No Ball Games, Aylesford

Over the years I must have walked past this little car park next to the shopping parade (Premier Parade to give it it's proper title) on our housing estate thousands of times. Just to the left, out of shot, is a set of stairs that lead to the flats above the shops. The shops themselves now consist of a private dentists (which used to be a newsagents called Bottiboles!), a hairdressers (recently re-furbished but already closed down), a fried food premises (called Wings & Fins which used to be a hardware store), a convenience store, a nursing agency and a Chinese takeaway. Nowadays many of the huge housing estates being built round here have no rows of shops or other businesses just endless acres of three and four bedroom "executive" style "luxury" homes disappearing into the distance ad infinitum. Our housing estate (built in the the late 1950s) wouldn't be the same without the parade.