The Dark Tower in the Bookshop

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” - Jane Austen

A Dark and Dishonourable Day For Ramsgate.

Sundowner’s failure to cross to Dunkirk with the other little ships is nothing short of a national disgrace, a dishonour to the town of Ramsgate and the Dunkirk veterans.

For some time now our local council in Ramsgate has treated our heritage here with what appears to be indifference and now we have reached a situation that is quite unacceptable.

Despite this I really did think there would be some last minute reprieve and she would be allowed to go, well she hasn’t and the council have achieved what Hitler and the Luftwaffe failed to achieve.

When I went down there this morning the crew of volunteers were standing around explaining the situation to people there and frankly it isn’t an easy thing to explain.

I have written to some of the councillors involved and now await some sort of response.

Pictures of the Dunkirk Little Ships in Ramsgate Harbour for the Operation Dynamo Commemorative Crossing to France May 2010.

Here are the links to the pictures taken this morning

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id15.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id16.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id17.htm

they are publishing to the internet as I write so you may have to wait a while for them all to appear.

Some thoughts on the pictures at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id17.htm

The first event was at 1100: Dedication of the George VI Memorial Pontoon, Ramsgate Royal Harbour by Celia Sandys, Grand Daughter of Sir Winston Churchill. This pontoon was put there to display historic vessels.

I should point out that this pontoon isn’t a desirable mooring being immediately opposite the late night hostelries, it is subject to ate night noise and projectiles, glasses bottles and even on occasions pub furniture. It has no proper plumbing and a very limited electricity supply.

The idea was that by granting historic vessels free of or concessionary mooring fees an otherwise useless part of the harbour would have a display of historic vessels opposite the emerging café culture.

Recently by raising the mooring fees there until they are now pretty much the same as the rest of the harbour, Thanet District Council have effectively evicted all of the historic vessels and now have an empty pontoon.

The Visitor Information Centre.

After Thanet District Council closed Ramsgate’s Visitor Information Centre a new privately run one has opened in the Custom House, this is to be funded by an associated gift shop, which among other things will be stocking some of my publications about Ramsgate.

I was somewhat amused to see Thanet District Council officers erecting a temporary visitor information tent right outside the Custom House, as were the people running the new centre inside.

The William and Katy Johnston lifeboat.

This historic vessel is due to take part in the run to Dunkirk tomorrow and has been on one of the harbour slipways that were built for the maintenance of costal command vessels during WW2, this seemed rather appropriate to me.

She was on the slipway when I first arrived this morning, the topsides had been given a new coat of paint but not the bottom, so I was quite surprised to see her being tied up at the George VI Memorial Pontoon an hour later and just in time for the dedication.

To my mind a protective coat of paint on her wooden hull while she is out of the water is far more important than having here there to decorate an otherwise abanond pontoon.

The Sundowner Ramsgate’s Historic Little Ship.

What I feared would happen and have mentioned a few times on this blog Sundowner won’t be going to Dunkirk this time, there is a post about this here http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2010/05/little-ship-nazis-couldnt-stop.html from some of the chaps at the council.

To me as someone with some experience with historic vessels, from a purely practical point of view, what they have to say doesn’t entirely make sense. There are two reasons for this that are visible and suggest and suggest short term fixes for this event rather than a long term concern for an historic vessel.

The first is that although all of the part you can see has been repainted, the bit under the water hasn’t, this seem a bit strange as she is out of the water but isn’t life threatening.

What is life threatening is that the sacrificial anodes haven’t been replaced, so despite what they say she isn’t ready to go into the water.

Bit of explanation, wooden boats are held together with metal fastenings (screws nuts and bolts etc) and the effect of the electricity and the salt water is similar to what happens with electro plating.

This electrical action means that the fastenings just dissolve over time and the boat falls to pieces. One over come this by fitting sacrificial zinc anodes that dissolve instead and the ones on the Sundowner are almost completely dissolved.

I managed to get out of the bookshop for a bit and take some pictures of the military vehicle display and the some of the reenactors click on the link for them http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id18.htm

Dynamo Day in Ramsgate and the secondhand bookshop.

I would imagine that some of the people coming for tomorrows celebration of the 70tth anniversary of Operation Dynamo will be considering visiting the secondhand bookshop and that they are most likely to be interested in the military and transport sections.

