Idle Thoughts

One thing that frustrates me when friends or family come to visit is how to keep them entertained, especially when they bring their small children along, too. The traditional view of Marlow is of a charming little village (town? well, it does have a population of 14,000 so I suppose “town” is more like it) nestling on the banks of the Thames. This is pretty much the image that the local tourist office and those with a vested interest in bringing visitors into the area like to promote. It also happens to be true, as far as it goes.

The strange thing is that when I’m faced with the question of what to do with visitors, we always seem to end up just walking along part of the Thames path …. and then back again. Now this is quite a pleasant stroll in the right conditions but does get a samey when people come over for repeat visits. The question that presents itself is “what else have you got?”

To find an answer to that - spurred on by an impending februrary visit, when walking along the towpath (or any other significant distance) would be a no-no, I went down to the town’s tourist information office. This is quite a respectable, shop-unit sized office situated in one of the two shopping streets in Marlow town centre. Once inside I was pleased to see that they had a wide selection of leaflets up for grabs, so after browsing the selection for a few minutes I decided to pick up one of everything and then go through them at home.

When I started going through the dozen-or-so pamphlets I was quite optimistic that given the high disposable incomes in this area, plus the fact that it was half-term, I’d find something new and original to occupy the day. As I read each piece, a pattern began to emerge. Possibly a random selection of the titles gives a clue:

• Little Marlow walk
• Red Kite walks
• Forty Green pub walks (btw. Forty Green is a place, not a quantity)
• Beacon View walk

Yup, everything that passes as a passtime involves a nature walk. Worse, none of them are actually in Marlow itself.

One piece of literature I did take was a “mini guide” to Marlow (sadly, I couldn’t find the maxi guide). Surely this would be the answer to my quest? Well, yes and no.

It starts off promisingly: “loveliest locations on the River Thames”, ”lively and prosperous centre”, “historic streets of small listed buildings”. OK, now we’re getting somewhere: references to T.S. Eliot, Shelley (and Frankenstein), pictures of nice houses in splendid grounds …. The only slight problem being that none of these places are open to the public.

Opening up the leaflet lets the secret out of the bag with the phrase “Shopping and eating out are amongst Marlow’s most popular pastimes.” . Now, call me a cynic, many have! but buying stuff and recreational eating are activities you can indulge in pretty much anywhere you go. If you had any other attractions for visitors wouldn’t you put them in first, rather than leading with such mundane ways to spend your leisure time? Let’s see what else fills out the rest of the mini-guide.

We’re back to walking. There’s a tour of the town: looking at the outsides of all the places one isn’t allowed in - a bit like a small child pressing his face up against the sweet shop window. Finally, back to the river. There are two choices here, you can go left or right. It turns out that the highly desirable nature of waterside property (until it floods of course - but that’s another story) means that one bank of the river is out of bounds, so the return half of any riverside walk is really just retracing ones steps from the outward portion.

Now to be fair it’s not all doom and gloom. Marlow does give it’s name to two regattas, one of which is actually held in the town itself! These occur in June and are outside events. The local one takes place beside the river in the centre of the town and the other is staged in Eton.

Finally, we get to the point of this article. What exactly is a reverse-polo?
Many years ago someone I knew observed about a Polo mint “nice around the outside, but bugger all in the middle”. The same principle, but in reverse, can be applied to most large cities, where all the good stuff gets concentrated, and their surrounds which become cultural deserts. Experience of living and working in many towns around London shows that a large number of them are in the situation of having quite a sizeable population, but no attractions of their own. While many towns have a heritage that they should be proud of, and could promote both to locals and to visitors, in practice they are little more than a bypass and a shopping mall.

This lack of activities for vistors seems to me to be a common feature of small towns in the shadow of a large city, in my case London and I suspect there are two reasons for this. The first is simply being in the shade of the metropolis, with it’s vast array of famous attractions is somewhat intimidating. Towns may feel they have to compete, either in reputation or visitor-numbers to make anything they promote “worthwhile”. I think this is a mistake: if people want to go to London, they will. However, there are many, many reasons why people will find themselves in the home counties and specifically not want to travel into London - the most obvious being that’s where they’ve just come from.

The second reason I can see for the lack of ameneties in the ring surrounding the capital and to a lesser extent most other cities, is that’s they are just too expensive to build and to maintain. Land prices and wages in this area are such that it costs considerable amounts to errect, say, a museum or local arts gallery and even more money to employ the staff to both present the exhibits and maintain and administer the building. The problem is compounded by the smaller number of visitors it would attract, given the obvious competition from the world-famous alternatives in the city.

So, what have we learned? First of all if you’re coming to visit, bring your wellies. Especially if you are planning a trip at a time of year before the ground has dried out. Also, an umbrella may be handy, too. The line about shopping and eating may influence your timing, too. It does sound that if you find yourself in Marlow at a time or day when the shops are closed then you’re pretty much left up to your own devices.