Tunbridge Wells
I do like the "Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells" blog: great photos and interesting insights about our town. This optimistic blog is a regular reminder that, as English towns go, we have some wonderful heritage right on our doorsteps. Which is something that I do need now and again, as I tend to pick up on the negative aspects, for example the terrible traffic and car-centric town centre, often alluded to on the Disgusted.tw blog. It's the simmering tension in the town which really worries me though: I'm pretty sure it's something which is endemic to English culture, but it's certainly there even in leafy towns with no major problems.
A couple of weeks ago, it was only about seven in the evening, I was coming out of High Brooms station, and could hear someone shouting and swearing somewhere nearby. Uh-oh, I thought. As I walked down the alley, I saw a very angry - and very muscular - man (he was with a woman) flinging a crate of cans of Stella Artois to the floor. He disappeared round the corner whilst the woman sheepishly started trying to gather up the cans. He then reappeared, bellowing "Oh that's really got me angry now! Now I really want to punch someone!" I had just about got level with him at this point, and was trying to negotiate me and my bike past him - oops, made eye contact for 0.5 seconds - and that was it: he shoved me into the fence with a "Get out of my f***ing way!" I did. But behind me, he had whirled round, and was shouting at my retreating back "Oh yeah? Wanna make something of it?". The woman was trying to calm him down. I fled, feeling guilty as hell: maybe I should be phoning the police or helping the woman he was with. But if it was - as it seemed - a domestic (isn't Stella Artois known as "Wife Beater"?), then I could well have made it worse.
I scuttled round the corner with my bike and lurked there for a while, just in case. But I heard no further raised voices, and no one emerged. I cycled away, filled with distress. Why do people act like that? The couple involved didn't look like poverty-stricken junkies: they were fashionably dressed. They looked like normal twentysomething people. This is what I mean about the dark side of Tunbridge Wells: it's all very nice, but people seem tense the whole time. The town centre is horrible late evening, the atmosphere just seems to change into something scary: late into the night I can hear people shouting alcohol-fuelled sentiments around our area. The roads are worrying to drive on, everyone jealously guarding their bit of space: no wonder lots of people feel the need to purchase vast SUVs to clog up our narrow streets with.
My wife says I'm projecting. Perhaps. I'm sure she's well sick of me going on about this sort of thing for the past few years! But I don't get this feeling when I visit towns in France, Germany or Switzerland. What's gone wrong with England?
A couple of weeks ago, it was only about seven in the evening, I was coming out of High Brooms station, and could hear someone shouting and swearing somewhere nearby. Uh-oh, I thought. As I walked down the alley, I saw a very angry - and very muscular - man (he was with a woman) flinging a crate of cans of Stella Artois to the floor. He disappeared round the corner whilst the woman sheepishly started trying to gather up the cans. He then reappeared, bellowing "Oh that's really got me angry now! Now I really want to punch someone!" I had just about got level with him at this point, and was trying to negotiate me and my bike past him - oops, made eye contact for 0.5 seconds - and that was it: he shoved me into the fence with a "Get out of my f***ing way!" I did. But behind me, he had whirled round, and was shouting at my retreating back "Oh yeah? Wanna make something of it?". The woman was trying to calm him down. I fled, feeling guilty as hell: maybe I should be phoning the police or helping the woman he was with. But if it was - as it seemed - a domestic (isn't Stella Artois known as "Wife Beater"?), then I could well have made it worse.
I scuttled round the corner with my bike and lurked there for a while, just in case. But I heard no further raised voices, and no one emerged. I cycled away, filled with distress. Why do people act like that? The couple involved didn't look like poverty-stricken junkies: they were fashionably dressed. They looked like normal twentysomething people. This is what I mean about the dark side of Tunbridge Wells: it's all very nice, but people seem tense the whole time. The town centre is horrible late evening, the atmosphere just seems to change into something scary: late into the night I can hear people shouting alcohol-fuelled sentiments around our area. The roads are worrying to drive on, everyone jealously guarding their bit of space: no wonder lots of people feel the need to purchase vast SUVs to clog up our narrow streets with.
My wife says I'm projecting. Perhaps. I'm sure she's well sick of me going on about this sort of thing for the past few years! But I don't get this feeling when I visit towns in France, Germany or Switzerland. What's gone wrong with England?
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