Preserving a Medway Queen
Plus Medway River Lit comes to a close, It's a Wonderful Life at the Medway Little Theatre, we review the Dead Pigeon, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more
The Medway Queen is a paddle steamer that celebrated its centenary this year. We speak to the Medway Queen Preservation Society to learn about its importance. Further down, we have some book recommendations from the Medway River Lit festival, a look at It’s A Wonderful Life at the Medway Little Theatre, a review of The Dead Pigeon, our weekly events guide, news in brief, and more.
Preserving a Medway Queen
The Medway Queen was built in 1924 for The New Medway Steam Packet Company and launched on St George's Day in April 1924. With “very high-class fittings and fitments”, she was launched in Scotland and was then steamed all the way to the Medway. “She could have been towed, I suppose”, muses John Kempton, Vice Chair of the Medway Queen Preservation Society, “but they said, ‘Well let's give her a good run.’ And that was a jolly good run.”
The Medway Queen then served the Thames Estuary, going to Herne Bay and Clacton, with occasional runs to London and Southend. At the time, trips on paddle steamers were quite common, though for many in Medway, a trip on the Medway Queen would prove too expensive. “She ran on the Medway from ‘24 up to ‘39 quite happily,” says John. “Then, of course, World War II broke out.”
The Medway Queen’s first duty during the war was to run children from Tilbury up to the East Coast to evacuate them. She was then bought out by the General Steam Navigation and converted into a minesweeper. The back deck was cut down to make a sweeping deck, with other modifications, including port holes and windows being blanked off. “We didn't have time to build minesweepers”, explains John. After the conversion, she returned to Chatham and was used for minesweeping until 1940.
When the evacuation at Dunkirk occurred, the Medway Queen was one of the ships that went. She made seven trips and brought back 7,000 men, more than any other ship of her size. She rescued people from the Brighton Belle paddle steamer that had hit a mine and sunk. “She was very, very heavily loaded”, says John. “We've got some brilliant footage of her at Dunkirk and the memories of the company and the officers as well.” On one trip, she got damaged and limped back to Ramsgate, where she received a ‘well done’ from the Admiral.
After the war, the Medway Queen was refurbished at the Isle of Wight at the government's expense and then handed back to the company. She carried on steaming from ‘47 to ‘63. Post-war, many who had never travelled on her now found they could afford it. “The ships were floating bars at that time”, explains John. “In those days, pubs used to close at two on a Sunday and had very short hours. If you went on a paddle steamer, as soon as they were a mile off the coast, bars opened.” The Medway Queen had four bars on board, plus a restaurant if you could afford it.
By 1963, habits had changed. A significant proportion of the population had cars and were taking foreign holidays. Use of paddle steamers started dropping off. They were getting old and were expensive to run. The Medway Queen was no longer earning enough money and was put up for scrap. “She was going to be sold to a Belgian shipbreaker”, says John. “There was a big to do in the local papers and in the Daily Mail as well. The Belgians said they wouldn’t touch her, as she was a war veteran.” Ultimately, she was returned to the Isle of Wight, where she’d previously been refurbished.
She was used as a clubhouse for a new marina development for a time, then became the Medway Queen Nightclub for 20 years. She was so successful as a nightclub that she became too small and was replaced by another paddle steamer. She then sat on the River Medina for a period of time. A group of taxi businessmen from Gravesend bought her and brought her back to the River Medway. She was left outside The Pump House, now known as the Copper Rivet Distillery. Problems occurred “because they paid for nothing”, states John. “They didn't pay for the tow, they didn't pay any electricity bills. She went broke basically, and they cut the power.”
“A local chap called Marshall Vine came along”, says John. “He'd been on the ship as a boy and saw the ship over the wall. He'd come from a background of steam railway preservation.” It is 1984, and Marshall Vine came to the Medway Queen’s rescue. He formed the Medway Queen Preservation Society. They took the ship back off the receivers. It cost one pound and then £15,000 to pay off the debt. “They put up their houses of surety against the loan”, says John. “The loan is thankfully long gone now.” The MQPS had effectively bought a sunken ship. They worked on her for a couple of years at low tide, patched her up, and in November 1987, they got her to float again.
