Photo of Ramsgate Harbour from the Royal Temple Yacht dining room balcony.

To enlarge this picture of Ramsgate harbour. Ok sorry click on this link to enlarge http://michaelsbookshop.com/pano/

James Patterson, the Alex Cross novels. Buying Tarot Cards occult books in the bookshop. A few thoughts on painting watercolours of traditional sailing boats as The Frigate Shtandart is in Ramsgate Harbour. A ramble.

Apart from closing my bookshop on Sundays and Thursdays I also employ someone on Saturdays, so if my wife is here too, then I can also skive off on Saturday sometimes and paint, so this is one of today’s paintings, more about this later.

On the whole I am not much of a fan of murder mysteries but as James Patterson is an author who has seen the writing on the wall about independent bookshops, which pretty much boils down to - the big chains like Amazon and Waterstones taking over bookselling - damages the relationship between the writer and the reader, I thought I ought to give his work a go. I am not entirely new to his work having read Maximum Ride with my children, anyway the long and the short of it is I have got addicted to this crime series. Anyway I am about half way through and read pretty quickly, but I have to admit that a lot of the time I would normally devote to blogging has been spent reading these. I don’t mean here that I am not a veracious reader anyway, it’s just when I get addicted to a long series, I also read when I should be doing other things.

Now I guess you are either familiar with my bookshop or not, if you are you will know that it one of the only fairly large bookshops where the stock is of reasonable quality and the books are mostly cheaper than the internet. Nearly all of the James Pattersons I am reading at the moment came from my bookshop, average price about £1.50. This is done by having a mixture of new and secondhand books, the new ones being sourced from bankruptcies, warehouse returns (we have this amazing computerised warehouse, but one we have taken a book out it is just too expensive to put it back in) and so on.

As it is a fairly large bookshop it has a fairly large mind body and spirit section, the pictures below are of the part of this loosely called “the unexplained” and of course predicting the future is a factor here. We sell a lot of books about this type of thing and so far no one has complained that they don’t work, but Tarot Cards are a bit of an exception to the secondhand part of business. 

Only new packs that have never been used by anyone else work, and really you shouldn’t buy your own because the also only work if you get them as a present. In terms of making something difficult to sell you would think that all this rigmarole would mean we didn’t sell any, however we managed to run out.

The good news is that I have managed to source some more, which are new, sealed and cheaper than you can buy them on the internet.    

The bottom line here is that at the moment I have four verities of packs of tarot cards in the shop (we are closed on Thursdays and Sundays) priced between £2.99 and £5.99 (I am not selling these by post or online as I don't think tarot cards bought this way will work) you certainly can't buy them for yourself as all the sources say they don't work if you do. I am pretty sure they need to be given to you, unasked for, so if you want a set I guess you need to work that one out somehow. If you do buy someone a a deck of tarot cards you need to leave them sealed as the person who is going to use them needs to be the first to touch them.

Anyway I had a go at painting the Frigate Shtandart today.  

What I wanted to do here was to only use watercolour paint, no pencil or pen sketch first, which means if you want white sails then the sky wash has to go on near the end, something I have hardly ever done before.

The notes here are for me as much as anyone else as this is my first try at painting traditional sailing boats.

The paper in this case is Bockingford 200lb Not 28x38cm which is nearly as big as A3. all of the paint is Winsor and Newton artist’s quality watercolour, the brushes Winsor and Newton Cotman Watercolour Field Brush Set.

The rigging is painted with ivory black and the masts with burnt umber, this didn’t smudge too much when I painted the sky over the top, a thin wash of cerulean blue, it probably would have gone better if I had either had a bigger pot, so I could have mixed up all the sky at once or if I had sprayed the rigging with fixative first.   

This unfinished picture was my first crack at it, from the crosswall, I may go back and try to finish it tomorrow, why not use a photo? I can't really explain this one can I? You either understand or you don't.

 The second go was from a much more civilised location, here are the pictures.

Sorry about this but something has come up, so no time to correct the errors in the post, I will just click on publish and try to finish it off later... 

Pen and Ink Sketch of Ramsgate Harbour

This drawing of Ramsgate Harbour took around half an hour this morning, ‘fraid I ran out of time so it didn’t get any colour before I had to go back and open my bookshop.

A History of Ramsgate Harbour, local history book, just published.

This book by Michael Hunt, sometime curator of Ramsgate maritime Museum, was first published in 2007. It was available in the museum before it closed. The book is about 100 A4 size pages of text and B&W pictures.

I think it is the most comprehensive work about the harbour, so if you are interested in the history of the harbour, you will probably want a copy.

The price is £9.99, if you can’t stretch to that, you may be able to persuade someone to give it to you for Christmas, my promise to send our local books out post free, wrapped up in Christmas wrapping paper, with a message from you on them, to your friends and family still holds good.