I have just photographed the stock in them, not easy to get everything in focus but I hope it is of some help to people, click on the link for the pictures of the books on the shelves today http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id14.htm

Prices of books in the bookshop start at 5p per book, I would say the average price being about £2.50 for a paperback and about £7 for a hardback, although some of our more collectable and scarce books are much more expensive.

The picture (click on it and then click on it again to make it big enough to read) above is from one of these collectable books, “Aide Memoire to the Military Sciences. Framed from contributions of officers of the different services, and edited by a committee of the Corps of Royal Engineers.”

Second Edition revised, enlarged and corrected. 3 volumes published between 1853 and 1862. viii and 545 pages; ii and 589 pages; ii and 800 pages. with numerous plates and wood-cuts. Tall 8vo. All three volumes rebound with marbled boards and marbled endpapers, maroon half-leather, with raised bands at spine and red leather labels with gilt titles.

I never know if this sort of post is seen as advertising, or just bringing to peoples attention another cultural facility in Ramsgate, anyway what you see is what there is.

Oh and just a reminder that we are closed on Thursdays and Sundays.

Dunkirk evacuation model tug display at Ramsgate maritime Museum

One of the high points of Saturday and Sunday’s events at Ramsgate Harbour was the display of models of some of the tugs that were at Operation Dynamo.

The models were made by members of the Chantry Model Club that meets at Bluewater (lake 7). Contact details George Boyd (Chairman) 01474 323398 Paul Smith (Secretary) 01474 351361. if they have a website I can’t find it.

Click on the link for pictures of the model tugs http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id13.htm

Ramsgate Maritime Museum pictures and reflections.

As I promised I spent a couple of hours yesterday photographing the maritime museum and the Cervia. The first batch of pictures are of the Maritime Museum, considerable problems with reflection as like most museums a lot of the exhibits are behind glass, anyway I did my best to record the museum as it is now.

As far as I can see things with the museum could go one of two ways. Either the council will fail to grant the museum sufficient security of tenure to obtain grant funding and it will close. Or the museum will be granted a lease on The Clock House and the first thing they will do will be to expand the museum into the parts of the building that are not used for anything much, so either way I won’t be the same again.

Anyway here are the pictures, taken yesterday.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id9.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id10.htm

We had a very similar situation with Ramsgate Motor Museum, the council made promises of support and then broke them, I think the final straw there was the council moving the bucket and spade run to Margate, of course now the museum has closed they have moved it back to Ramsgate. The owners then removed all of the exhibits and since then a large council owned building has remained empty. Before the Motor Museum closed I wrote their website for the museum, I am afraid at the time digital cameras were not what they are today so the pictures of the exhibits are rather small, click on the link to see what we lost http://www.thanetonline.com/RamsgateMotorMuseum

There is a ghastly irony here that the council are spending £2m on a heritage project in Margate, when people of Ramsgate are asking to be allowed to keep their last remaining museum.

It would seem from experience that the council’s most likely agenda here, is to have another iconic Ramsgate building empty for years, progressively becoming more derelict.

This link takes you to a few pictures round Ramsgate taken yesterday and this morning, they got a bit muddled up but the point here is how busy Ramsgate is in the area around the museum, and how much having it open with events on there enhances the town’s economy http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id11.htm

The Steam Tug Cervia Progress.

As I pointed out yesterday both Ramsgate Maritime Museum and the last remaining ocean going steam tug are open to the public in Ramsgate harbour today and well worth a visit, entrance is free.

This link takes you to a few pictures of her that I took late yesterday afternoon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id8.htm as you see a tremendous amount of work has been done since I last took pictures of her in July of last year, click on the link for the pictures of her then http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cervia/

Ramsgate Maritime Museum and Steam Tug Cervia open today and tomorrow, free entry

My understanding is that a group made up of the museums volunteers, from when the museum was open, have taken matters into their own hands and opened the museum without getting permission from Thanet district Council.

There is something of an Ealing film atmosphere, reminiscent of “The Titfield Thunderbolt” to the occasion. Very much a sense of the museum belongs to the town of Ramsgate.

Many the people engaged in this act of civil disobedience are local old age pensioners, this is what it has come to here in Ramsgate where the Dunkirk spirit is still alive.

There even appears to be a Dunkirk exhibition, there is also an historic lifeboat on the slipway, various Little Ships to look at and of course the sea and the sand.

I will endeavour to take more pictures tomorrow when I hope to have more time here are the ones of my lunch time walk http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id7.htm they include several of the harbour event.