The Medway Queen was towed to the Isle of Grain and berthed there, “which is a miracle really”, says John, “because a lot of people said they were not interested.” She stayed there for 20 years. “We had to patch the ship extensively with concrete and plywood to keep her up,” remembers John. “We painted her, we kept her in one piece.” Then, the Heritage Lottery Fund was invented, and on the third attempt, they managed to get a regional grant from the Southeast Heritage Lottery Fund for £1.8m to rebuild the hull. The MQPS tendered for a new hull to be built, but this became its own challenge. The Heritage Lottery Fund stipulated that the hull had to be riveted with hot rivets, not welded, as was the modern approach. David Abels of Bristol agreed to do the work for a fixed price, though his shipyard was in the middle of town. They got the Medway Queen to him, “and he built the ship from the keel up.” It took him four years.
In 2013, the Medway Queen was completed and towed to Gillingham Pier, where she sits today. “We acknowledge Medway Council for helping us out”, says John. We are talking in a shoreside building run by the MQPS as a visitors’ centre. They now have a volunteer team running the venue and the ship as a museum. They continue to work on restoring and maintaining her, including an apprentice program for welding, electrics, and fabrication. “Many of our volunteers from ‘84 are no longer with us sadly”, laments John. “We've been going so long, but we feel that this an absolutely brilliant tribute to not only them, but the Dunkirk veterans they saved. We have many people coming back who met on the ship and then married. Her history and story is brilliant, and that's the work of the volunteers to keep her going for all those years.”
The Medway Queen is open every Saturday from 11am until 3pm until 14 December, when they also have a Christmas carol concert. After that, the vessel will reopen in February. If you would like to sign up and support the Medway Queen Preservation Society, you can learn more here.
In Brief
💨 Winter DickFest is cancelled. With high winds and torrential rain predicted for this weekend, Medway Council have cancelled the Dickensian Christmas Festival and the Rochester Christmas Market.
🍻 Gillingham and Rainham MP Naushabah Khan brought up the campaign to save the Flying Saucer pub in Hempstead in parliament. The Friends Of group is campaigning to buy the pub as a community asset.
☕ The Nucleus Arts Riverside Hub on Military Road in Chatham is closed due to repeated basement flooding. The expectation is that it will not be reopening.
📚 Comedian, writer and broadcaster Robin Ince stopped off in Rochester to shop at Baggins Bookshop on the way to a gig in Herne Bay.
🛒 Poundstretcher is set to open in Strood later on 19 December. The discount retailer will take on the former Wilko unit in the town.
🐘 Jatin Patel of the slow fashion brand Kalikas Armour is holding a competition to celebrate its new Manemals. Find out what a Manemal is and how to win here.
Medway River Lit comes to a close
The month-long festival has been a success following poetry nights, author talks, masterclasses and more.
The good people at Medway River Lit have done a series of blogs about the books highlighted during the festival. Some of them might make excellent Christmas gift ideas.
You can find their lists of young adult and children's, non-fiction, poetry collections, and fiction books. If anything catches your eye, you can buy these books via their bookshop.org page.
Speaking of bookshop.org…
Looking to delight family, friends, strangers with a this year? Maybe even take part in Jolabokaflod, a unique and cherished tradition in Iceland, and the Keevil household, celebrated on Christmas Eve. This tradition involves giving and receiving new books, but its essence lies in the joy of reading them together. Instead of shopping for books in the mammoth rainforest outlet, you could support independent Rochester bookshop Store 104 by shopping at bookshop.org. Here’s Patrick Fysh from his interview with us back in March to explain further.
“It's such a great project and more people need to know about it. What it does is source books from our suppliers. If someone ordered a book on bookshop.org, you choose which bookshop you want to like buy it from online. And so, if someone chooses us, we do nothing. We create a display page of what we like, a landing page of our shop and people can buy books through us and then we get a percentage of that sale. A small percentage, but a percentage of that sale comes to us as commission. It's an amazing way of supporting independent bookshops, and getting stuff quick. It literally comes from the supplier that we use so we know it's legit. It's fantastic, more people need to know about it. It's brilliant"
Shop at bookshop.org and support Store 104 here.
