Mystery photo, Ramsgate tunnels emergency electricity generator and battery room, yesterdays answer and Quex

Here is Today's mystery Thanet Photo, do you know where it is?

Next yesterdays mystery picture, I have put it above for reference, this is the electric power control room for The Ramsgate Air Raid Tunnels, I first saw this photo yesterday so research is minimal. Of course, when you think about it there would have had to have been one.

 My guess would be near the hospital entrance, perhaps in one of these brick lined rooms.

The hospital end of the tunnels is difficult to get to, so it hasn't had many visitors since WW2 so the wiring is still there, as you can see from this recent photo.

There isn't much down there now and what there is is rotting away.

Day off from Michael's Bookshop here in Ramsgate, out and about, photos, bookshop in Herne Bay, bookshop in Margate, lunch at Quex Barn

Plenty of photos and I was tempted by this for the 

mystery picture

I'm having technical issues so the rest of the pictures will have to be tomorrow 

test link

Ramsgate's Mad Mayor, Ramsgate Tunnels and some Margate pictures

 Times change and Mayors behave differently ABC Kempe also know as the Mad Mayor would probably behave differently with a carnival queen now. Bring back the good old days? 

 Also known as "The Top Hat Mayor" although not for bowles where hat and spoon etiquette was complex back in the good old days.

 Food immediately after WW2 when rationing was still in operation, should be viewed differently to today

 When it came to making friends senior citizens ranked with carnival queens. When it came to saving the lives of the people living in Ramsgate ABC was responsible for the underground tunnel air raid system.

We publish and stock various books and maps about this

This is one of the maps, we don't post these as they come in a long tube, this version should expand fairly well if you click on it a bit.

The pictures above come from ABC's book about being mayor of Ramsgate, a hard act to follow. We often have original copies in stock and also do a cheap reprint - worth a browse when you are in the bookshop, for those who can't here is the link to the buy it now button so I can post it to you.

Ramsgate Tunnels are open to the public, here is the link to their website  if you are in this frame of mind tomorrow it's Thursday so the bookshop is closed but the tunnels are open.

Next some pictures of Margate

I did manage to get out for a walk after work today, a bit gusty and a few lifeboat and small boat photos

Link to today's photos

Invigorating if you have this type of toy and the inclination 

Ramsgate Tunnels Tours start tomorrow

Here is the link to book online http://www.ramsgatetunnels.org/ and what it says is.

About Tours

Tours are up to 1.25 kilometres and will last for approximately 1 hour. You will be accompanied by a guide throughout.

Hard hats must be worn and personal lighting must be carried in the Air Raid Tunnels. These will be provided at the start of your tour.

Sensible footwear is recommended, (flat shoes, boots). High heals are not permitted.

The tunnels are at a constant temperature of around 11 degrees Celsius; they may appear cold in summer but warm in winter

Children 3 - 7 years are admitted free at the discretion of the guides.

Pushchairs and wheelchairs may be difficult to operate and are admitted at the guide’s discretion.

Photography is only permitted in the lit areas of the system

With the exception of Guide Dogs, animals are not permitted in the tunnels

Ticket Prices

Adult

£5.00

Child  7 - 11 years

maximum 2 per adult

£3.00

Junior  12 - 16 years

£4.00

Senior  65+

£4.00

Advanced booking is strongly recommended but tickets can be obtained at the tunnels subject to availability.

Here is the link to the book we publish about the tunnels http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/the_ramsgate_tunnels__main_line_public_airraid_shelter___scenic_railway__.htm

And here a map of the tunnels, which should get big enough to read if you click on it 

Ramsgate Tunnels a preview and bank holiday ramble, sewage, airport and so on.

I guess most of you know by now that the opening build up for the Ramsgate tunnels starts next week with Ramsgate Tunnels Opening 27 May His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent.

Then on the Sunday the 1st of June the grand reopening and not long after that the tunnels will be open to the public on a regular basis with tunnel tours and so on.

A lot of work has been done by the look of it, this is what the tunnels looked like in 2010 http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Blogpicts1210/id14.htm   

Watching the election results come in with the gains by Labour and UKIP in various councils and vaguely wondering if there will be any benefits to be had out of all of this for us here in Thanet, I have to admit to putting the blog to one side after getting back home at the end of my day off yesterday.

There was no temptation to turn anonymous blog comments back on, which pretty much equates to turning the comment back on as no one much comments when they are turned off. Anyway I have turned them back on and am wondering where to start with this ramble.

