Old Thanet pictures

 I think this is The County Skating Rink in Ramsgate now Pettycoat Lane Emporium, My guess is that it was intended to be a ballroom when it first opened but failed to get enough dancers.

As a Rollerskating Rink you can see it had a properly laid floor for rollerskating, I guess it may have doubled as both

 A lot of these have been lifted of Facebook, mostly from people who say please use them

 I think the Custom House was built on this site

 St Peter's I think

 This is looking up York Street from the Harbour end

 This the demolition of The Granvile Ballroom

 Roughly Nero's, once the Marina Theatre, now a car park

 I don't think the date on this one is right

There was a big fire in October 1928 after which the end part was demolished

On to Margate ones from Mick Twyman's collection with his captions

 High St 1912

 High St 1905

Hawley St C1900

 Street Unknown Northdown road far right is norththumberland hall, still there today

 Fire Cecil St

  Fire Market St

  Fire Market St

  Fire Market St

 Fire Market St

 High St 1913

Outing Hawley St

I have been talking to some of Ramsgate and Margate’s young people about local history and whether it interests them. Interestingly for me it seems the answer is basically yes, but the way I present it is difficult to follow.

I think this is partly related to me needing to connect the pictures of the past more to pictures of the present. I think there is also partly a bit of a mental map issue to overcome, I don’t know what age people switch from thinking of the town along the lines of where shops are to street names, but if you say Queen Street, CEX, Waitrose, Homebasics come to mind. However if you say Kwik Fit or Vinylhead you are wrong as Queen Street turns into Westcliff Road or is it West Cliff, just beyond Waitrose.

We also have roads that changed name like half of Plains of Waterloo which was Bellevue Hill, meaning that historic pictures can have a different name for the same place.

This is the link to books we put out today

Work wise the bookshop has been trundling along much as expected, there is a bit of a sense of desperation among some of the people shopping for Christmas presents and I guess something of relief encountering a fairly normal shop experience.