Theatre: It’s a Wonderful Life at the Medway Little Theatre
This amateur production is based on The Greatest Gift, adapted by Mary Elliot Nelson and directed for the Medway Little Theatre by John Winson. Winson does a good job of using the spaces available in the theatre to show the play's various time frames and narratives. The varied cast works well together to tell a difficult story. At times, George can be unpleasant, and the ‘bad guy’ gets away with his actions. Alex Skelton could have been used more to help bridge the age gap between young George and older George, especially in the school ball scene, where the age gap between star Barry Kearns and others is most notable.
Aside from that, Kearns does an admirable job picking up a challenging role made famous by Jimmy Stewart. This writer always had difficulty remembering the Harry and Sam parts in the film, and this was made more difficult by both roles being played by the same actor in this production. An icy chill went up my spine when Kearns came on stage at the end with a guitar, but the ice was soon melted when a young star started singing, ‘We’re dreaming of a white Christmas.’
It’s a Wonderful Life is playing at the Medway Little Theatre until the 14 December.
Out to Lunch: The Dead Pigeon
In which Steven Keevil assesses the lunch options available in our towns. This week, he’s been down to The Dead Pigeon in Rochester…
Having reviewed and enjoyed The Greedy Banker, we hadn’t reviewed The Dead Pigeon despite many recommendations to do so, as the menu was the same. But behold, they have launched a new burger menu. Could they possibly be as good as people say?
The Dead Pigeon can be found in the Intra area, near Cycle King. It has a large glass welcoming frontage. Inside is a good-sized micropub with friendly, welcoming staff and seating on a tiered floor.
I ordered the Bacon Beast, which consists of signature 28-day dry-aged beef patties, cheese, bacon jam, gherkins, and crispy bacon. These were served with skin-on fries and ‘Sunday Roast’ flavoured salt. The gravy was highly recommended to me by the lady behind the bar, so I ordered that to go with the chips.
I want to know if there is somewhere in Medway doing a better burger because this was delicious. The patties were well-cooked and packed with flavour. The bacon jam is great, and I devoured the burger. The gravy was well recommended and complimented the fries perfectly, especially with the Sunday Roast salt.
If you’ve never had a Dead Pigeon burger, make it a New Year’s resolution to get your life together and get to here or the Greedy Banker.
Events this week
🎶 Fri 6 Dec - Attrition + Black Light Ascension + Dead Blood Cells // Pioneers in darkwave, an eclectic marriage of experimental and traditional sound. Poco Loco, Chatham. Tickets £5.
🤶 Sat 7 Dec - Festive Shop // Affordable artworks by local printmakers and artists. Including ceramics by Sarah Crouch, wearable art by Catriona Faulkner, cards, wrapping paper and decorations. Intra Arts, Chatham Intra. Free.
👮 Sat 7 Dec - Die Hard: The Panto // Unique theatre performance of action film classic. Spotlites Theatre, Chatham. Pay what you want.
😂 Mon 9 Dec - Rochester Comedy Club // Monthly standup, this time featuring Perrier Award finalist Stefano Paolini and The Mash Report’s Steve N Allen. City Wall Wine Bar, Rochester. Tickets £8.
🪡 Wed 11 Dec - Sip & Sew // Hand sewing and your favourite drinks as you are guided through a creative sewing project. Three Crutches, Strood. Tickets £30.
💬 Thurs 12 Dec - Big Trouble’s Christmas Bonanza! // No headliners, but a gift-wrapped poetry free for all. 12 Degrees Micropub, Rochester. Free.
More Authority
Last year, plans were afoot for a 25,000-capacity dance festival in Gillingham, but they weren't. In this week's midweek read, we examined what happened to the Great Lines music festival.
Our weekend interview this week features one of Medway’s most longstanding bands, The Singing Loins. It’s a fun read conducted over a solid number of pints, and it’ll be available to our paid supporters on Sunday.
Remember that our Medwayish shop contains a wide range of Medway-related gifts and products designed by local creatives. We have books, mugs, t-shirts, prints, and other fun bits and pieces. We still have some special Black Friday discounts on our classic prints this week. Check it out and find a bargain gift for the Medway fan in your life.
Footnotes
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Music that soundtracked the creation of this edition: The Speech of Karatakus by Wild Billy Childish and the North Kent Folkways Revival and Some People Are On The Pitch They Think It’s All Over It Is Now by The Dentists.