A Day Trip to Hythe

Town Quay in Southampton is a shabby and inadequate disgrace. Its few remaining viable businesses are crowned by the inexplicably named Monsieur Hulot patisserie with its highly incongruous 'Tabac' signs. Is this some sort of homage to a little known lost episode of 'Allo, 'Allo? For all that it is unattractive, there are people there if only to use the Hythe and Red Jet IoW ferries. They are sufficient in numbers to make entirely unacceptable the 'permanent' closure of its toilets. Visitors and passengers are directed to the Red Jet ticket office where, today, only the ladies was working. I was almost put off my desire to travel on the Hythe Ferry if not by the foregoing then certainly when I saw the ludicrous ticketing arrangements. Two ticket machines take coins only whilst metres away a silently smirking Red Jet machine reminds its retarded cousins that, in the 21st century it is de rigeur to accept notes and cards also. At least the operator recognises that few people carry so much change that they probably would not be able to walk. A man, a very pleasant man it must be said, is on hand to exchange bags of change for notes. The change is inserted into the ticketing dinosaurs and, periodically, removed to be bagged up for the next lot of already weary travellers. It does get better.

There is a fine line between delapidation and antique charm. It is perhaps difficult both to define and to discern but I think my experiences today serve to illustrate the difference. The public face of Town Quay, a relatively modern structure is shameful. The much older Hythe Pier, ferry and railway are entitled to charm through decrepitude. The ferry is busy and the railway, open since 1881, fascinating. Photographs are waiting to be taken and the location is an obvious alternative to Calshot  to view cruise ships. The ferry ride itself affords further opportunities. We confined our movements to an area close to the pier and I can not say that that part of Hythe is especially charming as all the recent decades seem to have impinged upon it. Curiously, the number of banks indicates that the High Street names have not abandoned it as they have so many small towns. The Golden Stir Fry Chinese Takeaway was remarkable in that only the signs outside suggested that it was anything other than a house.

As I took a break from Pier Railway photography and turned my attention to the buses, I noticed that they seemed to be hindered by a growing traffic jam. I went to investigate and found a crowd observing an idiotically parked BMW blocking a bus and hence all the other traffic in both directions. The full illustrated story appears on Facebook. Here I shall just say that a tattoed moron wearing a Confederate cap emerged eventually from a pizza takeaway and showed no shame even when confronted (not, I should add, by me). Nor was he confronted by the police who had chosen to stay well away as, indeed, they do from all except the most dire situations. What can one do about anti-social behaviour? Traffic had been brought to a halt for 10-15 minutes so that one oaf and his bitch (who loooked as though she had seen plenty of pizzas in her time) could pick up their pre-shagging snack without having to struggle to and from the legitimate parking spaces 4 metres away on the other side of the road.