I learned, as a grown-up, that Walton-on-Thames was home to the first film studio on Earth. It's true: in 1899, with audiences growing bored of films about trains drawing up at stations, Cecil Hepworth saw the advantage in a specific, permanent base of operations for the shooting of one-reelers. "How It Feels to Be Run Over" and "Baby's Toilet" are no longer considered classics even by the standards of his age, yet the earliest British blockbuster was his 1905 meisterwerk "Rescued by Rover" (re-shot several times, as the constant copying of the negative always led to its destruction... and we thought '70s television was transient). You'd imagine that this at least would deserve some recognition, even if Psychomania is unlikely to earn the town a blue plaque.
The truth is less pleasant. Because there's no such town as Trumpton, and the future refuses to let any territory be mapped out in sunlight and children's books. Walton-on-Thames is now known for one thing only, a form of horror that would have seemed infeasible in "my" 1977, the consequences of which are - thanks to NewsCorp - still haunting us now.
This is the digital age. This is the actual future.
