News from Kent Online tells us that the Conservatives in Rochester are continuing to be frustrated in their efforts to pick the person they want to fight the next general election. Now (Essex boy) Iain Dale has been missing since he went to Ann Widdecombe's birthday party last night. I think it's just possible he may be in the running as the Conservative candidate for Rochester. Any Bets?
UPDATE: Iain has been to a meeting in Kent this morning. What could that be about I wonder?
UPDATE 2: Looks like I was wrong on this one. Ah well, it was a good guess.
7 comments:
Way off beam.
Ah well it was worth a try. You have got something up your sleeve though.
Iain is actually an Essex boy.
I lived in Strood, a constituent of the City of Rochester, for seven years (I was born and brought up in Gravesend, which is about seven miles or so from Rochester). The MP then was a woman called Peggy Fenner.
In those days I was a reluctant Conservative voter.
Essex- Kent bugger,
Now corrected. Cheers Mr Gruff.
It's too close to Chatham even for an Essex boy.
Chatham once had the distinction of having the highest concentration of pubs per square mile of any town or city in the Br*tish isles. I have no idea whence that information came, nor whether it is actually true.
You probably know quite a few Chatham pubs Steve? A cousin of mine was an REM ('greenies' I think they were known as), and was based at Chatham for a while. He was posted to a small wireless establishment at Beacon Hill, Chattenden, which had been used to jam pirate radio broadcasts in the sixties.
He also served on HMS Mermaid, during the cod war, and was aboard when she was in collision with an Icelandic gunboat. She had originally been built as a private yacht just before the outbreak of the Second World war and her four inch gun dated from the First World War. She was still in service nearly forty years later. Laughable but true.
Beaman and Mr Gruff,
Believe it or not in my 16 years in the Navy I did not visit Chatham once. I did my basic training down at HMS Raleigh and the went on to HMS Sultan in Gosport to do my engineering training. I do however have mates that have very fond memories of their time there.
It was in its time the shore base of choice. With defence cuts Chatham, Rosyth and Portland now only provide minimal services to the Navy. Brown is trying to get Portsmouth shut down as well but I think that won't be so easy. How can an Island nation have only one large Naval base?
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