The road led out of Blue Town and wound its way to Westminster, hugging the seawall as it went.
Let me walk you along the route to Westminster, starting in Blue Town. The road I describe is a continuous one, we don't ever leave it.
You came over the Moat Bridge into Blue Town from Sheerness and passed the Guard Room and armed sentry on your right, and the road to the Wellmarsh on your left.
You followed straight on along the road (as it became the High St) all the way to the South Gate, with the dockyard wall running all the way on your right,
Here the road took an almost 90 deg turn to the left at the Magistrates Court.
The railway lines emerged from the Dockyard (from Behind Massive Gates) just before you came to the entrance to the pier on your right and The Fountain Hotel on your left.
The Pavement climbs up 12 steps and continues passed the pier entrance and then down 12 steps. To the right is a high blue brick wall to the left we can see down a side street where we see Saint Paul's Church and the Police Station.
We climb 12 steps and are on a broad 'pavement' that is the top of the seawall. The road remains on our left following the seawall. Beyond the road, railings and the railway branch line.
We follow the 'pavement' along the top of the seawall, with a small 2 foot high wall on our seaward side, the road tracks us closely.
We pass the 'Shingles': where Blue Town sunbathed and swam. It was 100 yds of pebbles and the efflux from the Moat (we called it The Sluice). But to us .....Eldorado!
To the left are acres and acres of buoys, torpedo nets etc, piled as neat as any Egyptian Pyramids - with a permanent gang of maties painting and tarring them.
[Access to that area is via a railway crossing and halfway through the site it runs the main Railway line with a bridge similar to the one below over it at Bird Cage Walk].
We continue along the seawall with the road still with us, but we lose the branch line from the Dockyard as it joins the main line to Queenborough.
We climb 2 steps and then go down 2 steps , and the 2 foot high wall is now on our left, we are almost in Westminster.
The road winds through Westminster and continues until it becomes the White Way, which ends up in Queenborough at Jubilee Cottages and the Social Club.
The sea wall now navigates its way around the gas works. Suddenly we are walking on coal dust and not concrete.
Along side us are London Barges offloading coal to be changed to coke. Here I saw what lee-boards were really for on barges.
The smell is peculiar, full of sulphur, here parents bring kids with Scarlet Fever, the smell was supposed to cure them. (Lourdes in a Gas Works!).
The Sheerness Marathon followed this route - from the Moat to Jubilee Cottages and on through Queenbrough and over the Arch to Queenborogh Corner. From there all the way to Halfway and then towards Sheerness, passing Sheerness East with the Maidstone & District Bus Depot to the right, over the Canal, passing the Town clock and on to the Moat!