I guess the sewage leak news from the council, this started with a fairly major rain storm a couple of days ago. Harbour Parade flooded and because of the environmental protection rules that mean there is no emergency overflow into the harbour, the water first runs into the business down there, so it does masses of damage and makes it difficult for them to trade and is then pumped out, you guessed, into the harbour.

Then the inevitable goes on happening the pumps at the sewage works near Walpole Bay can’t cope and breakdown so they open a great big tap and the sewage is discharged into the sea, contaminating a lot of our recently blue flagged beaches.     

I often post about our recurring sewage problems, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=sewage I guess on the black side this is a bit an ominous start to the bank holiday weekend however “always look on the bright side” the weather forecast isn’t looking that good so perhaps not many visitors will want to go in the sea anyway.

Onto the compulsory purchase of Manston Airport by Thanet District Council, well I guess they already have a dysfunctional seaport so in a sense this sort of monopoly playing makes sense.

At the moment the media and the politicians seem very reluctant to say anything to the “Save Manston Airport Group” that would any way displease them and this seems to include the truth, which I think may be stacking up some problems for the future.

All down the line I have tried not to do this and I guess if you read my previous posts about the issue you will probably agree, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Manston%20Airport every time you get to the bottom of a page of posts click on the “older posts” link and you will probably be reading all day.

Anyway if you are looking for the elusive and much sought after “Anti-Manston Group” it isn’t me, never has been, and my guess is they are hiding under bed somewhere. The funny thing is though that here in Thanet my customers are starting to notice that some of the “Save Manston Airport” protestors are actually nimbys from other parts of the southeast who have been long-term ant-airport protestors in their own backyards.

Sounding out the customers in the shop over the last week there don’t seem to be many locals who think that TDC buying the airport is that good an idea, in fact I am getting the feeling that it may not exactly be a vote winner.

I think it is reasonable to say that there is a group of locals, myself included, who would like a regional airport that they could catch a plane at from and would like a port they could catch a ferry at. As it is the council own a ferry port worth millions of pounds and all they seem to be able to do with this is lose millions of pounds, now there is talk they may try to buy airport for millions of pounds, and I am fairly convinced that if the do this they are almost bound to run it in a way that loses millions of pounds.

That said my heart goes out to those people who worked at Manston and lost their jobs when it closed, it isn’t easy to get a reasonably highly paid job here in Thanet, however I doubt a cpo that would take around three to four years and would pretty much freeze activity on the Manston site for that time would help them to get employment.

Much is also being said about not building houses on the site, I would guess for the most part this is being said by people who already have pleasant houses, thank you very much.

Loads of stuff going on this weekend in Thanet, a big music festival in Ramsgate, two new exhibitions at Turner Contemporary and the Margate Meltdown, here are the links 23-6 - Ramsgate Seafront Music Festival 24-21 Sep - Margate Mondrian Exhibition 26 - Margate Meltdown Motorbike Rally a few pictures of this http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/meltdown/index.htm

I guess with Manston and the night flights issue I did my best to get some workable arrangement I thought the best thing to do was to get the bloke running the airport to give us a trial week of night flights so we could make an informed decision see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/charles/ well no dice and as far as I can see getting people to agree to a level of noise at night that they have never heard was  anon starter.

Of course when all is said and done the council were only making a response to the consultation that the airport was doing and at no point did anything anyone say make any difference to the 106 that regulated Manston right up to the time I closed. Which was no prevention of night flights just that the airport had to give the council 6 months notice of scheduled night flights.  

It is if you think about it pretty preposterous to blame the banning of night flights for the closure of the airport when night flights were never actually banned. 

Anyway I did try a bit of a debate about the closure of Manston of the Save Manston Airport facebook group and put a link to pictures of one of Manston’s open days there, here is the link http://michaelsbookshop.com/manston/ I thought it would interest the group members. Now if I put a link like that on this blog a few thousand people click on it and look at the pictures, I get the stats so I know this. After I did this on the facebook group 11 people looked at the pictures. 

I have just added a link to last night's ITV Meridian report http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/update/2014-05-23/manston-airport-why-did-ann-gloag-refuse-to-sell/

I may ramble on here 

Work starts on Ramsgate Tunnels

Thanks to Ben for these pictures of Downfast Demolition clearing the entrance to the tunnels. The tunnels are due to open to the public in June I think.