Challenge travels from Medway to Dunkirk
Plus 366 Days of Kindness, new music from Dead Blood Cells, we review Stacks, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
A recent addition to the River Medway has been the tugboat Challenge, which can be found moored near Sun Pier. The nearly 100-year-old vessel was one of the Dunkirk little ships and recently made the journey across the Channel to mark the event. We’ve been finding out more about the ship and the event. Further down, we talk to an author who has made a stage show out of being kind, hear new music from Medway band Dead Blood Cells, review food from Stacks, and lots more.
Challenge travels from the River Medway to Dunkirk
Challenge is a tugboat usually found anchored in its new home on the River Medway. Steven caught up with Edward Ions, chairman of the Steamboat Trust, who was on board The Challenge as it returned to Dunkirk for an 85th anniversary event to mark the Little Ships evacuation in 1940.
The Challenge is a 108-foot steam tug built in 1931 “as the most powerful tug to go onto the Thames,” says Edward, “and she was the last working steam tug on the Thames”. She is also a Dunkirk little ship, a fleet of civilian vessels that travelled across the Channel to help with the evacuation from Dunkirk. This ranged from small Thames boats all the way up to tugboats like Challenge or paddle steamers like the Medway Queen.
Edward is one of the volunteers, as well as the historian for the Steam Boat Trust and the interim chairman. As I speak to him, Challenge is sitting in the Bassin de Commerce in Dunkirk as part of the 85th commemoration of the evacuation. When they will return is uncertain “due to weather,” but Challenge has made it’s way back to Medway in the days since.
Challenge had been living in Southampton prior to the River Medway when she was bought by current owner and founder of the Steam Boat Trust, Chris Bannister. “Two years after Chris took her over, Southampton asked us to leave because they wanted to use the berth we were occupying, and we were invited up to the Medway by a towage company that said we could live on their buoys.” Since then, Challenge has usually been found moored mid-river near Sun Pier.
Challenge no longer tows for a living, finishing her towing career in 1974 when she left service. The Steam Boat Trust was established last year to help Chris with managing the boat. I ask Edward if he could speak for Chris on why he bought Challenge. “Why did he buy it? Now that's a question. I think it's because he's insane. Basically, he bought Challenge because he loves steam.” Chris has previous experience with traction engines, and “he wanted to have himself a steamship.”
Chris wants to preserve Challenge because “he loves all the old steam engineering, and he's done a fantastic job since.” Chris had been single-handedly funding maintaining the boat “through his own hard efforts and his own working.” Ed and others wanted to be able to help support him when they could, and this led to the setting up of the Steam Boat Trust. “I started volunteering about four years ago,” says Edward. “I saw that she was being active and looked after by someone new and I messaged and asked, ‘Can I come and volunteer?’” Edward lived nearby when Challenge was in Southampton but, alongside other volunteers, is having to commute now that she is in the Medway.
They have new volunteers from Medway, and the overall team is “quite a nationwide group,” from North Yorkshire to Hampshire. “We'll come down when we've got the time to do working weekends.” They have an active GoFundMe, which was initially set up specifically for the Dunkirk trip, and this will develop into a permanent fundraiser. This is to cover “her repairs and her running costs.”
There's a lot that needs working on. For example, “We would really like to be able to bring her out of the water for a period of time and do a lot of work on where there are thinning hull plates.” There's a lot of mechanical work to completely overhaul the triple expansion steam engine, which they have spent a lot of time on but has a lot of expensive parts. Challenge is also expensive to keep running, costing around £850 an hour to run due to her fuel and oil consumption, “because you've got to have fuel to run the boiler, and we need oil to lubricate the engine. Fuel is always expensive, but lubrication oil has become even more expensive over the last four years.”
It is perhaps all the more impressive that Challenge was able to get to Dunkirk under her own steam. Ahem. Edward is happy to report that despite a slight delay, they steamed out of Ramsgate and caught up with the fleet travelling to Dunkirk. At Dunkirk, members of the crew attended a ceremony at the Commonwealth War Graves as well as taking part in other activities. “We're here with all the other little ships for people to come and look at. We'll probably be open for people to come on board and have a look around if they wish.” This is a proposition that sadly is not possible when she returns to Medway. “Because we're mid-river in Medway, it makes it very hard for people to get on board.”
