1345 The train from Canterbury is proceeding in a leisurely way along the line, following the Great Stour. Water craft are laid up for the winter along the meandering river fringed by dried up reed beds with solitary walkers on the towpath.
Ramsgate is stuck right out on the eastern end of Kent and is one of a number of seaside holiday resorts made popular in the 19th century. It has a harbour and a large marina but the reason I am going is to see the ‘Great Wall of Ramsgate’. I’d no idea this existed until I trawled the internet for attractions in East Kent and it caught my imagination.
1514 I’ve found the GWR! What an amazing and very simple idea! The town is redeveloping along the sea front hence the builders have put up wooden hoardings around their site. Instead of leaving this blank, local artists, schools and seemingly anybody have produced large picture to be mounted on the ‘wall’. Some are very accomplished, others naive but they all have a common theme around ‘Ramsgate – past, present and future’. Very interesting. My favourites were one by an artist call Giles (though surely not the cartoonist I thought he’s dead) and an abstract loosely based on an aerial view of the marina.
Incredibly, this has been up for months and hasn’t been vandalised which is a tribute to the town. I’m not sure a ‘Great Wall of Andover’ would last as long.
1600 I walk circuitously back to the station along the seafront taking in the scene. In a small park, two dogs are chasing each other over a stick heedless of the damage they are causing to the winter pansies in the flower beds.
1630 Arrive at the station through the fading light to find the trains have been replaced by a bus service. Good job I did not bring my bike on this occasion though Margate is hardly a long way away.
1949 In the Margate B and B. Oh dear. The archetypal ‘dragon’ seaside landlady is alive and well! She has a fixation with dolphins they are everywhere in this place. Even the many handwritten notes around the room and house instructing guests what they can, and mostly can’t, do are shaped like dolphins! The landlady herself is anything but happy and plumbs new depths on the dourness scale. I survive the one night I am staying but would not have stayed another which I don’t say often.
1600 I walk circuitously back to the station along the seafront taking in the scene. In a small park, two dogs are chasing each other over a stick heedless of the damage they are causing to the winter pansies in the flower beds.
1630 Arrive at the station through the fading light to find the trains have been replaced by a bus service. Good job I did not bring my bike on this occasion though Margate is hardly a long way away.
1949 In the Margate B and B. Oh dear. The archetypal ‘dragon’ seaside landlady is alive and well! She has a fixation with dolphins they are everywhere in this place. Even the many handwritten notes around the room and house instructing guests what they can, and mostly can’t, do are shaped like dolphins! The landlady herself is anything but happy and plumbs new depths on the dourness scale. I survive the one night I am staying but would not have stayed another which I don’t say often.
The one redeeming feature is the view from my room: right over the beach towards what is now tomorrow’s destination – the Turner Contemporary art gallery.
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