Medway marks 80 years of the UN
Plus crowdfunder launched for Medway supergroup, we review the Flowers of Srebrenica on stage, our weekly events guide, and more
Today (24 October) marks the 80th anniversary of the formation of the United Nations. We spoke with Alan Wells of the Medway United Nations Association to find out more about what they do and how they will be marking the day. Further down, we hear about a crowdfunder for Medway’s new supergroup, review the Flowers of Srebrenica on stage, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
Medway marks 80 years of the UN
United Nations Day is celebrated every 24 October, marking the organisation's formation in 1945, following the end of World War 2, when we were naively united in a fight against fascism. There are United Nations Associations (UNA) worldwide, which celebrate the work the United Nations does and collaborate on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Medway’s United Nations association (MUNA) was formed more recently. In 2023, to be precise, after Alan Wells and John Castle of the Medway Liberal Democrats joined the Tunbridge Wells Association back in 2020. “Afterwards, I thought that Medway could do with its own UNA,” Alan tells me. “I’d say from 2021 to June 2023, I was trying to do everything I could to get people involved, putting up leaflets and posters in libraries, sending out press releases, and I got a little bit of feedback.”
It was in June 2023 that good fortune led to Alan visiting Rochester Cathedral and meeting Jessica Giles, the wife of Canon Chancellor Giles, who had also been wanting to set up a similar association. With John Castle coming on board as secretary and Hugh Hawkins as the treasurer, the new association was ready to hold its first event.
“I suppose from June 2023 to October 2023, it’s quite manic. The Cathedral crypt was booked, I bought a very nice UN flag and that now flies every 24th October at Gun Wharf.” It isn’t only the 24th that events occur. “I’d say this year our calendar’s grown quite a lot. In May, we mark the International Day of Peacekeepers with a small memorial outside of the cathedral.” MUNA also mark Holocaust Memorial Day in January.
This year, for the first time in January, they held a Blue Monday event, with Beth Atkins, who is involved with the Medway Inter Faith Association, who was “instrumental” in bringing that together. “It was a chance to get various people together in a calm environment on Blue Monday, just to connect really amongst different faiths.”
For Alan, the main thing that he is proud of this year is that on the 11 October, they hosted their first annual lecture, held at the Huguenot Museum in Rochester. Mel Moss, who has spent months over in the West Bank, “gave us her first-hand account of the three months that she spent there. That was quite powerful, and it was well attended on a Saturday night.”
For UN Day 2025, there was a flag raising at Gun Wharf at 10am, and the group met with various members of the public at the crypt at Rochester Cathedral. “It’s basically a chance to connect with people who’d like to join us and who’s interested in our work. We made quite a few connections at the talk, and quite a few people were interested in joining us. It gives people a chance to see what we’re doing.”
They are hoping to expand the calendar next year and be sure to mark 24 October 2026 in your calendar for next year’s event, with more talks and promoting of the work that people are doing aligned with the UN’s SDG. “I asked a question to council. I was desperate to ask a question in this 80th year about the Sustainable Development Goals and relating that to what the council’s doing at a local level. We’re forever promoting it, but we’re relatively new.”
Alan has asked of himself why the United Nations is still important. “I think without going into a very difficult area, what you’ve got to ask yourself is what would the world look like without the UN? It would be a poor place. I think we still need an international forum where different nation states can come along and try to resolve differences. That was the idea behind the UN.”
Crowdfunder for Medway’s South Shore supergroup
South Shore is an exciting new super group from the Medway Towns, with our Medwayish CIC side project supporting them by releasing their first single. We hope you will indulge us, as Steven gets an exclusive interview with singer-songwriter Rachel Lowrie about the band and the crowdfunder for a limited-edition lathe cut single.
Named after the south shore of the River Medway, the band is “psychedelic folk rock, with hints of gothic noir,” Rachel laughs. “I’ve definitely brought my younger emo teen self,” Rachel tells me with influences from Stevie Nicks, Kate Bush, Wolf Alice and Jefferson Airplane.
The primary focus of the songs on the upcoming double AA single is about Medway. These came out of Rachel’s solo songs “that I was doing with the ukulele,” and a desire to name the band after the river. “Because the river is a magnetic, real point of energy that draws me in. Not literally,” she notes. “I’d be dead.”
Rachel Lowrie has been performing at the festival of Chatham Reach and Sweeps Festival, as well as places outside of Medway, as part of the folk group, The Ashen Keys. South Shore brings her together with Stuart Turner and Nick Rice, bass player with The Treasures of Mexico. “Stuart, Nick and I have been working together for a while. I first sang with Stuart about ten years ago. That led to me singing on Scowl, which was amazing.”
Rachel would go on to work with Stuart and Nick on different projects with These Guilty Men and Chris Broderick’s Pod project. “I really enjoy playing music with both of them and knew that it was going to work. I had this group of songs that were Medway folk tales, and it didn’t feel like they were right for the Ashen Keys.” The Ashen Keys had just recorded an album, where “we’d completed a cycle. We’re just starting the next cycle of songs. These South Shore songs sit somewhere in between the two.”
Rachel highlights that Stuart has always been supportive, “really encouraging,” and they started working on an album without a clear plan on how they would make it happen. “He was so affirmative that this would be a thing that would happen.” Rachel remembers having a conversation with Stuart about forming a band, whilst they recorded Pod, “and that was before The Ashen Keys.”
Those conversations were put on hold whilst Rachel dealt with mental health issues, and then at the end of 2022 started working with Vicky (Price) and Hannah (Ellerby) on The Ashen Keys. “I only really had capacity for one thing.” In December last year, Stuart and Rachel met up and “I played him some of the songs and then we texted Nick and said, ‘Do you want to be in our band?’ and he said, ‘Oh yes.’”
