When we head out each day there is usually an aim in mind. Quite often the goal for the day is to see something that has come up in conversation, or that we have read about or have seen in a film or television show. One of our trips to China was to see, in particular, the terraced rice fields in Guanxi that we had seen in the film ‘The Painted Veil. That idea formed the basis for a wonderful trip to Guanxi and Yunnan.

Today we went to see the Historic Shipyards at Chatham. Why would we want to see shipyards? Because we have been enjoying ‘Call the Midwife’ on ABC1. I recently looked up the location of the old street scenes used in the show and found that they are filmed in this shipyard. I had not heard about these yards or even the area but it turned out to be an enjoyable and enlightening day.
 
   
 
Chatham Shipyards (north of where we are staying) were built on the banks of the Medway River near London. The Medway flows into the North Sea, just near where the Thames also meets the sea. The yards, (80 acres of them) closed in 1984 but were in service for 400 years. They prepared ships for major battles - against the Spanish Armada, for the American War of Independence and French Revolution. They built sailing ships, steam ships and submarines.  There are three ships that can be toured - a navy destroyer, a submarine and a sailing/steam ship built during the transition period from sail to steam.

 What we found amazing was the size of the industries that were required for the building of ships. Huge sheds each for a particular task - timber seasoning, saw-milling, blacksmithing, mast making, galvanising metal, rope making and so on. And anchor making - these took 20 men 40 days to make!
 
   
 
Some of the buildings are now museums and art galleries. 3000 model ships are housed in one museum. Imagine a ship built just for transporting Cleopatra’s needle from Egypt. It was built, dismantled, shipped to Egypt, rebuilt, and then transported the monument back to London (illegally, we would now say). Or ships refitted so they can carry horses and their feed etc to battle sites.
 
We worked our way down to the streets beside the long Anchor Wharf Storehouses where the television show ‘Call the Midwife’ is filmed. The storehouses are the largest ever built by the royal Navy, and their austere red brick appearance is familiar from the show. We saw the cobbled street where the nurses in the show bump along on their bikes, and also the ship that featured in one of the episodes . This is a huge site but quite amazing that all this historical stuff being preserved here. Worth seeing.
 
 
 
From here we drove east to Canterbury. We arrived during a shower, and ducked into a café to have lunch. All roads lead to the Cathedral area, but was crowded here with school students from Netherlands, France etc. Very touristy around this area but interesting little streets and shops. One that caught my eye was a ‘Cook Shop‘ - stocked with kitchen implements . We would call this a kitchen shop.
 
Enjoyed BBC Radio 2 as we drove home - it is a good drive time station. Bryan Ferry was interviewed about his newish album in which he has recorded some of his songs in 1920s jazz style. He has gone to a lot of trouble to recreate the sound with particular instruments and players. He seemed articulate and very knowledgeable about music. Some of his tracks feature in Baz Luhrmann’s film ‘Great Gatsby’ coming out soon. We will have to see it.

 In this way we flew back to the hotel.