The post you are reporting:
Seen on the A2 this morning - two hitchhikers on the London bound carriageway just before the Duke of York's layby, bearing a handmade sign asking to go "Anywhere but here".
Are we that bad? It seems so, given Ian's heartfelt opening post on this thread. I'm bound to say that there are few places I've lived that hold quite the draw that Dover does for me, but I'm equally bound to say that the place has a maddeningly irritating small town mentality amongst some, and a District Council that I believe is blinkered and jaded, and in desperate need of new blood. Added to Ian's post, I had a very well-known and respected born and bred Dovorian saying to me at the H4H event on Dover beach a week or so back that she's had enough of the town and the people that are strangling it - and I would stress that this person was once as committed a Dovorian as is Vic Matcham.
My Dad was in the RAF for the first 18 years of my life, so I am unable to say that I am 'from' anywhere, as service personnel are inherently nomadic and therefore so are their offspring. My roots lie in The Potteries, and in the 60s and 70s that was a grim place to be from (it's a little better these days) and Sussex where I went to boarding school. To me, therefore, Dover is the nearest thing to home - I moved here in 1990, met my wife here, found good friends here, and I shall probably stay here for the rest of my life unless a lottery jackpot rears its wonderful head (!). Despite all its faults, despite the head banging people in positions of authority they frankly don't merit, and despite some appalling local and regional decision making, I'm proud to call Dover home, but I have a great deal of sympathy for Ian and agree with much of what he has to say.
