Wet dream

Utopia dons some unlikely guises, crops up in some odd places. On the sea wall a couple in their teens stood clutching their baby and gazing half a mile across the opaque river to where streets run down to the shore: spires and warehouses, inns and gables announced a town. The boy asked me if I knew over there. He said that that was where they wanted to go to, where they wanted to be. There’s so much happening over there. Not like here. Here there were only vast ships, big sheds, cranes, mean houses. And nothing to do. No life. We were between Tilbury Fort and a pub called the World’s End.

On the other side of the water was hope. These kids were on the money. The object of their longing was Gravesend. As with many — most — estuarial towns, reputation and actuality are at odds. It is not — patronising, snobbish, ignorant appellation — a ‘crap town’.