On Rochester.

On your return from Margate you stopped off in Rochester. Which turned out to be a very literary visit.

Ever since you had sailed through it on your way to the seaside, the name had been rolling around in your head and bugging you. You couldn’t remember why the place was so familiar when the sight of a cathedral and castle looming towards you as you whizzed by on the train had come as quite a shock. It wasn’t until half way round the actual town itself that you realised this was because you were thinking of ‘Mr Rochester’. As in Jane Eyre. Nice to get that one cleared up, but a bit of a let down all told.

One of Rochester’s claims to fame is that it has the second largest cathedral in the UK. You were impressed by the school party who were getting to stand in a circle in black monks cowls and listen to chanting in the crypt.

 But really people go to Rochester because it’s Dickens country. He grew up in the (next) town.

This, of course, means that every shop in the quaint High Street – “You won’t find any big chains in our city”- is obliged to make some kind of reference to a character from one of Dickens’ books. With extra points if they can turn it into a punne (or play on words).

You also saw many houses which feature in the books themselves. Especially Great Expectations, which is set in the area, apparently. You would undoubtedly have been more excited about this if you had read more than one of the novels less than fifteen years ago.

You were quite amused to discover that Dickens’ hitherto inexplicable fondness for outlandish character names has suddenly been made splicable though.

While trundling round the local museum you discovered that one of the leading lights in local politics and community benefacting from the previous century was called Sir Cloudesley Shovell.

                                                     

And you suddenly realised that Dickens obviously spent his whole literary career trying to improve on perfection.

And failing.