Challenge will be taking part in estuary events over the summer so there will be opportunities to see her in action. “Basically, that's us escorting the paddle steamer Wavily up the Medway.”
In brief
🪦 Seven men have been arrested following the theft of two World War One plaques from a Kent war memorial in Luton.
🏧 Rainham will receive a Banking Hub following the closure of multiple banks in the town. Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan has campaigned on the issue to ensure that residents in the town can still access banking services.
🌲 A new National Nature Reserve will take in Ranscombe Farm in Cuxton. The new North Kent Woods and Downs National Nature Reserve (hopefully they are still workshopping the name) will extend from Shorne Woods down to Wrotham Water.
Acts of Kindness
Bernadette Russell is an author, tree planter and kindness campaigner. She will be touring Medway libraries next week with her show, 366 Days of Kindness, so we caught up with her to find out more.
366 Days of Kindness is a show based on Bernadette’s experimenting with what would happen and what might change if she performed an act of kindness for a stranger every single day for a year. “The year I did was a leap year, hence the 366,” she tells me.
What acts of kindness are we talking about? For Bernadette, it started quite spontaneously. “I didn't make any plans,” she says, taking the opportunities that presented themselves to her. “If I could help someone carry their suitcase or take a buggy down the stairs or help someone reach a high shelf,” those were simple everyday acts of kindness.
Bernadette took the time to leave reviews for local businesses and sponsored people when she could. She also sang Happy Birthday to strangers. “People would nominate people to me,” and on Valentine’s Day, she made 50 Valentine’s cards and ran around London giving them to strangers.
Bernadette was inspired to act after the summer of 2011 when “riots broke out in London. They were a response to a protest which was started by the relatives and friends of Mark Duggan. He was a young black man who'd been killed by police.” The riot spread all over London and to Manchester, Bristol and beyond. “They were really alarming,” Bernadette recalls, and she found them depressing. “The response to the riots was horrible as well.”
“I'd just been thinking about what I was doing and what difference I might be making to make the world a better place.” Whilst Bernadette was in the post office, a young man didn’t have enough money for his postage, and she helped him. “He kind of smiled, and I thought, ‘That's interesting.’” Bernadette had made a little bit of a difference to him, so she resolved to try doing this every single day.
As time went on, she had to consider what she was doing and how she went about it. “I was doing a lot of things that involved money, donating, buying and sponsoring.” Bernadette quickly learned to be careful about that, “not always being about throwing money at things.” There were also days when she was tired and weary. “I was going to approach strangers. That's easier some days than others.” But mostly, she found it was “really lovely to connect with people” and “people responded really well to it.”
Bernadette comes from a theatre background. “I'm a theatremaker and a storyteller.” People kept asking her to tell her story, and she found it was easier to make it into a show. Originally a multimedia show that toured theatres, she has since made it a simpler show that can tour village halls and libraries. “I took all the tech out of it, made it a mixture of stand-up and storytelling, and I've just kept doing it.” Bernadette has been “touring this show for ten years now, and I keep thinking, ‘Oh, it'll come to a natural end.’” Instead, she keeps finding people interested in hearing her story.
366 Days of Kindness will be performed at Cuxton, Hoo, Luton, Lordswood, and Hempstead libraries in the coming weeks. You can find out more and book free tickets here. Bernadette’s books, including ‘Conversations on Kindness’ are available through Bookshop.org.
New Medway music: Medwave by Dead Blood Cells
by Stephen Morris
Back in the apocalyptic doom of March 2020, I visited the appropriately menacing looking Fort Horsted and made my way through a dark tunnel to a rehearsal space where I would meet Dead Blood Cells – a darkwave band whose music perfectly captured the jarring, uncertain and rather scary times in which we were all living. Lockdown hit just a couple of days later. The band's music seemed the perfect soundtrack for what was happening in the world.
Five years later and the danger may have passed, but Dead Blood Cells’ ominous sounding music remains – now collected together on an album, Medwave, featuring the band’s new singer Lilith-Auryn FireChild. It is foreboding, intense and full of titles like ‘Neon Demon Queen,’ ‘Silence is So Loud,’ and ‘Minator.’
