by Alan Watkins

A £2million bid for lottery funding could take Fort Amherst a stage closer to the dream of being a world visitor attraction.

Whether the dream is either justified or a reality is beside the point.

Fort Amherst as we know it today was originally conceived in the 1980s as an historic treasure that could create tourist jobs. It came in the wake of the closure of the dockyard.

Nearly 30 years on, some parts of it have been opened up but much of the complex is still closed to the public. In part, this is because of ongoing military use.

Part is because the funds are not there and another constraint is because the mining beneath the Great Lines has never been properly mapped or explored.

A bid is being drawn together by the charity trust set up to look after the former Army gunpowder store and by the council. It will go some way towards regaining the initiative lost when the Great Lines bid for World Heritage Status was turned down.

In my opinion the combination of the Historic Dockyard, the fort and Brompton Barracks was doomed to fail. UNESCO, the people who decide what is of world importance and what is not, had insisted too many of the existing heritage sites are in the UK and the US.

They want to look to Mali, Mongolia, Patagonia or Panmunjon but no longer the west.

Another factor against the bid was, I believe, the failure of our community to get behind the project. Medway is full of people who eat breakfast in the dark, arrive home in the dark and spend the rest of their time (and their money) in London. Others are sceptics.

“We aren’t going to win because we never win, therefore there’s no point in taking part,” seems to be the philosophy of many who live here during the day.

It reminds me of a former mayor’s question to me more than 20 years ago: “Why on earth did you want to come here?” The simple answer is that I like the Medway Towns, and the Medway people, and one day I might actually get the feeling that I am accepted as a Medway resident rather than an incomer.

The trust is seeking to motivate people to back their bid. They‘re inviting people to have a look on February 17 at where the £2 million will be spent.

Much of it will be continuing the restoration of the fort. More will be on opening up the Middle Lines, which have been lost over the years beneath clay and earth.

I wish them well. I might even turn up myself.

I have got to learn to say, “let me think about it.”

I was asked if I wanted to be made up as an Ugly Sister for the press launch of the pantomime Cinderella at Chatham’s Central Theatre. I have not worked out yet whether I should be alarmed that I was asked to become an Ugly Sister and not a Prince but that is a little too late now. This year’s show features the brilliant Cheryl Fergison – Heather from EastEnders – and Paul Burling, who was the Harry Hill impressionist on Britain’s Got Talent two series ago.

I arrived at the theatre for the press launch as the panto team were welcomed by passing shoppers in the High Street. Then I was introduced to two actors, Matt Daines and Peter Whitfield, who play the Ugly Sisters.

Matt is also the director of this year’s pantomime and it became clear that he knows exactly how to turn someone into a woman. I had no idea about the different “base” that is first applied – the last time I applied make up was one private Saturday afternoon when my girlfriend was out, so this experience was totally new to me.

I watched myself in the mirror go from a fairly masculine man to cross dresser within 20 minutes. Comments of, “you’d make a good woman” were repeated, although I think my stubble would be a giveaway.

As you can see from the photo, Andy became Andrea for a brief time. If the producers are reading this, I am available as an Ugly Sisters understudy anytime!

If you listen to kmfm Breakfast with Rob and Emma you will soon have the chance to win tickets to this year’s Christmas panto at the Central Theatre, plus others across Kent. They will also be joined on the show by Cheryl Fergison, Paul Burling and Steve McFadden, aka Phil Mitchell from EastEnders. He is in pantomime this year at Dartford’s Orchard Theatre.

I cannot remember the last time I went to see a Christmas panto or when I have been inside the Central Theatre. The grandeur of the venue is clear when you walk inside and see its high, decorated ceilings and large tinted windows.

It took me back to playing Dandini at the Westlands School in Sittingbourne when I was in sixth form. The magic was clear from watching this year’s cast interact with each other. Your family will love it.

I will leave it for you to answer whether I enjoyed being Andrea but my pose in this picture may be a giveaway. I’ll speak to you in my man clothes on your way home on kmfm Drivetime from 4pm.

