Bringing Luton together with lights
Plus Bill Lewis in Spanish, Royal Engineers mark 150th anniversary of FA Cup win, we review Bare Bones in Rochester, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
It’s fair to say that Luton Road in Chatham doesn’t have the best reputation. This week, a light festival will illuminate the area in an effort to bring the community together. We’ve been finding out more. Further down, we hear about the challenges of translating the work of legendary Medway poet Bill Lewis into Spanish, Rob Flood details how the Royal Engineers are celebrating the 150th anniversary of their FA Cup win, we review Bare Bones, the new chicken restaurant in Rochester. Of course, there’s also our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
Bringing Luton together with lights
Luton Lights is a family-friendly light festival celebrating creativity, community, and wonder. It is heading towards its grand finale, so we caught up with Wayne Parsons, Senior Producer at Ideas Test, who is responsible for this year’s festival.
“The recent workshops have been fantastic”, says Wayne. “We've had a great turnout, with people of all ages and backgrounds coming together to create their artworks. There's been a real buzz of excitement and creativity in the air.” Getting the community involved is a key part of the Luton Lights project. The UV artworks created during the sessions are now on display in the windows of homes and businesses along Luton Road and Luton High Street.
The displays come to life at night, creating a magical, illuminated trail. A stop-motion animation film, also created during the workshops, will be projected onto the back of the Bowen Moto shop on Luton Road. On 18 February, you can take part in a guided walk “where you join a swashbuckling pirate for an adventurous journey along Luton Road,” hearing tales of the sea while exploring the illuminated displays. The walk starts at 6pm and is free to join.
This is the second Luton Lights event, following the inaugral edition last year. The festival was designed to unite the community, celebrate Luton, and showcase local creativity. “The window displays are a fantastic example of this, with 24 homes and businesses already participating and more expressing interest", notes Wayne. The enthusiasm from the community has been strong, and Ideas Test are “thrilled to provide an event that brings vibrancy and light to the area.”
For 2025, Luton Lights explores the theme ‘Tales from the Deep.’ The result weaves together the different aspects of the project, encouraging creative responses and exploration of underwater worlds. “We felt this theme offered exciting possibilities for content creation across a variety of art forms”, says Wayne. This includes the visual arts, with participants drawing and creating sculptures inspired by the diverse life and myths in the ocean depths. Performance pieces have brought tales of pirates, sailors and mythical underwater beings to life. They have used Immersive Technology to transport residents to the underwater worlds, allowing them to explore and interact with the tales in a unique way. All of this has enabled Ideas Test to explore important issues of environmental awareness, like plastic pollution and raising awareness of its impact on marine environments. “Tales from the Deep also connects to Medway's rich maritime history, adding a local resonance to the project”, says Wayne.
Wayne is grateful to the community members for hosting artworks, the volunteers and the participants. The intent of the Grand Finale is to “bring light and joy to the town.” It will be held on Friday 21 February from 6pm til 8pm at the Invicta Social Club, where you can “experience the magic of Luton Lights.” There will be VR and AR experiences, live music, projection mapping, theatrical performances by Spotlites Theatre Company, and excitingly, popcorn.
In brief
👶 Imagine Play Cafe is opening at Chatham Dockside in the Spring. The location is aimed at parents and children and will feature a coffee shop, a role-play village, and a baby sensory zone.
🚶 The Baton of Hope 2025 is set to visit Medway. The Olympic torch-style baton will be carried through Medway and other parts of Kent on 22 September, encouraging people to discuss mental health struggles.
🛳️ The Medway Queen reopens for its 2025 season tomorrow. A £10 ticket grants access to the ship docked at Gillingham Pier for a year.
⚽ Things are not going well at Gillingham Football Club. Chairman Brad Galinson said he felt ‘embarrassed, despondent, and frustrated’ with the team’s performance. At the same time, manager John Coleman called the players ‘too soft’ and said he wanted to ‘vomit’ watching them play.
Bridging cultures with poetry
Bill Lewis, Medway Poet and former Stuckist, spoke to us last year about his retirement plans. One of his last projects was a Spanish translation of his poetry. That book is due to be released on Monday by Goat Star Books. We spoke with translator Rafael Cruz about why he translated Bill into Spanish and their upcoming Spanish tour, ahead of returning to Rainham Poetry Festival this year.
