MY WEEKEND AWAY WITH DOCTOR SYN (Patreon)

So, I went to the seaside at the weekend. After a four-and-a-half hour drive on Furnace Friday with no air con - during which my long-suffering Vauxhall Zafira, Rothers, broke down repeatedly - we finally made it to New Romney, near Dymchurch. Saturday brought the rain, which was nice. 

Also nice was realising that the Denge Sound Mirrors were a short walk from the back of our caravan park. I'd looked into using them as a location for the Found Footage finale last year, and though we could only view them from a short distance, I wished I'd tried a bit harder. They were very Xenoxxx-y. As were the nearby Dungeness power station, and the surrounding shingle beach - which I also considered for the finale.

The last time I went to that area was circa 1975 or thereabouts, when we stayed in a caravan park which had a resident children's entertainer called Uncle Ricky Dinkle. He mistook me for a girl. Nothing untoward, mind - my sister had shoved me onto the stage to sing The Wheels On The Bus in a talent competition, and he failed to understand what I was saying on account of having had my front teeth smashed in by a swing not long before (triggering years of painful dental treatment courtesy of a hairy-handed butcher of a man called Mr Newman). 

That holiday stuck in my memory for another reason; utter terror. I've have strong memories of being in the clubhouse, when a bunch of guys in REALLY scary masks road past on horseback. It was one of those memories that I was never entirely sure had really happened. It seemed unlikely - but, as it transpires, I hadn't imagined it at all. 

Turns out that Dymchurch is the setting for a bunch of novels by Russell Thorndyke, starring a smuggler called Doctor Syn, who would dress as a scarecrow. He led a gang called The Devil Riders, who were similarly attired. These were the guys I saw on horses - and it all came flooding back when I saw pictures of Doctor Syn all around Dymchurch. As well as, weirdly, a house with medieval stocks and other torture devices in the front garden.

Anyway. There you go. I thought I'd share that with you. They scared the hell out of me. As well they should have; look at that photo.

I also got to go on a ghost train and bumper cars, played bingo (didn't win), and went in the caravan park's arcade. Which, oddly, was full of Sega-branded machines, though they were all Sega Amusements ticket-redemption machines, as well as the ubiquitous Sonic The Hedgehog air hockey table which seems to be in every arcade these days.  

They also had a motorbike racing game "based" upon The Fast And The Furious, which was at least 12 years old, and incredibly glitchy. I don't know if it had always been like that, or had degraded over time, but my rider was juddering through scenery, and disappearing and reappearing at random. 

And that was my little holiday with my mum and dad.

Paul