I was contacted today by a man who asked me whether I knew anything about a lynx that was found dead on the outskirts of Chatham in 1926. It was a new one on me I must admit, and I'm hoping that a search of newspaper archives will reveal more. Even so, the most fascinating aspect of the story was that the man (a farmer) who found the carcass took it for analysis to 'a zoo.' The lynx had in fact been shot on his farm in an area 'not far from the high road' and it was rumoured to have escaped from captivity although this was never verified. It's these older reports which intrigue me more because they prove that there have been sightings of 'big cats' in the Kent wilds for a long, long time, and yet sceptics are very keen to dismiss the modern reports as if they are part of some hysteria or mass hallucination. It also brought to mind the case of a lynx, housed in a Bristol museum, which was shot dead in the 1800s and then stuffed.

On Sunday 5th August a complete sceptic to such reports had his own strange encounter. At 9:00 am the witness in question was leaving Istead Rise, and driving a long the Weotham Road when suddenly in front of his car a large black cat, which he described as 'panther' casually strolled, from one field to the other. The witness was absoloutely stunned by the sighting. As were the two golfers recently at Dungeness who were on their local course when a lynx stared stright at them before moving off into undergrowth. Daylight sightings are not unheard of, cats still like to bask in the sun or move from a to b before laying up somehwre. In the last two weeks there have been 16 'big cat' sightings reported to me, and half of these were made in broad daylight, including a black leopard near Blue Bell Hill another from Shadoxhurst in Ashford in which a woman reported seeing a black leopard rummaging through the sacks at the end of her drive. The cat measured over three-feet in length and the tail alone was 2-ft long.

A majority of sightings take place at night and often involve motorists. For instance, a black leopard was seen on 22nd July  at 9:10 pm near Hucking my a woman in her car - the cat turned and crossed a field a short distance away, whilsy fifty minutes later but in Rusthall, Tunbridge Wells, another female motorist reported seeing a big, black cat that crossed an unlit road, but then spotted the car headlights and turned back. One of the most impressive sightings however took place on the 24th July at Goudhurst. The couple in question had throw a chicken carcass into their garden to feed the local foxes when during the early hours the security light came on. The witness looked out of the window and could hear a strange snuffling noise and was then shocked to see a massive black cat. When the light went off the cat bounded away.

When you receive as many eye witness reports over the years as what I have, you find it impossible to dismiss every one. Not every witness is out to perpetrate a hoax and not every witness gets it wrong. A few decades ago a naturalist who was investigating the Surrey puma leegnd claimed that all the witnesses were seeing dogs!! This theory is incredibly bizarre - I don't know of many stray labradors roaming the remote corners of Kent of a night and whilst dogs do get loose, they do not resemble 'panthers' in broad daylight. And they most certainly do not lick prey clean and leave fang marks. The photo below shows the skull of a pig killed in Sussex. The unfortunate victim was stripped clean, and there are two deep puncture marks on the lower jaw. In the same area foxes, ducks and deer have been found eaten, scratch marks discovered  6-ft up a tree and unusual scat also found. As I often say to sceptics, if you can tell me what animal did this I'd love to hear from you, although there is only one animal that would leave these type of signs. I'm sure however that there'll still be those among you who say "There's no evidence..."

by David Jones

Welcome to Luton Arches, the gateway to Chatham, or should that be the cesspit at the start of the High Street?

by Peter Cook

This is my latest big idea. Let’s bring back Dickens.

Forget those old campaigns to fetch HMS Victory back to Chatham, where she was built. That plan is dead in the water. Or rather dead in the concrete.

We would need dozens of road drills to dig her out before we could even get a tow line aboard. That might wake up the neighbours.

Dickens is a different matter. And we would be doing the old boy a favour. We’d also be doing Rochester a favour and people could come and pay homage at his tomb for free, instead of having to pay through the nose like you do in Westminster Abbey.