I start by asking Rafael how he would describe Bill Lewis. In return, he offers a historical context of the artist. “Bill Lewis is a painter and poet who comes from what was called the Medway Poets in the 1970s, also known as the punk poets. They were rebellious and working class, very independent and very Medway. Each of them developed in different ways. Some went on to be musicians, others became painters.” While others have moved on, Bill has remained a core part of the Medway creative scene. “Bill is a good painter, but he is above all a poet and a poet that is very rooted in Medway, but also looking outwards to the world, which is a very Medway thing to be, because Medway is Kent but it's not Kent. Medway is open to the river and through the river to the empire and the world beyond. I think that there is something of that quality of Medway in Bill. This idea of being very grounded in Medway, but at the same time, looking outwards to the sea and beyond.”
I ask Rafael if he remembers when he first came across Bill’s work. “I knew of the Medway Poets and I knew of Bill Lewis. I have a degree in English Literature, as well as setting up a poetry publishing company.” Rafael admits that whilst he knew of Bill Lewis, he hadn’t actually read any of his poetry, despite the Medway Poets being famous in his mind. “I came across him directly when I presented a book I published from a Spanish surrealist poet that I translated into English in Store 104 in Rochester. I seized the opportunity to link surrealism with the Medway Poets because there's a lot of connections between them.”
Rafael tells me that he contacted Bill out of the blue and he was very amenable to that. Bill came to compère for the book launch, and Rafael translated some of his poems into Spanish for the occasion. “Then, because everything went so well, I said to Bill, ‘Well, you're not known in Spain, and my publishing house wants to be a bridge between cultures, particularly the Spanish and the English, because that's me. I'm a Spaniard, I live in Britain. That's the project.’ And he was delighted.” From there, they decided to work on an anthology of his poetry, as well as including new poems published for the first time.
There are currently four poetry books available curated by Bill. This project is a collection from those books called ‘Bill Lewis: The Shaman Poet and El Poeta Chamán.’ Bill has had translations appear in other languages before, but via magazines and anthologies, never a book of his own. “I’m very proud”, says Rafael. The Shaman Poet title comes because after punk poetry, “Bill became very interested in mythology, the mythology of Kent, then the mythology of England, the Celtic, the Anglo-Saxon, the mythologies of the land.”
In the late 1970s there had been a revolution in Nicaragua “and there was a lot of international interest that this could be a new Cuba,” says Rafael. Bill was invited by the Nicaraguan embassy to visit Nicaragua. “He became part of the Nicaraguan poetry scene, and a lot of the poems in our anthology have a Latin American or Spanish connection because he wrote a lot of poems when he was in Nicaragua. He was also in touch with the Miskito Indians, the indigenous culture of Nicaragua. And he became even more interested in this idea of poetry as shamanistic.”
The upcoming book is bilingual. “If you don't understand a single word of Spanish, it's okay. You can still buy the book”, Rafael reassures me. His introduction to the book and the index are also in Spanish and English. “They are also very good for people who know a bit of Spanish, or people who are studying Spanish. One page is in English and the other is in Spanish.”
Part of the challenge of translating poetry is words that might rhyme or have multiple meanings may not do that in the translation. “It's a privilege that Bill exists”, says Rafael, who has translated work by deceased authors. “I could ask him directly. I think the translator is a medium. I hear the voice of the original. I understand what the original is saying and then I say to myself, ‘How would I say that in Spanish?’” Rafael, as well as writing a thesis on English poetry, is married to a British person and has lived here for 33 years. “I'm in a very unique position in that sense because English is my home language, but my native language is Spanish. But that happens to a lot of people. What doesn't happen to a lot of people is that they have that and the knowledge of poetry. That means that I can be a perfect medium for the translation of poetry.”
‘Bill Lewis: The Shaman Poet and El Poeta Chamán’ will be available from Goat Star Books on Monday. Bill Lewis will then be going on a Spanish tour with stops including Malaga, Seville, and Madrid. If you can’t make it to Spain, you can catch him at the Rainham Poetry Festival in April.
Out to Lunch: Bare Bones
In which Steven Keevil assesses the lunch options available in our towns. This week, he’s been down to Bare Bones in Rochester…
Bare Bones is the new chicken stop on the block. Having just lost Cheeky Clucker on Rochester High Street, Bare Bones opened in the former Third Wave Coffee, former Cakeman establishment. The restaurant is simply laid out, getting a good number of tables from the available floor space. The menu is simple, offering tenders or chicken wings with a variety of sauces and seasonings.
I ordered a portion of chicken tenders in teriyaki sauce and a portion of chicken wings with a garlic parmesan crust. For sides, I had Cajun sweetcorn ribs, skin on fries and barbecue hash browns. At least in theory, as the order for hash browns was forgotten and teriyaki hash browns eventually arrived.
