Ramsgate and St. Laurence 1946, 1870 and 1854

We have finally managed to get the 1946 St Laurence booklet into print, I blogged about it around a month ago and then we had technical issues, don’t ask.

Anyway it is out in the bookshop at £1.99 but not yet on our website with a buy it now button, I aim to get it there eventually. It will be post free when I do.

The next bit of the post is from Illustrated London News for 1870, we have the first 6 months in stock and one of the customers browsing it pointed out this Ramsgate article which I snapped for the blog

I think it is just about readable if you click on it and expand it. Apparently it wasn't so there you go 

We are working on a book of early victorian Ramsgate prints at the moment and I hadn't seen this one of Christ Church before and I thought I had seen a the Rock and Co ones.

I did pop out and take a few Ramsgate photos today

here is the link

boys and their toys

I mean to say

chopped the top of the lighthouse trying to shoot the bird, but not in a die way. Not really but I am seriously having trouble getting my horizons straight after the camera change.

On to work today and the books we put out

Here is the link to them

Photo of the mill at Pegwell, County Music in Canterbury today's photos of Ramsgate in the dark etc

Over the years there have been various speculations about whether there was really a mill at Pegwell Bay, this photo from around 1850 shows it

 The first mention of it was in William Coles Finch first published in 1933, we don't have a copy in stock at the moment. Although visually of course the well known print in Shakespeare Ireland's dubious history of the county.

1828 picture by Shepherd for Ireland's history of Kent

Shopping wise our quest for a narrow necked nylon string guitar goes on, County Music in Canterbury is we think the best of the local guitar shops, certainly the only one so far where we have got close.

Although not nylon first place to have the Baby and Big Baby Taylor

Link to photos of shop

From my point of view as a shopkeeper I still really don't understand why there are still quite a few guitar shops trading. The other shops that really interest me, artist's materials, tools, cameras and bookshops are much more depleted.

Still shopping in Canterbury, there is an Independent Magazine Popup just opened

Link to photos of the shop  

Workwise

Link to photos of books

that is the ones we put out today.

Ramsgate today

Here is the link to the photos

100th Armistice Day, some old WW1 related photos, photos inside Chaucer Bookshop in Canterbury

There are many different ways of viewing the WW1 armistice, my grandfather on my mother's side lied about his age, joined up at 15 and found himself in the trenches. With the school leaving age at the time he seemed to think it the best option.

Here in Ramsgate I think people felt they had suffered particularly badly during WW1, it's fairly complicated and so long ago, we do produce several books about Ramsgate in WW1 and to honest I think one of the best starting points is to come into the bookshop and have a good old browse of them.

text from the period

"The inhabitants of Ramsgate, who had suffered so severely through the German raiders, had the satisfaction after the Armistice was signed of seeing one of the U-Boats brought into the Harbour.

A German Submarine Souvenir.
Ramsgate drifters, which have guarded the Channel and cleared it of mines during the war, have many remarkable feats to their credit. On one occasion they destroyed U-B 48, a gigantic mine-laying submarine, which was rounded up on the Goodwin Sands and blown to pieces. One gun was saved and brought to Ramsgate, where it is mounted as a souvenir on the West Cliff."

Here is the link to the most popular of our WW1 books, the page includes a reasonably large sample of text and pictures from the book.

Looking at the  photos of the books we put out yesterday it is obvious that we are still focused in both word wars this is the link

Canterbury today this is the link to the general photos

This is the link to the Chaucer Bookshop photos

Margate, Art, Books, Old Pictures

 Click on the pictures to make them bigger, so starting with a couple of Ramsgate ones, looks like tar varnishing to me

 I went to Margate today to look at the new exhibitions at turner contemporary, Cornelia Parker, Perpetual Canon, YAASS: Empowered, Patrick Heron and Akram Zaatari: The Script

 Played with my new secondhand camera (Nikon P610 set on 2 megapixels which is about the size of a computer screen)

 This is panorama mode, hand held and not really making any effort to hold the camera steady. Blogger shrank my panoramas, here are the links to full size link 1 link 2

 OK I know art and literature isn't everyone's glass of wosisname so here are couple of reasonable old Margate photos

I wrote the rest of this blog post on the bus home, so a bit grumpy

The juxture position, contrast, wosisname between The Margate Coffee Shed and the Loop bus from Ramsgate worries me.

I deliberately use the bus to Margate instead of taking the car at least every 6 months, I don’t usually use the bus because if I do it means that I can’t buy books for my bookshop and I figure that the books getting reused is better for the environment.

The newish exhibitions at Turner Contemporary, there is a sense here where I don't know what to say about them.

I guess the acid test is partly did it inspire me to paint, I painted over my lunch, viewed the exhibitions, subsequently went fort a cuppa in the shed and painted again. And I don't think that it did. Would I travel up to London to see it? No. Is it worth going over to Margate from Ramsgate to see it?