He never wanted to be buried in Westminster Abbey with all those other puffed-up writers.

The original plan was to pop him into Shorne Churchyard. But that might be a bit close to the motorway these days, albeit quite near Cobham Woods, where he loved to walk.

The Dean and Chapter at Rochester Cathedral offered to have him interred there. A grave was even dug for him. Perhaps it’s still there under the flagstones, waiting to collapse under some preaching prelate.

Imagine the astonished looks on the faces of the choir as the Dean or even the Bishop was inexplicably swallowed up, with just a puff of masonry dust to show where he had been.

Being realistic, they have probably put someone else in there now. After all, if you’ve dug a good hole, you don’t want to waste it.

So let’s start a campaign now to have the coffin exhumed and repatriated to the city that he knew and loved – well, it soon will be a city.

Devotees would flock to Rochester from every country where Dickens is read and loved – and that’s just about every country.

At a stroke it would make Rochester High Street a commercial gold mine, offering everything from Dickens soap on a rope, take-aways from the Chuzzlewit Chip Shop, treatments at the Our Mutual Massage Parlour and so on.  Actually, it’s a bit like that now.

So I’m looking for full support for this campaign. The next Dickens Festival should be a protest march with placard-carrying characters from his books chanting Bring Back Boz.

Last month a yob gouged a 6in scratch on my car, the first newish vehicle I have been able to afford in 40 years of driving.

It was fortunate for him I didn’t see him do it. Or perhaps it was fortunate for me.

It happened at night, so this mindless (is there any other kind?) piece of vandalism  went unnoticed until the next morning.  But afterwards I wondered what I would do if I had caught him in the act.

Would I have called the police?  Probably not, because he would have been long gone by the time they arrived, assuming they arrived at all.

Would I have confronted him? Probably not, because I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a punch or something more dangerous.  And while these people may be thick, they are streetwise. Law-abiding citizens have  found themselves in a cell after their tormentors have concocted a story about how they were assaulted by their victim.

Which brings me to the case of Paul Creed, who did assault a 13-year-old boy, who he believed had thrown a bottle at the wall of his Chatham home.

It was the culmination of months of misery for Mr Creed, whose home had become the target for vandals and rubbish dumpers.

He was given a light sentence of community service when he appeared in court. The judge described the 42-year-old’s plight as “shocking.”

I am not going to speculate here on whether or not the 13-year-old threw or kicked a bottle at Mr Creed’s home but it is clear from the judge’s comments and web reaction that someone in that group of passing teenagers did.

“Pushed to the limit,” Mr Creed attacked the youth he thought was responsible. Whether or not the boy was guilty is beside the point: Mr Creed was wrong to attack him.

Taking the law into your own hands is never wise because you then lower yourself to same level. And, inevitably, it is you who will end up in the dock, while they go free.

People take the law into their own hands, because they feel frustrated by the lack of help from “officialdom.”   It’s a last resort and their judgement becomes clouded in the heat of the moment.

My guess is that this case will not bring an end to Mr Creed’s unhappy story. I suspect that the local yobs, encouraged by the publicity and unchecked by equally irresponsible parents, will devote more time to making his life a misery. I do hope I am wrong.

by David Jones

There's a master plan for Chatham. I know this because I have just read it on Medway Council’s website and this newspaper has been writing about it for years.

It all looked rather wonderful – or at least the computer-generated impressions did. Sadly, the 'real’ Chatham looks somewhat different right now.

It’s a traffic-clogged eyesore, now more-down-at-heel than a year ago when I last had to pay the town an unavoidable visit. But that’s progress for you...

Stuck in a traffic jam at the junction of The Brook and Dock Road last month and trying to work out how to get to the Staples store in Medway Street, I was reminded of a sentence from Bill Bryson’s excellent book, Notes From A Small Island: “Bradford’s role in life is to make every place in the world look better in comparison and it does this very well.”

Delete “Bradford” and insert “Chatham” and you know exactly how I felt trying to negotiate the ugly maze that is now Chatham town centre.