When South Shore formed, they weren’t sure what to do about a drummer, “because in the Ashen Keys we don’t have a drummer, and I’ve always done my own stuff acoustic. I thought, South Shore is going to be me, Stuart and Nick.” Originally planning to only bring a drummer in on songs as and when required, but then when people saw us as a three, they were like, ‘You need a drummer.’”
Enter Rob Grigg, formerly of The Dentists. “Rob absolutely fitted. When we started playing (The Ballad of) Rats Bay, I couldn’t have been more effusive.” Rob plays with Stuart and Nick in These Guilty Men, and Rachel thanks “that makes such a difference, because they know how to play together and Rob is really good company as well.”
The double A-side single, recorded in Ranscombe Studios, features the tracks The Ballad of Rats Bay and Blanche. “The two songs were selected to demonstrate the breadth of the songwriting within the band, and what will be available when the album comes to fruition.” The band felt that the two songs had “a different vibe to them,” released as a double-A because they couldn’t decide between them, “and I love them both equally.”
South Shore are also busy rehearsing their first album, which they plan to record back in Ranscombe Studios in the new year. “People can expect songs that are located in Medway. I do believe that the universal is in the particular. I don’t think that you have to live in Medway to appreciate the songs.”
Medwayish CIC have launched a crowdfunder to support the production of South Shore’s first single. For just £20, you can get the limited edition single release package, including a lathe cut of the single. You can support the crowdfunder here.
South Shore will be playing live in Medway on 8 November at Rochester Social Club, supporting the Penrose Web, on 27 November at 12 Degrees in Rochester with Hefner legend Jack Hayter, and on 13 December at the Ship in Gillingham, supporting The Singing Loions for their Christmas bash.
Review: The Flowers of Srebrenica on stage
by Moira Mehaffey
There is a palpable sense of community pervading the venue and the occasion of the final performance of this play, based on the novel written by Aidan Hehir and illustrated by David Frankum. Housed in a former Methodist Church in Highgate, Jacksons Lane Arts Centre is an enviably well-equipped and maintained premises combining studio space, theatre and a café bar and seems the ideal setting for a play co-produced by Legal Aliens Theatre with Sarajevo War Theatre, a truly international collaboration.
The stage is sparsely dressed with all focus directed to the central area, curtained with transparent perspex panels, and the only prop which will remain visible for the duration of the play, a heaped pile of soil. Bringing uncanny stillness to the opening are three female figures (Selma Alipahić, Taz Munyaneza, Valeriia Poholsha) dressed all in white, a timeless symbol of innocence. Wordlessly, these three individuals come together in balletic movements, signifying grief and despair, until a pair of sandals is unearthed and placed at the front of the stage. They represent the single demographic reminiscent of a tragic chorus, but will come to lend starkly individual perspectives and experiences to the narrative.
The unearthed shoes are filled by the feet of Edin Suljić, playing Mustafa, the tour guide who escorted real-life Aidan from Sarajevo to the memorial centre at Potočari. With this, we are dared to try walking in the shoes of those affected by the Srebrenica massacre. Suljić’s performance radiates stoicism and compassion. He convincingly portrays the adult who was dragged into a conflict while barely more than a child and had his life transformed by this. Jeremiah O’ Connor as stage Aidan (clad in an Editors t-shirt, which real-life Aidan finds to be the only inauthentic note) exudes the relatable discomfort of a Celt caught in the heat, adding to his more general sense of self-doubt and displacement. The tension is broken when the two characters swap stories of their families and find common ground in anecdotes about tour guiding.
The road trip elements of the story are interspersed with interludes from the Chorus. These serve to remind the audience of the specific context of the Srebrenica Massacre but also of the continuing reality of genocide. Projections onto the perspex panels show newsreels, names of victims and examples of ethnic cleansing to reiterate this. Sound effects are well placed, never jarring, but often chilling. As stage Aidan takes photos at the memorial centre, the audience can see that the three women are captured in his shots, the human cost of the events inseparable from the location. Selma Alipahić gives voice to the women of Srebrenica, and it is gradually revealed that Taz and Valeriia represent Rwanda and Ukraine respectively, but together, and as individuals, they deftly operate as a microcosm for the suffering and endurance of all innocent victims of conflict. The audience feels this deeply and shares the rage and shame of stage Aidan, aware that buying souvenirs is an inadequate and desperate response to being confronted with the brutal reality of a conflict he has studied and of which he has a profound intellectual understanding.
At the conclusion of the play, the soil is carried in handfuls to members of the audience. The challenge here is not just for us to remember the victims at Srebrenica, but to be active in opposition to genocide wherever it occurs. A succinct, poignant and hard-hitting production, with stunning performances and heartbreaking relevance.
Events this week
🖥️ 24 - 26 Oct - Electric Medway Festival: Aurora // Showcase of high-quality digital art made within the community. Various locations. Free.
🎸 Sun 26 Oct - adults + Felicette // A rare non-Rainham gig for Careful Now Promotions headlined by excellent indie punk band adults. Poco Loco, Chatham. Tickets £5.
🕵️ Fri 31 Oct - Halloween Murder Mystery Masquerade // Lord Retinal Blackwood cordially invites you to the event of the season. Wear your best masquerade ball outfit. Playopolis, Rochester. Tickets £15.
More Authority
As part of our ongoing series of columns from Medway’s elected representatives, Rochester and Strood MP Lauren Edwards wrote for us about Chatham High Street, skills, grassroots sports, and investment across her constituency.
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