Anke: Royal Tunbridge Wells

Christmas Courtesy of Richard Hammond and Morrisons

Is it really snowing in Tunbridge Wells? No, it's just Richard Hammond and the Morrisons gang filming yet another advert here in town. Remember Lulu on The Pantiles?

One of the benefits of the wonderful world of Twitter and following some great friends in Tunbridge Wells is being able to grab exclusive news in and around town as and when it happens.

This evening Twitter was awash with lots of people sharing their photographs of the filming of the new Christmas TV advert in Chapel Place just off The Pantiles.
Here are some of the photographs shared from my friends who I would like to thank very very much for allowing me to share the photographs with you. Can't wait to see it on television.

Courtesy Laura Betts.

Courtesy Robert Wakeford and Anthony Hook.

Courtesy Kassi Jones., Laura Betts and Anthony Hook.

Courtesy James Golding and Laura Betts

If you'd like to keep up with all the latest happenings in and around Tunbridge Wells then follow me on Twitter and you'll get loads of exclusive insights.

Fly Fishing?

Do you have a copy of Fly Fishing by JR Hartley? Perhaps not, but perhaps in the twenty years that have passed since the airing of the famous Yellow Pages advert, the store that Mr Hartley walked in to ask may now finally have a copy. I'm talking about antiquarian bookseller, Hall's Bookshop, in Chapel Place. Hall's is one of our institutional shops that has been giving the beauty of books to the masses since 1898.

It's one of those places that always has a nose pressed up against the glass peering in. Where not an inch is wasted inside or outside the store, books filling every nook and cranny from floor to ceiling. With ultra-rare first editions for thousands or if you're feeling a little short, a 10p bargain box to rummage around in.

The smell of old books (obviously) greets you when you open the door, the rare shaft of sunlight is animated by the dust flying through it and even the checkout procedure is deliciously low-tech, where a credit card is only useful as a bookmark. Friends from out of town get lost inside and are impossible to drag out into the daylight and somehow time inside passes slower than the world outside.

We are actually lucky that the shop made it past its 100th birthday, because in 1989 Lloyds Bank, which owned the premises, decided to expand its neighbouring branch into the bookshop. But there was no way that thousands of loyal fans from around the world were going to let that happen. The chairman of the company was apparently bombarded with so many protests that the company conceded and Hall's Bookshop was saved.

So if you're looking for a place to escape the weather this weekend, forget the shiny new shops at the top end of town, take a walk down to Chapel Place for a dose of proper browsing, their local book collection is tremendous and you just might find that elusive book on fly fishing.

Sashed of First Place

According to Phil and Sofie on Channel 4's Best and Worst Places to Live 2006 show, Tunbridge Wells is the third best place to live in the UK. Only third?! Well you can guess my opinion on that, so I won't even begin to bore you. We were beaten by Horsham and Winchester no less. What exactly have they got that we haven't, how did they get to number one and we didn't?

Well I've found one thing that Phil and Sofie overlooked, and it could be our trump card for next year. Did you know that we have Western Europe's largest sash window? There's something you can bore your family with over dinner this evening. The remarkable claim to fame belongs to the delightful garden objet d'art/nick-nacks shop in Chapel Place. Go have a look, it's big alright. Perhaps we should make a tourist attraction out of it.

Lampost Lunacy

I must admit that I had walked past it quite a few times and not noticed, but now that Ptolemy Dean has drawn my attention to it it actually is beginning to annoy me, I must be turning into a Daily Mail reader. If you haven't got it from the picture by now, I'm talking about the abominable lamppost.

If you don't know the story, there is a beautiful old original lamppost in Chapel Place that was broken, so the council was told and then proceeded to fix it. There lies the problem, instead of fixing the lovely old one, they dug a hole and stuck in a ugly modern orange-sodium post about two feet away!!

Is this how they are supposed to be looking after the history of our town, I almost wish I was clued up in lamppost repair so I could do something about it. I beg of you if you see anything like this happening again in our town make your voice heard by the council and together we can stop them ruining our beautiful heritage.