Day 9/10: Part 1: Sheppey FM, Sheerness Market, and Swimming
It's a beautiful morning, which I wasn't expecting. I put Sheppey FM on to listen to the Saturday Schools Out Radio Show put together by the station's team of youth presenters. The show's live via the Sheppey FM website / 92.2 FM every Saturday 9am-12pm and you can listen back to old shows at https://www.mixcloud.com/SchoolsOutSaturdayYouthShow/. I realised yesterday that the youngest people I've met on the island are in their twenties so I wanted to listen in to get the scoop on island living from the younger generation.
They start with highs and lows, tide times, sunset, pollen counts, sponsorship messages, how to join, then get into the music: 7 rings by Ariana Grande, New Rules by Dua Lipa, Wannabe by Spice Girls, Close to You by the Carpenters, Boys Will Be Bugs by Cavetown. There's a quick advert break with a chunky one from Sheerness Holiday Park (tag line: not letting the weather spoil your summer holiday). The presenters let Take on Me by A-ha fade right down before sharing some facts about a singer called Scott Helman – he was born in 1995, he's Canadian, when he released his debut EP, where he graduated from, when he got his first guitar, when he signed for Warner music, and how he talks about his grandad as his inspiration.
It's a Friday night and I think about you
'Cause I don't get high in the ways we used to
Why'd they make something
That was so damn bad for me so easy to do?
I would call my mom, but she doesn't like you
Where are you now? Coming up, coming down?
Memories are bullets, they get lodged in your head
I miss my old friends, the way we used to get f***ed up
I miss my old friends, couple Skittles in a red cup
Guess you could say I'm better now, better than lying in a ditch, but
I miss my old friends, does it ever get better?
Scott Helman – Old Friends
Sheppey FM is housed in the tourist information centre in the car park where I met Albion, about 3 minutes away so I decide to go and pop my head in to see if anyone's around for a chat. It's dead lively in there and when I explain that I've just been listening the presenters are keen to tell me what they do on the show and ask me if I've got a song request. A couple of them like Phoebe - who has her notebook ready to write down my name and request - have been on the show for 5 years now so are total pros. They pick all the music, learn production skills, speak live on air.
I hear about the special interest shows they're working on right now. The presenters can pick any topic they like so there's going to be one on the environment, one on bullying, and one on the tudors. They do all the research - they have to be able to back up all their sources, write the script – ensuring they use appropriate language for their listenership, pick all the music and do the production. You can listen to the environment show here (intro from 14.27): https://www.mixcloud.com/SchoolsOutYouthClub/schools-out-saturday-youth-show-environmental-show-group-1-saturday-10th-july-2021/
There are two youth presenter teams who take it in turns to run the show. They use Mix Cloud to listen back to their and the other team's shows to see how they can improve it. Everything they do counts towards an Arts Award – they're doing bronze and silver right now but will be ready for gold soon.
I stick around to hear my request and then skip off feeling really inspired. They're all totally into it, are getting a lot out of it and seem really happy and relaxed. I WANT TO BE ON THE RADIO!!! JO SHOULD BE ON THE RADIO!!! She should totally do a show with a social history focus. Maybe we could even do one together as we're both massive fans of finding out about things and writing them down... Maybe we could twin with Radio Thamesmead...
After that totally triumphant trip to Sheppey FM I walk over to a market I saw out the window of the bus when I was on my way to Eastchurch Aviation Museum last Saturday. It's all pretty standard until I come across a table laid out with beautiful lino cut prints of animals on cards, posters, screen printed tshirts and much more...
Sat behind the table is the creator of all this, Charlotte. Charlotte's passionate about raising awareness around endangered animals and tells me she went along to a student makers market 3 years ago where they taught her how to lino cut and screen print too. So she learnt the skills, applied it to something she was passionate about, set up her business Night Jaguars https://nightjaguars.com/ and she's going to see how it goes. She's been to this market a couple of times before, saying it's obviously weather dependent. YES! IT IS! WE ARE! She goes to Sittingbourne market too. I come away with a tshirt, poster and three cards too – (there are SO MANY DIFFERENT COLOURS!!!)
The rest of the stalls aren't “arty” per say but they're selling snazzy hairbands, sewing cotton, colouring books and high vis. Maybe I could hire a space and buy things off the other stalls and do some live sculpting or run some workshops?! Queenborough Market (where I'm off to next) is marketing itself as a food and craft market. But this is where artists would come to get their materials to make things. It's got a good vibe about it. I like it.
I look at my watch and realise I can squeeze in a quick swim before the next hourly rail replacement bus to Queenborough so I do it. This will be the first time I'll have been in the water and it's my third weekend here. To hype myself up, last night on the beach I listened to this radio programme about swimming: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszjwv The speakers speak about:
- Swimming as something like a metamorphosis, where you necessarily refocus on survival, not ambition or desire. There's a kindness in it too: bodies released from gravity, unburdened, supported. Being surrounded by water is like getting a big hug. Swimming grants you weightlessness, which is something people go to space for.
- It can feel like returning to a fish-like state, going back to being aquatic mammals
- Afterlife lay at the bottom of the ocean/river/lake, masculinity and honour: fight sharks, crocoadiles, hippos, form of work: diving to harvest cowrie shells in 16th Century west Africa.
- Anti-swimming Christianity – it's unnatural for humans to be in the water – it's a chaotic place – God created land and water absorbs through your skin so that's how you catch cholera and plague.
With the memories of this totally unnecessary contextual information bouncing around my brain I pack and repack what I'll need. I've never been swimming in the sea on my own before so I feel a bit hyper-aware of getting my things nicked and/or drowning. I climb over the sea wall and walk up to the yellow and red flags. I leave my belongings of no value on the beach and get in the water which is SO WARM! It's really refreshing seeing Sheerness from in the water to the land instead of land to the water all the time. It's like when you notice something new about a person you know really well and it's EXCITING.