Part of the issue with Turner Contemporary art gallery is that the majority of the funding comes from local taxation, in this case , if you live in Kent your council tax.

There is really nothing for those people who don't enjoy this type of art, no JWM Turner paintings, No Rodin's Kiss, no Webb of Margate .

Of course I guess it depends on the particular sort of taste of the people who pay the most taxes, I was reminded of the other day in the clothes shop with my teenage daughters, I had the money and there was nothing for me to sit on, nothing that I was interested in and eventually I just went.

Will I go back for another look, probably not, in other words I probably won't go to Margate until January when the next exhibition starts. This is the link to the pictures of inside the gallery

I went to both bookshops Hooked On Books in the High Street, this is a good medium sized, around 50 bookcases, general secondhand bookshop. The Old Bank Bookshop which is a charity bookshop in aid of the hospices,

These photos are of the inside of Hooked on Book which gives you some idea of what the shop is like. This is the link to them

The Old Bank Bookshop has suffered from most of the upstairs having its bookshelves removed which is now used for displaying pictures for sale.

Sorry if this post is a bit disjointed but I am writing it on the bus back from Margate, which is a bit bumpy and very full.

I very seldom used the bus, but I do go out of my way use it occasionally as I am interested in the way Thanet connects up. I suppose if I wasn't then I wouldn't still be in business.

The riddle is a man and his son are in a car crash, the father is killed and when the son arrives on the operating table the surgeon says. “I can't do the operation because this is my son.”

So the question is. Who is the surgeon?

Answers from people who haven't heard it before, please.

Link to a few Margate photos taken today

Just to round things off, phone pictures paining from Margate Coffee Shed over cheese and tom sarni and cuppa

Howling Sounds, AJs Furniture Ramsgate some old photos

 Off to buy a cd from Howling Sounds in Ramsgate, all of today's photos fall in to the experimental stage, but some are probably ok the first lot start in Howling Sounds which I take as the first port of call for records and cds. I think this is the most likely to find the one you are looking for in the area.

Should have take a DSLR but did my best, here is the link    photos go on to some I too on the walk back

 A few local photos, seem to have had a bit of misshuffle as I think I have used some of these recently.

 I had a bit of an issue with the chair I bought yesterday so am still trying to find the right swivel chair, had a look in Aj's furniture her in King Street here is the link

 Work in the bookshop today, OK I'll fess up here, you know on shops they have a bell that rings when customers open the door. Well I spent a large part of the morning finding the broken wire (under a pile of boxes of books) Here is the link to books we put out 

 Curry in Wetherspoons this evening

Emptying my pockets shows the equipment for photos blogging and sketch

The sketch didn't get very far

Old Thanet photos and some today of Ramsgate Deal and Dover

 Early Royal Victoria Pavilion Ramsgate one here postmarked 1907 just four years after it was built

 Postmarked 1910 and a personal reminder to check the area around the sailor's church Smack Boys Home and newly constructed brick arches

 I know that at this time different ink colours signified different things, the only one I can remember being green which signified rudeness, what red meant is something I have forgotton.

Deal and Dover today, starting with a pot of tea and a cheese ant tomato sarni in the King’s Coffee Shop rounded off with a lump of chocolate cake.

Then on to the main reason for us going there today, the guitar shop – Mark 1 Music on our quest for a narrow neck nylon string acoustic guitar. This is a much more difficult quest than it sounds. Sexist actually I think as women tend to have small hands and play nylon strung guitars.

On to Oxfam Bookshop where we got some Sven Hassel books which we are usually short of.

On to Dover, partly to have a look at the new shopping centre, partly to take some pictures of the Dover architecture which is just amazing and partly to buy a secondhand swivel chair.

Finally this evening a short walk in the dark with the intention of trying to work our how well the Nikon P610 performs against my dslr in the dark and with hand held shots.

Links next

Link 1 the books we put out in the bookshop yesterday

Link 2 is some general shots around Deal including various attempts to capture Ramsgate behind Deal pier

Link 3 is Mark 1 Music, only one Taylor Guitar, which is one of the makes we are considering and this was a 12 string steel strung, not the 6 string nylon we are looking for, so the quest goes on. That said a nice music shop and well worth a visit, friendly and helpful staff.

Link 4 - Dont Walk - Walk - Gallery, a very good sign was the gallery attendant telling the customer to bring his bicycle in to the gallery, this is what I tell people in my role as shop assistant in the bookshop to do. You can't enjoy looking at pictures or browsing books if you are worried something nasty is going to happen to you bicycle...

Once again another reason to visit Deal

Link 5 a few more shots around Deal

On to Dover

With white smoke coming out of two chimneys on the side of the church in Dover it would seem they have chosen new popes

Link 6 and Link 7 Just snaps around Dover

Link 8 is the night shots taken with the Nikon P610

Link 9 and Link 10 are the wide angle shots I took the other night with a DSLR (don't ask about the lens) the other night for, well not exactly comparison.