum who now inundate Gillingham council housing, because medway sold there own. When walking down the high st from the station, if you’re a tourist the first thing you see is the [alleged] scumhole known as the “bell” a.k.a the s—–n bell, a well known [alleged] habitat of layabout thieves, scumrats, fat lardarse bitches (swilling beer all day, usually with a baby in tow nearby, who’s of doubtful parentage and ethnicity and who’ve never done a days work in their lives), alkies & druggies. It is [allegedly] full of divs and ugly hoes with rotten teeth. Moving on, if unfortunately it is the so called “market day” you will be confronted by what can only be described as a North African Kasbah full of illegal immigrants in gangs and eastern European roma pickpockets. Visiting this mobile den of iniquity will be 100’s of Chatham pi–y women, intent on thieving. The cheap fake clothes and hooped earrings give them away and they also like to chat up the ethnic stallholders because most have babies from immigrants already. If your lucky enough to emerge unscathed from this collection of cheap crap, you will come to a certain pharmacy. Outside will be a line of filth of all descriptions, but unwashed mingers with tangled hair and the same clothes on for a month would be fair to describe them. As for their boyfriends? Dirty little rats that sell anything they can steal and have no idea of morality and regularly rob the elderly and vulnerable without any sense of common decency. They will all be there to collect their methadone or rob it off the weaker ones. When you cross over, it is advisable to conceal your face and in case you accidentally make eye with any of these dropouts. That is because they will ask where you’re going and if you say the ATM or bank, they will immediately go into a begging routine and keep on whining until you say f–k off or give in, so you lie profusely and move on. Some wont believe you and will watch which way you go if you’re a mug. So you have to pause and dart into a local bookies to confuse them. When you see the coast is clear you can proceed on your way to the h——x bank. You have to check when leaving, because they will blatantly accost you again, but not me, because I’m no mug and they get a f off. After leaving you have to once more run the gauntlet in reverse, passing the junkies and dozens of takeaways and cafes that overwhelm the place. Most of these eateries are foreign and [allegedly] have filthy kitchens and not very appetising menus. Most are [allegedly] regularly raided by health inspectors who recently published a list of no go takeaways who were awarded the order of botulism for cooking a 1 star for hygiene. You will also pass another quaint well known [alleged] scumhole known as the “brit”. Yet another den of layabouts, but more violent than its close neighbour. The Bell should be avoided at all costs by all decent citizens… unless you want your face smashed in. The bottom half of the high st is not even worth a mention, just a dead end. People like to boast about the Strand Leisure Park in Gillingham, but it’s just a bit of grass with a swimming pool that sits by the side of a disgustingly filthy river, full of the sh–e that’s emptied into it. A Police diver once caught Weils disease and died from swallowing some of the water. At night it’s best to avoid the place completely, because its overrun with illegal immigrants whom the police [allegedly] do nothing about and it’s a no go area for a woman on her own. Going to the cash machine would be inviting instant robbery and sometimes stabbing. The murder rate in Medway has skyrocketed. Mostly stabbings by foreign gangs who all carry knives and by Jamaican yardie gangs who come to sell crack and heroin virtually openly and usually to copulate with local bitches in return for drugs (old hoes who they then put on the game and live off). This town has been ruined and most of the blame is down to inadequate policing and local govt. To see Police getting off their arses and patrolling is a rarity these days and the elderly residents now feel unsafe in their own town. So I say to the unwary, avoid Gillingham (the safest of the Medway towns) and the others, that are even worse.
brb I award you with Poster-of-the Year --- not so much for your sterling work for the Gillingham Tourism Board, but for taking the effort to not merely 'post a link.' ------ you do realise that people won't have read your 'addition' to the link ------- has your dementia got so bad that you cannot now remember what you read in a link just a few moments earlier ? ....... as for sensiblegreeny -- I now know why brb likes you so much ---he's no longer the oldest poster on here. I bet it was convenient that your son was born in Canada House. I did hear that the mother in the next bed to your wife's remarked on how very identical their sons looked ! edit..... the sad thing is that the 'link' isn't that far from the truth.
I think people are being unfair about The Medway towns, what some don't understand is that the whole area is a huge scientific experiment. Many years ago Charles Darwin published his works on evolution "The Origin of The Species" (On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.) The Medway Towns has proven that reverse evolution is possible, it has managed to breed a race of violent, incoherent, ape like creatures with little or no social structure, DNA testing has shown they are closely related to the Neanderthal race of times past. Under Darwin's theory evolution moves a species forward, this experiment has shown that within a welfare state where natures mistakes are mollycoddled and allowed to breed instead of left to die out, it is possible for a species to revert to a less developed throw back from early history.
There is a moral to my dementia, albeit i know i'm very trustworthy I generally as a whole discourage people from clicking links, you'd be amazed what i can create from links. Anyway Mr Alwaysright, thank you for your participation in my experiment by clicking the link, via which your bank balances with the aid of my Nigerian long lost cousins (who also bath in the Medway) you can be assured have gone to help good causes, such as the Gillingham Evolution Fund and the Pikey Preservation Fund, we thank you for your kind and very generous donations.
The rest of Kent as a whole is very pleasant so you can still have the benefit of moving to the Garden of England and being close to the Mighty Gills, without having to live in Medway
I last went to the place, apart from a few games...in and out quickly, back in 2003. I went back to see the places that I had enjoyed as a child (born in 1954). The large park at the rear of the old municipal buildings in Gillingham Road, the Strand where I spent most of my summers in the swimming pool, the bandstand and all the children's swings and other 'stuff'......when it was pleasant and clean (despite being overlooked by the old gas works). I was stunned by the decay, and we can all joke about certain sections of the community but I was pretty horrified. I was on a nice shiny Ducati sports bike and had no intention of leaving it anywhere unattended. Yes there are many towns in such a state but it was the destruction of the memories that hurt the most. I moved to Brighton in 1974 and visited Gillingham occasionally (parents) and to, of course, get to the games. Nowadays I live in SW France, just over an hour inland from La Rochelle on the coast and return to the UK as a tourist rather infrequently (just been back for a fortnight and took in Brighton, Manchester, the Lake District and SW Scotland. I love the beer and the 'pub' culture and of course 'The Gills' are still very close to my heart. The decay and the over population both in the towns and on the roads I do not miss, but I am still an Englishman, a 'Man of Kent', a heritage of which I am proud......which makes me all the sadder to see what has become of my home.
Windyrog - it looks like you'll have to settle for your Lot ( yes, I know the geography isn't quite right - but not too far away )..... very nice area -- and you wouldn't want to be on the coast - the only time I've been sea sick was when I was on a cruise which went into the Bay of Biscay.
Bay of Biscay is vastly overrated as a sea size jacuzzi. I've been on bigger waves in my bath than that produces. If you want a real honk then go a bit further north to the coast off southern ireland. Virtually permanent 20 to 30ft rollers there and that's when it's playing nice. Problem it has is the waves travel about 3000 miles before getting there as there is nothing between it and the USA. Oh and don't go fishing off the Icelandic coast.
