Frederic Standen and his family moved from Eastry to Ramsgate in about 1910. Standen and his eldest son Stephen started business with premises at 15 Plains of Waterloo. Very soon, they moved to 75 King Street (bottom of Plains of Waterloo).All business ceased when Stephen died in 1959.
By 1964/65, 75 King Street was demolished.
At the height of their business, the Standens had large premises at the end of Turner Street & Belmont Street. Here Standen garaged his bull-nosed Morris-Crowley, and Stephen had space for major work on horse collars and saddles. The shop at 75 King Street was widely known for quality sports wear/leather goods, suitcases. Above the entrance, you can see in the photograph a carefully painted advertisement, showing two elephants bouncing off suitcases – below the caption – “Our Trunks Last A Lifetime.” The white wall next to 72 King Street was the side of a widely known sea food shop – particularly haddock and kippers. If that shop was Number 70 – then 68 would have been Skitts the Chemist.
Thinking again about Ramsgate in the late thirties, I think Midgets had a show in the Merry England Covered building, immediately below Wellington Crescent.
A propos sights which must be on photographs somewhere are –
a. the howitzer at Wellington Crescent, which was cut up by oxyacetylene torch in 1938
b. the shop front on Albion Hill which exhibited remnants of an unexploded bomb
c. record of artistic flint work (pavement and walling) at the seafront end of Augusta Road, skirting Truro Court.
Many thanks to Mr and Mrs Yates who came in the shop while on holiday here from Buckinghamshire. They said when the got home they would post me copies of two pictures of King Street click here to enlarge above the accompanying letter.
For myself it is something of a relief to return to local history.
But , and i am sorry to say this , its all so bloody boring.
ReplyDeleteThats quite easy to respond too, don't bloody read it.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work Michael
It's about time more people took an interest in their local & family history. Without Michael's book shop, a lot of our town's history would be gone forever & future generations would have no idea what a fab place Ramsgate can be to live in & has been in the past.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if you actually took the time to read one of the many books he publishes, you'd feel differently. I suggest Ernest Cockburn's diary of the First World War as your first port of call. If that doesn't get you interested, then I don't know what will !! :o)
Sky news would be good. Books are dead, they are yesterdays news.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid this site may be a bit too intelligent for you. I think they still sell the Beano in Tesco.
ReplyDelete12.37 What type of thing would you find interesting here?
ReplyDeleterear view mirror thanks have added your site to the feeds on my sidebar.
pjk yes I think Cockburn is my favourite there is a fair chunk of it on the michaelsbookshop.com website for anyone interested.
14.14 I am afraid history tends to repeat itself, lest we forget.
15.46 after the damage Tesco have done to Ramsgate we decided to boycott them, which we have been doing since November, every little helps.
Michael, I must have been out the loop on this one. What has Tesco done to Ramsgate? I'm sure ASDA would stock it instead, and possibly mummy will help 14.47 with the longer words.
ReplyDeletePeter I couldn’t agree with you more, so much of my time is wasted dealing with issues where huge developments have been designed that just don’t conform to the limitations of the site.
ReplyDelete15.46 The supermarkets and big chain retailers grew up as parasites on our towns closing the proper shops, like greengrocers that paid farmers realistic prices, damaging much of our architecture in the process. Now they have moved out of town leaving our town centres to die. Look at Margate, it is only by supporting your town centres that you will have any reasonable environment in which to live.
ReplyDeleteMichael, everyone must surely agree with you over this one - but, unfortunately its the way things have developed, and there is no turning back now. People want cheap prices and convenience, which sacrifices choice. I must admit, that 90% of my family's purchases are now from out of town supermarkets and from the net. But, what choice do we have when 90% of the small independent retailers have gone bankrupt? You can no longer find what you want on the high street. We would love to open a shop ourselves - but it would plainly be financial suicide.
ReplyDeleteI went looking yesterday for a bag of apples in the supermarkets at Westwood. I had to try four of them before finding some grown in the U.K, and then they were hidden beneath a display of apples grown in South America - an appalling situation I would perfectly agree with you.
Michael, I'm after a Victorian children's book by R.M.Ballantyne: 'The Kitten Pilgrims'. Have located one on the net, but if you have a copy then would be more than pleased to buy locally.
ReplyDelete15.46 In Ramsgate we are very lucky to have a very good greengrocer and butchers with most of the produce sourced locally, we also have four supermarkets in the town. Frankly the option here is support local businesses and a much larger proportion of what you spend goes back into the local economy, don’t and were you live becomes progressively more unpleasant, eventually to the point where the town centres have more undesirable people hanging about than shoppers, making an atmosphere where ordinary people start to feel uncomfortable, this situation is is highly beneficial to the big chain retailers.
ReplyDeleteSorry we have only got a couple of Ballantynes I stock and not the one you want, he is not a very popular author these days.