The chicken was very good. The tenders were crisp and generously chunky, the teriyaki flavouring complemented with chopped spring onions and ginger. The chicken wings were well cooked and clearly from healthy-winged chickens. The garlic parmesan crust added to them well. Corn ribs are becoming my new favourite thing, and the ones here were to a good standard, buttery with good Cajun heat. The fries were not limp and enjoyable to eat. The hash browns, when they arrived, were chunky and made a good side, though I’m sure the barbecue ones wold have been even better.
Royal Engineers celebrate 150th anniversary of FA Cup victory
by Rob Flood
If you ever get the chance to visit the Royal Engineers Kings Bastion ground in Brompton to watch them play football, you might notice that instead of the usual rectangular corner flags, the RE flags are triangular. That’s because the RE are part of an elite group of English teams, numbering just 44, who have won the FA Cup.
The Royal Engineers victory was in 1875, and this year is the 150th anniversary of their win. A number of events are planned for the year. The first, a game against Gillingham Town FC featuring former Arsenal great Eduardo, was played on 19 January and ended with a 2-1 victory for the Sappers.
Next in the diary is a ‘Festival of Football’ at the home of the Corps in Chatham on 10 May.
This will include a Soccer Aid-style mixed age/gender charity game to showcase diversity and inclusion within the Army. Female and masters’ players will be interspersed with prominent national and local players/ex-players in a 60-minute game that kicks off at 2.30pm.
This is followed by the main event, a rematch of the 1875 FA Cup Final between the Royals Engineers and the Old Etonians, to celebrate the role of both teams in the formative years of the national game. The RE have requested the loan of the oldest surviving FA Cup (used between 1896 and 1910) to be presented to the winning team. Kick off is 4pm and a capacity crowd is expected.
There’s also an open day event comprising military stands and activities to bring in the crowds and strengthen links between the civilian and military communities in the Medway Towns. The RE are seeking to link the FA Cup 150 events to the wider commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day, thus increasing exposure significantly.
Regimental Sergeant Major Keith Stubbs says, “Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Royal Engineers' historic FA Cup victory is not just about honouring a moment in sports history. It’s about recognising the spirit, camaraderie, and resilience that define our Corps. As the only military team to have lifted this prestigious trophy, we embody the values of teamwork and excellence that resonate throughout the Army.“
There are also discussions underway with Chatham Town FC for a celebration match later in the year.
Events this week
🏳️🌈 Until 18 Feb - Medway Pride 2025 exhibition // Exhibition exploring Pride in Medway for LGBTQIA+ History Month. Halpern Gallery, Chatham. Free.
🎻 Sat 15 Feb - City of Rochester Symphony Orchestra // American Orchestral Allsorts presents a programme of music which celebrates the landscapes and culture of the USA. Central Theatre, Chatham. Tickets from £15.
🥕 Sun 16 Feb - Rochester Farmers’ Market // Wide range of traders selling food and gifts. Blue Boar Lane car park, Rochester. Free.
🛹 Mon 17 Feb - - Skateboard Collage Workshop // Create your own Skate/BMX collages and design a skate deck. Sunlight Centre, Gillingham. Free
🐵 Mon 17 Feb - Scream Unseen // Mystery screening of a forthcoming horror film, almost certain to be The Monkey. Odeon, Chatham. Tickets £5.
🌊 From 20 Feb - Sea View // Exhibition of work by Philip Dupée with images that explore the vast coastal vistas of Britain’s South East Kent coastline. Halpern Gallery, Chatham. Free.
🎸 Fri 21 Feb - Punching Swans + Rhinotranq + Snidefinder // Headline show from Medway and London noise rockers. Poco Loco, Chatham. Tickets £5.
More Authority
This week, we were delighted to welcome our new columnist, comedian and author
. She has been pondering what she can do to make a difference, so she has thrown herself into the work of local charities. For this first edition, she went down to Open House Rochester to find out about their work.
Our interview with independent/possible Reform councillor Chris Spalding is coming up on Sunday. It’s a fascinating read requiring several clarifications since sitting down with him last month.
Medwayish is supporting The Hazelnut Press in getting a new version of her iconic Isaac Newell tea towel design off the ground to celebrate the sporting hero from Strood. You can learn more about the project and help make it happen here.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: Meanwhile Back in Medieval Britain… by Groovy Uncle and A Compilation by The Gorgons.