You needed to stop and park to understand the road signs and I probably broke half-a-dozen traffic regulations trying to reach Staples.

Confusing doesn’t begin to describe it. Other drivers were equally baffled, not least by the ambiguous 'dead end’ sign at the start of Globe Lane.

Meanwhile, Chatham High Street must take the prize for the most unwelcoming, and at times intimidating, pedestrianised shopping area in Kent. None but the brave – and those who want to visit Debenhams – venture there.

Sorry if this all sounds harsh and I know I’ll be accused of being 'negative’ or unsupportive of the council’s efforts to regenerate Medway and Chatham in particular, but it has to be said.

The team of 19 which comprises Medway Renaissance, the grandly-titled organisation tasked with the regeneration of Medway, is being made redundant.

It’s all down to the private sector now, we are told. Great news but, er, who’s going to pay?

The Renaissance team has been given the chop because of the government’s public spending cut-backs and Medway Council has to save £50 million over the next four years.

So, somebody please tell me: when is Chatham going to end up as the city centre for Medway? 

Wait a minute, the Thames Gateway Kent Partnership can answer that: “Medway is undergoing major regeneration and aims to be a city of Culture, Learning, Tourism and Enterprise. Chatham will be the cultural and civic heart of this new city, a city of 300,000 people by 2026.” 

That’s in 16 years’ time. The regeneration of Chatham has been under discussion for about the last 10. It won’t be much of an exaggeration, given the inevitable delays, to say that the transformation will have taken near enough 30 years. Am I alone in thinking that, to put it kindly, it will have been rather a long wait?

Strangely enough, 30 years is the same time it took to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

As the Renaissance team had previously declared its intention of making Medway 'a world-class city’ we must hope its aspirations did not stretch to turning Chatham into the Eighth Wonder of the World, a laudable aim though that might be.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse at Alexandria… the Waterfront at Chatham. You must admit it’s got a nice ring to it.

On a more serious note, I can only say this: last month, if I had been an out-of-area visitor to Chatham, about half-an-hour in all that mayhem would have been enough to convince me never to return, no matter what the computer-generated images look like on the council website.

No doubt Messrs Chambers, Jarrett & Co will be doing their best to persuade us that better days are coming in Chatham.

I know that Chatham has some great assets, notably the Waterfront  area and that the River Medway is the key to making the town come alive again. 

No one can doubt that some progress has been made but Chatham needs more than a demolished flyover and a new bus station. The town’s beating heart has died. It needs a serious injection of the character it once had.

But when? I want a straight answer to a simple question: When will Chatham stop looking like a depressing bomb site and start to have the warm, inviting feel of a place worth visiting?

Will it be in 16 years or 40? Or is that question now impossible to answer because of the Spending Review?

SARAH Jane Smith is back on television this evening (that's Monday evening). I’m on holiday so I’m allowed to stay up and watch it (CBBC, 5.15pm).

The series follows the electrifying escapades of Doctor Who’s the Doctor’s former fellow traveller Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) in the imaginatively titled “Sarah Jane Adventures”. I hope you’re keeping up.

This evening’s awesome adventure is all about a boy from Chatham (he really is) who can’t act (he really can’t), and keeps appearing to have “nightmares” about a strange cape-commanding man (he has finger-less gloves) with a white face who hasn‘t had much sleep recently. Turns out he’s called the “Nightmare Man”.

I’m not giving anything away though as this two-part story is called “The Nightmare Man”. I hope you’re keeping up.

But guess what - this fetid dream fellow is preposterously pernicious - and his existence spells certain peril for the world’s population. Thank God then that Sarah Jane is around with her sonic lipstick (really, that's what she has) and Nissan Figaro. And that talking computer whose voice sounds like Alexander Armstrong from BBC2 hit quiz show Pointless. Sarah Jane’s no-nonsense former-journalistic approach to these threats is certainly convivial for us all.

