Grain
18 April 2010: Went on a psychogeography walk with Charles and David last weekend to Grain Power Station in Kent. No map, no idea how we’d get there beyond taking the train from St Pancras to Strood, 11 miles from the coast. We asked Linda, the guard at Strood platform, how to get to there. ‘What do you want to go to Grain for?’ she asked. ‘Just visiting.’ ‘Well, take the number 191 bus, I suppose. Grain. It’s the asshole of the world, you know.’ Thanks Linda!
On the bus we asked our driver to take us as close as he could. A nice guy, long hair, ‘tache, early thirties. At Hoo he yelled at us to get out. ‘This is as close as I come,’ he said. ‘Can we walk there from here?’ ‘Walk? I guess you can walk. It’ll take you about 10 hours though.’ And he shut the door with a cackle. Charles didn’t believe him. He reckoned nobody walks around there, and so they have no idea how long anyplace will take on foot. Charles is certain of his convictions. He is a no-nonsense guy. V dry, v funny, sarcastic, intelligent. And driven. He walked at the front a good 50 feet ahead of us, leading the way most of the day.We moved off in the general direction west, toward the coast, worried that we’d have to walk roadside the whole way. It was surprising how many public footpaths were available, though, mostly through fields of rapeseed plants. I’d never been on a country walk like it. Pylons, electricity lines along the paths everywhere, smoke from chimneys in the distance, helicopters and oil tankers along the estuary. Grain Power Station is on the National Grid, and supplies 3% of the UK’s energy, everything seemed to be coming from that one place in the horizon.
David got hungry first, and hinted several times that it might be a good time for lunch. David is a lovely guy – always does his best to accommodate, to please, to be nice. He’s smart too, fluent in half a dozen languages, excellent on a pub quiz. Over all a loyal, dependable friend. We decided to veer off course and head to St Mary of Hoo church and eat in the courtyard. It was beautiful little stone church from the outside. We walked past headstones, in through the main doors, saw another set of doors with a letter box. Locked. A doorbell. Windows double-glazed. Heard kids playing in the back. And it dawned on us: the church had been turned into a family home. We quietly shut the door and hightailed it off the grounds. I wondered what it would be like as kids, growing up with strangers’ graves scattered all around your yard… We ate ten minutes later on Hopper Lane, leaning against a stone marker, unwrapping sandwiches and fruit, and swigging from a flask of Serbian moonshine rakije I’d brought from home.
The second half of the journey was what we first feared – hours of walking along an A road. But it was interesting. We stopped at a farm to take a pictures of rusting equipment in the side of the house. A workman in blue overalls came out to talk. He said the big tank used to hold fertilizer, but it just sits there now. The little metal kiosk on wheels in back was for the lady workers’ convenience so they wouldn’t have to come back to the farm. That was completely rusted out as well. ‘They don’t use people to work the fields any more,’ he said. With a shrug, he turned around and went back inside.3:30 and we were getting closer, CCTV cameras along the road, big gas storage tanks, security guards in jeeps looking at three guys with backpacks and their own cameras walking along the side of a busy road. At 4:00 we hit the power station, and it was impressive. The grounds were fenced off – we couldn’t get close – but we jumped the ditch, trespassing to take some good pictures. That was our original, stated destination, but Charles wanted to carry on. He wanted to get to the coast of Kent and see the Grain Tower, part of the old sea fort. So we walked into Grain proper, and I asked a lady pushing a pram with two 3 year olds where the ocean was. C & D laughed, ‘It’s the sea, not the ocean!’ The lady said she wasn’t sure, she’s just the baby sitter. The kids knew though, and we were directed to our final destination by a pair of 3 year old children pointing straight ahead. The coast, and the ruins of Grain Tower, a couple hundred metres out to sea. Charles said we should walk to it through the mudflats – it was low tide – but David and I firmly told him NO. Our walk to Grain was done. It was time to go to the pub.