Saturday ramble about maps, books, ferries

I have now got the 1849 map of Ramsgate, pictured, for sale in my bookshop price £9.99 this involved a four figure investment and means I will be able to produce other local history maps.

We should be selling it on ebay just after Christmas and eventually from our own website dependent on the cost of packaging materials.

The initial version is a good colour march to the original but less bold than the laser printed mosaic I have had on display in the shop window for some time, so after several, "it doesn’t look like the one in the window"s, we have also done one which is a fair colour match to the one that we have had in the window for ages. Sales are running neck and neck. 

Ramsgate is getting a different ferry in January, this was The Pride of Calais now renamed The "Ostend Spirit" on Dec 19 it appeared off Ramsgate to perform berthing trials, after that berthing trials at Oostende, after that Antwerp for dry-docking and is expected to enter service between Ostend and Ramsgate in mid-January.

I have a new local history book out too “Ramsgate and Beyond” by Bernard Potter who is a retired accountant, who was born in 1928, and spent his early years in Ramsgate during the 1930s. He was evacuated to Stafford in 1940, and never returned to Ramsgate to live.

He served in Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards from 1946 to 1952, mainly on Public Duties at the Royal Palaces and other important buildings, but also spent three years in Malaya on Active Service, during the Communist uprising between 1949 and 1951.

This book is a fascinating account of his life in Ramsgate during the 1930s, a family tragedy, the Dunkirk evacuation, the subsequent trauma of the evacuation of children, and what life was like as an evacuee in Stafford.

Oh yes back to the map it is about 3 feet across precise measurements of the printed bit 90x74 cm if you are wondering if it will fit on your wall or considering framing it.

I will ramble on here as things come to mind