Track number three, ‘Glüchliche 8,’ may translate as ‘The Happy Ones 8,’ but there is little here amongst the echoing drums and high-speed synths to suggest anything less than the level of anxiety last experienced during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It’s an intoxicating sound – the sort of thing that demands you whack the volume up until your ears bleed. Medwave has all the frenetic energy of early outings by The Prodigy and Leftfield, all played out within a setting of industrial noise and pitch-black gothic imagery.
Strip away all of the heavy bass, glitches and glorious screeches and the lyrics reveal Dead Blood Cells to be sensitive souls, wrestling with an array of contradictory feelings. ‘Silence is So Loud’ documents a violent ambiguity, the sort of thing you might find in some of Billy Childish’s most self-loathing lyrics:
Hate you so much get away from me
You disgust me please don’t leave me
I want you so much it kills me
I don’t need you no you must hate me.
Elsewhere ‘Let Me Out’ conveys a sense of agonising, claustrophobic imprisonment while, against a backdrop of clanging and squelchy noises, the album’s opening track, ‘Stop Pretending’ confronts the imbalance of power:
As long as you stay scared,
As long as you stay dumb,
As long as you look the way they like you to
you’ll be all right.
Let’s keep pretending.
Sharing a similar vibe to that found on Diablo Swing Orchestra’s debut – a contrast of soprano vocals with heavy, dark sounds, it drips with righteous fury that is perfect for the times in which it has been released.
Medwave is a brilliantly crafted album, as smart as it is earth shatteringly noisy.
In for Dinner: Stacks
Having failed to find good American BBQ the last time I ordered takeaway, I decided to set the bar lower and see if I could find somewhere that could at least deliver crisp, tasty fries. This ultimately became a decision to order a burger to accompany the fries. I looked on Uber Eats and found Stacks, which told me they were both in ‘Cuxtonne’ and Medway Valley Leisure Park’s ‘Frankie & Benny’s’.
I ordered a starter of five southern fried strips with BBQ sauce, a bacon double cheeseburger, Cajun fries and a side of beer battered onion rings. The order was a little expensive, but I waited expectantly for it to arrive, and it did fairly promptly.
The chicken strips in BBQ sauce were really tasty, the sauce having a good kick and the chicken strips were crispy and generously portioned. Then everything changed. The onion ring was the worst thing I have eaten in the history of these reviews. Slightly cold with undercooked batter. I say onion ring singular because it was so bad that I didn’t try the others. The burger was dull with no real flavour. If anything, it somehow subtracted flavour from me.
The Cajun fries, however, were delicious. So perhaps when considering the original aim with my order, Stacks, if anything, overachieved.
Events this week
🤼 Sat 31 May - UKPW Get Decked // Medway’s biggest-ever professional wrestling event sees local promoters bring action-packed mayhem to the dockyard. Chatham Historic Dockyard. Tickets £12.
🛍️ Sat 31 May - Rochester City Artisan Market // Stalls dotted along the street selling unique gifts, homemade, and craft items. Rochester High Street. Free.
🖌️ Until 4 Jun - Billy Childish and Patrick Butler // Exhibition to raise funds for a mentoring programme for emerging artists. Halpern Gallery, Chatham. Free.
More Authority
We’ve had a great response to our first guest piece from Medway anthropologist Chris de Coulon Berthoud, who we dispatched to explore Medway’s mayoral archive of civic gifts. It’s a fascinating look at a collection of items kept hidden away but tell the ceremonial history of our towns.
Exploring Medway's mayoral treasures
I had noticed Andrew “Taff” Barker before, opening the door of the Mayor of Medway’s official car at various events. He cuts a striking figure, with a neat waxed moustache, some impressive tattoos, and an unmistakable military bearing. I was delighted to be asked to join
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Footnotes
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'I looked on Uber Eats and found Stacks, which told me they were both in ‘Cuxtonne’ and Medway Valley Leisure Park’s "Frankie & Benny’s".'
By an amazing quirk of fate, Frankie & Benny's in Medway Valley Leisure Park, is situated exactly on the ancient boundary between Strood and Cuxton.
Mark Duggan 'was a young black man who'd been killed by police'. A gross simplification there. He was a known gangster and, according to police testimony, pulled out a handgun after the vehicle he was in was stopped by police.