retiredmartin

June 2024. Dorking.

Our little campervan was looking all lonely in the council car park on our return from Wimbledon, but, unlike Redhill or Leatherhead or any other scruffian Surrey town I reckoned we were safe there with boy racers doing wheelies.

Having said she wasn’t hungry and hour earlier, Mrs RM now dispatched me into the Dorking night at the statue to Ralph VW,

who Wiki tells me wasn’t a great fan of the town, moving from The Smoke. I’ll wager Ralph was never sent into the night for crisps and beer by his wife, though you can never be sure with composers.

I was keen to form a view of a town that on previous trips up the A24/along the A25 had looked a bit faded, redeemed only by the views to Box Hill immortalised by John Lydon, another great 20th century composer.

The years have not been kind to Dorking, bearing the scars of relentless traffic and adding some grim chain shops to the High Street.

But I look for the best in everything, and if I ever need a wedding dress or vegan burial (or both) then I’ll know where to come.

Still no idea what table waters are/were, mind.

I’d already decided to make Mrs RM wait for her tea as I approached South Street, home to the only open GBG pub on Sunday night. Frankly, the only open anything in Dorking that night.

So I can only bring you a borrowed shot of the caves,

and note the similarities with Royston, a similarly quaint but shoddy market town with central caves and limited pub action.

But fear not;

beyond that penguin lies bubby joy…