Saturday 22 September 2012

New Local Book "A History of Ramsgate Harbour "


A book describing the industry that was once a mainstay of Thanet’s community and economy is published this month.  Writer and historian Michael Hunt, whose previous work A History of Ramsgate Harbour was re-published last year, has produced a detailed but highly readable description of a commercial sea fishery the legacy of which still informs Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs life.  From the local industry’s earliest traces, through its 19th century hey-day, to the still important, ‘though contracted, fishery of today A History of the Ramsgate Fishing Industry encompasses a thousand years of Thanet men and women’s engagement with the sea.

The author evokes not only the image, familiar to our great-grandparents, of harbours packed side-to-side with herring boats and sailing trawlers, but the area’s largely forgotten involvement with the Icelandic cod fishery, the migration of fishing families and their craft around the coast of Britain, their involvement in the political and economic squabbles of mediaeval monarchs, and all against a backdrop of the tragedy and heroism endemic to this most dangerous of trades.   From the intricacies of boiling-up livers for oil (a ‘detailed and fairly disgusting description’) to the lad who could crack marbles with his teeth (‘he was always a quiet boy, was Percy’) this is a story long-overdue for the telling.

The development of fishing boats and activities of their crews in peace and war; the rivalries that existed (and still exist) between local and Continental fishermen are examined – sometimes to comic effect (‘the darned Mounseers danced and gesticulated and threatened worse than ever’) - but frequently tragically, as in the recounting of losses through shipwreck, storm or enemy action.
With dozens of black & white illustrations and copious source notes for readers wishing to explore the subject further this book makes a valuable addition to the history lover’s bookshelf.

A History of the Ramsgate Fishing Industry is available, price £7.99, from Michael’s Bookshop, 72 King Street, Ramsgate,

Also available online, post free to UK addresses, at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/a_history_of_the_ramsgate_fishing_industry.htm 

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.