On that sunny Friday morning, I took my first steps into the sea since the summer. It was a short swim, perhaps just a few minutes, but enough to feel the cold salty water coursing through my veins. I walked home across the shingle in my dressing-gown, passing no one except a poor pig, skewered above a pile of smouldering coals on the beach.
It was a perfect day for a wedding, a fairytale come true for the bride and the crowds stretched out in their thousands along the streets of her journey, hoping to a catch a glimpse of her white gown.
Like millions more, I watched Prince William and Kate's wedding with my wife at home. Duty-bound in that respect, I kept more than a passing interest on the screen, looking out for a sight of an elderly man wheeling a cardboard guillotine down the Mall. But, amongst the flag-wavers and well-wishers, I could see no sign of him, nor his homemade contraption and I just assumed Alec had got up late, or had thought better of it and was perhaps secretly watching it a home like the rest of the nation.
My thoughts soon turned back to the beach and the party at The Zetland Arms. Gaz Mayall, the DJ was coming down from London and there were strong rumours in the village that 80's pop-star Adam Ant was playing a secret comeback gig. It all sounded a little too surreal for Kingsdown, a small seaside village inbetween Deal and Dover, but it was a day for mad dogs and that's where we headed once the vows had been read and the bells had tolled.
The event had been organised by a rakish nightclub impresario who owned a cottage around the corner from the pub. His appearances in Kingsdown were rare yet memorable, as he often brought down a colourful array of glamorous avant garde types from the London arts-scene. He himself was something of a chameleon in truth, who could be both charming and stand-offish depending on the month's star-sign. Still, it was Robert's event, his enthusiasm and showbiz connections that made everything possible that day.
The hog roast was half cooked by the time we arrived at the pub and attracting a small gaggle of onlookers. Inside, a brace of attractive society-girls dressed like wartime servicewomen, danced to a calypso version of the James Bond theme. The DJ, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and pink flowered garland tried gamely to whip-up an atmosphere in a room still filled with unimpressed locals, carrying on as if it were their birthright to sit on the stools at the bar.
Cutting a slightly forlorn and confused figure in dark shades and a bandana, Adam Ant struggled for recognition and respect amongst the regulars and the few fickle fleeting fans who had come to see him for free. His swagger gone, Ant no longer resembled the young dandy prince of his heyday, but of someone unplugged from another time. Like one of those old box-shaped television sets you sometimes glimpse through a window in passing. Once he was everywhere, but now Adam was in The Zetland Arms like I was, mumbling to the barman for a glass of milk and a bowl of ice-cream, as I queued behind him for a large gin and tonic and a beer.
Suddenly, a conga line led by Gaz and his female entourage began to snake itself through the pub, picking up strangers and straddlers in a joyous and raucous celebration that led us out onto the beach and back again, through the bar and into the garden at the rear, where our bodies squeezed and squashed up against each other, before the line collapsed and the chain broke.
A few years later, the pub changed hands and that hot day in late April 2011 became a fanciful memory and bit of a blur. I remember getting home slightly tipsy in the dark and picking up a message on the answerphone from the girlfriend of my old university lecturer, Alec, to say that he'd had been arrested by officers from MI5 and was being held in a cell overnight. His guillotine had been destroyed and apparently, they were questioning him about who else might have him helped him construct it.
I swam the next morning too, this time against the tide.
It was a perfect day for a wedding, a fairytale come true for the bride and the crowds stretched out in their thousands along the streets of her journey, hoping to a catch a glimpse of her white gown.
Like millions more, I watched Prince William and Kate's wedding with my wife at home. Duty-bound in that respect, I kept more than a passing interest on the screen, looking out for a sight of an elderly man wheeling a cardboard guillotine down the Mall. But, amongst the flag-wavers and well-wishers, I could see no sign of him, nor his homemade contraption and I just assumed Alec had got up late, or had thought better of it and was perhaps secretly watching it a home like the rest of the nation.
My thoughts soon turned back to the beach and the party at The Zetland Arms. Gaz Mayall, the DJ was coming down from London and there were strong rumours in the village that 80's pop-star Adam Ant was playing a secret comeback gig. It all sounded a little too surreal for Kingsdown, a small seaside village inbetween Deal and Dover, but it was a day for mad dogs and that's where we headed once the vows had been read and the bells had tolled.
The event had been organised by a rakish nightclub impresario who owned a cottage around the corner from the pub. His appearances in Kingsdown were rare yet memorable, as he often brought down a colourful array of glamorous avant garde types from the London arts-scene. He himself was something of a chameleon in truth, who could be both charming and stand-offish depending on the month's star-sign. Still, it was Robert's event, his enthusiasm and showbiz connections that made everything possible that day.
The hog roast was half cooked by the time we arrived at the pub and attracting a small gaggle of onlookers. Inside, a brace of attractive society-girls dressed like wartime servicewomen, danced to a calypso version of the James Bond theme. The DJ, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and pink flowered garland tried gamely to whip-up an atmosphere in a room still filled with unimpressed locals, carrying on as if it were their birthright to sit on the stools at the bar.
Cutting a slightly forlorn and confused figure in dark shades and a bandana, Adam Ant struggled for recognition and respect amongst the regulars and the few fickle fleeting fans who had come to see him for free. His swagger gone, Ant no longer resembled the young dandy prince of his heyday, but of someone unplugged from another time. Like one of those old box-shaped television sets you sometimes glimpse through a window in passing. Once he was everywhere, but now Adam was in The Zetland Arms like I was, mumbling to the barman for a glass of milk and a bowl of ice-cream, as I queued behind him for a large gin and tonic and a beer.
Suddenly, a conga line led by Gaz and his female entourage began to snake itself through the pub, picking up strangers and straddlers in a joyous and raucous celebration that led us out onto the beach and back again, through the bar and into the garden at the rear, where our bodies squeezed and squashed up against each other, before the line collapsed and the chain broke.
A few years later, the pub changed hands and that hot day in late April 2011 became a fanciful memory and bit of a blur. I remember getting home slightly tipsy in the dark and picking up a message on the answerphone from the girlfriend of my old university lecturer, Alec, to say that he'd had been arrested by officers from MI5 and was being held in a cell overnight. His guillotine had been destroyed and apparently, they were questioning him about who else might have him helped him construct it.
I swam the next morning too, this time against the tide.
Tim Synge is the writer of Seafront Pages, Original Tales from the darkest depths of the Kent Riviera. www.seafrontpages.blogspot.com
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