For some reason Sarah Jane has been given her own series. But what of the oft forgotten Doctor Who companions? The Romana Drama; Bonnie Langford in Hot Milk; K9 and the Mysterious Intangible Cat. Shouldn’t they be given a 30-minute children’s television show? Or even some of the baddies? The Cybermen and the Unfathomable Mrs Pilchard?

I can well envisage the Daleks starring in a hard-hitting, grim, urban police drama in which Bradley Walsh (who is Detective Sergeant Ronnie Brooks - the grim imagery being the fuel that ignites his powerful portrayal) is ruthlessly tracking down a murderer whose been killing prostitutes in the wrong part of Brixton. Things are getting messy, Bradley is looking grim.

He’s drinking tea and following a clue found on the back of an old peanut packet and soon discovers it was a Dalek suckering off those lonely men (don't get me started on it's gun). There’s an intense court scene in which the judge bangs his gavel a lot and the cross-examination of the Dalek reveals character traits the audience wasn’t expecting. Maybe it was doing it for its kids or had a heroin addiction. Or both. Maybe the Dalek's new lover has put it to work on the streets as a transorganism prostitute?

How about those farting fellas the Slitheen? We all know they can disguise themselves as humans. It could be an engrossing new game show fronted by Vernon Kay for ITV1. It would work a bit like Guess Who in which you ditch all the ginger people and those with glasses and, if you’ve played well, you’re left with the Slitheen at the end. (Does your person wear glasses? Does your person have blonde hair? Does your person slip a cheeky one out when no one is looking? ) There’d be loads of celebrities from Coronation Street and EastEnders taking part too.

At the end of the show- if you’ve guessed right - the Slitheen would emerge from it's skin-suit (disguised as Shane Ritchie in episode one) and rip Vernon Kay to shreds. You could then switch over to ITV2 and watch the production team trying to staple and sellotape him back together in time for the next show. I think Adrian Chiles would probably host.

A press release from the developer promises a park and ride facility funded for five years by Sainsbury's.

It will run to Strood, Rochester and Chatham. Another would serve areas of Strood, Frindsbury and Wainscott.

Sainsbury's press release says: "The new Park & Ride is essential to Medway’s wider public transport strategy and would be a key asset in helping to alleviate local congestion and ensuring the future vitality of town centres in Medway."

This is the same area that is to get all the improvements to bus priorities.

Where are the park and ride facilities for the old borough of Gillingham, where a park and ride off the M2?

I know politicians will immediately say Sainsbury's will fund the Rochester/Chatham/Strood P&R (providing they get planning permission for their new super store on the Medway City Estate).

The point is the council has known about these problems for many years.

If we are to relieve our busiest roads of some of the traffic which needs it more - a dual carriageway'd road network, or an over-busy, increasingly stop-start, A2?

***

Children might be getting fat and someone has spent more than £1 million of council taxpayers' money without authority, but there was still an opportunity for a smile at Medway's cabinet meeting.

This week's meeting was delayed for a few minutes for teas and coffees.

One disappointed member was the education portfolio holder, Cllr Les Wicks.

Last to the table and last to his seat, he arrived at the meeting empty-handed.

"There's not enough hot water," he protested.

The acting chairman, Cllr Alan Jarrett, who was about to reveal with Cllr Wicks the story so far known about the unauthorised spending on the school extension at Woodlands Primary School in Gillingham, was none too sympathetic.

"I would have thought you were in enough hot water," he said.

***

One of the few occasions members of the public can argue with councillors is at a site visit.

They are ordered from time to time when planning applications cannot be settled in a council room.

So they go out to the site to look and to make up their minds.

That's where the public gets a look-in.

Councillors will listen to arguments for and against the plans.

Next Monday they are going to two sites. One of those site visits is at 7pm.

Have a look outside at 7pm tonight - then consider how much the councillors will be able to see.

Children enjoying the last of the summer weather at Capstone Farm Park, Capstone Road, Chatham. Here is three-year-old Savanna, by PETER STILL.

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