Lighting up Ramsgate in 1951

I think most of these pictures show "The Ramsgate Festival of Light" in 1951. This was done for the festival of Britain.

  

And this is a picture of Dinah Sheridan who did the turning on, of the illuminations that is, Festival of Britain 1951.. The following pictures are of people looking at the lights I think they were easier to photograph than the lights. 

On to 2025 the lights in Ramsgate are looking good, a bit wet and windy yesterday evening so a very short video 

Here in the bookshop we have just got most of the Christmas decorations up. 

I am very optimistic about the future of Ramsgate town centre as the council has made it one of the designated areas for High Street auction powers.

This means that the long-term empty shops in Ramsgate can be subject to rental auctions where the landlords have to rent out the buildings at the auction price. 

Obviously this hardly costs the council anything and should hopefully bring the town centre rents down to an amount that's related to the current town centre footfall.

That said, we sold about 100 books a day when I opened the bookshop here in 1987 and we still sell about 100 books a day now in 2025.

Here is the link to the latest batch of books to go out for sale at Michaels Bookshop in Ramsgate