Here is the link to buy it online http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/a_history_of_ramsgate_harbour_and_guide_to_its_existing_features.htm

Contents are as follows:

 Chapter 1            A Haven for Fishermen, pre-1749                p.1

              2            Brave Hopes & False Starts, 1749-1756    p.4

              3            Resumption of Work, 1760-1774                   p.12

              4            John Smeaton, 1774-1792                               p.14

              5            Samuel Wyatt, 1793-1807                            p.20

              6            John Rennie, 1807-1821                            p.23

              7            Sir John Rennie, 1821-1850                               p.26

              8            Called to Account, 1851-1861                   p.34

              9            A Change of Hands, 1862-1939                p.38

            10            Naval Base to Marina, 1939-1999                p.45

            11            Ramsgate the Ferry Port                              p.48

            12            The Dry Dock                                                         p.52

            13            The Pier Yard & Clock House                p.57

APPENDICES

                        Ramsgate Harbour Masters since 1751

                        Ramsgate Harbour Engineers 1750-1920

                        Ramsgate Harbour Steam Tugs 1843-1938

                        Ramsgate Harbour dredgers and excavators

                        Observations on working practice & labour relations at

                        Ramsgate Harbour, September 1760 to December 1763

                        Ramsgate and the Cinque Ports.

                        The Ramsgate Meridian Line.

It really is very good and I am reading it at the moment so I will probably add to this post. 

Live animal exports from Ramsgate response from Thanet District Council

The thing at the top of the picture above is not an animal as it may be a pig or a cow, possibly a pow, the animal at the bottom of the picture is probably a dog and therefore not allowed in Ramsgate Harbour.

I sent this query to the council:

Subject: the live animal export issue

Date: 18/05/2011 10:19:37 GMT Daylight Time

Hi ***** could you sort this one out soonest for me as if I have got it wrong then I think I ought to print a retraction, I think this is going to be very emotive issue and as you know I have a fairly high web presence, judging from the amount of comment recently possibly more than some of the local papers.

It relates to my blog post about the animal exports, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2011/05/import-and-export-of-live-animals.html 

Two councillors have commented publicly on the post and it think I recognise the comments of at least one other.

My questions relate to the repeal of harbour bylaw 44, if this had any relationship with the live animal export issue, if the proper procedures were followed in repealing it, if its repeal is completed, in fact any information you can give me that clarifies the issue.

There are some questions below, although as I don’t really fully understand the issue according to Ken Gregory and Simon Moores, so there may be other questions that I should have asked as well that would have helped clarify the issue.  

Did the bylaw cover the port or just the Royal harbour? Ken implies it didn’t.

Did any animal cargoes go through Ramsgate while the bylaw was in place?

Where did the proposal to repeal the bylaw come from?

Has the bylaw repeal process been completed?

I noted that the report recommending the repeal is dated the same date as the council meeting to decide if the bylaw repeal process was to be started, does this mean that the statutory notification period wasn’t followed correctly?

Probably whether the bylaw would have stopped live animal exports would only have been discovered when the council had instigated judicial action based on the bylaw to prevent live animal exports.

Not sure if you can expand on this one, possibly the export company has already successfully fought such an action, which is part of the reason for the repeal of the bylaw, as I said anything to expand on this would help.

Regards Michael.

Here is their reply:

Subject: Live animal exports from Ramsgate

Date: 20/05/2011 09:08:29 GMT Daylight Time

Hi Michael

We're aware that understandably there's been a lot of discussion on your site about the issue of live animal exports from Ramsgate, especially with reference to the repealing the byelaw at Ramsgate Harbour that bans dogs.

We're also aware that people have been keen to see a statement from the council and I'm happy to supply you with that, which hopefully clearly states the situation. As you will see, the repeal of the byelaw has no relation whatsoever to the commencement of live animal exports at the Port of Ramsgate:

"The byelaw has not yet been repealed, so the shipments taking place now are totally unrelated to that. The byelaw has nothing to do with livestock movements, as it was based on animals that could potentially transmit rabies. This is not the case with the livestock involved in the export.

Even if this was not the case, the byelaw is overridden by European law, adopted by Britain, guaranteeing free trade between member countries. As a result, the council is duty bound, as set out in law, to provide the Port of Ramsgate for the use of vessels for legal trade, including livestock movements."

This information will be appearing on our website shortly, as part of a series of frequently asked questions. I'd be grateful if you would also put this statement up on your site to set the record straight on this issue.

Regards,

*****

Press and Media Manager

Thanet District Council

www.thanet.gov.uk

This is Bylaw 44

PART VII - ANIMALS

44. (1) Save as hereinafter provided in paragraph (3) of the byelaw, no

person being in charge of an animal shall cause, permit or suffer

such animal to enter or remain in the harbour and, without

prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, no person shall take or

keep such animal on board, or land such animal from, any vessel

within the harbour.

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1) of this byelaw, the owner of an

animal shall be deemed to be in charge thereof unless the owner shall

prove that, at the time the offence against this byelaw was committed,

the animal had been placed in or taken into the charge of some other

person.

(3) This byelaw shall not apply to the use by any constable, or member of

Her Majesty's Customs and Excise or any member of Her Majesty's

Armed Forces, of any dog or other animal in connection with the

detection of crime or the enforcement of the law.

This is my formal retraction of any misleading information I may have published about this issue. 

The import and export of live animals through Ramsgate Harbour

I did cover this recently in the comments and now the BBC have confirmed it I thought I ought to say a bit more about it.

A few weeks ago the council issued a seemingly innocuous press release saying that they were repealing the bylaw that prevented animals going into the harbour area.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that this seems to have opened the way for live animal imports and exports via Port Ramsgate.

Personally I am not at all keen on the business of transporting animals across Europe to the slaughterhouse.

However whatever your view on the subject, this will inevitably lead to animal rights protesters and although these people are probably not at the front of the queue when it comes to tipping paint over the leather jackets of Hells Angels, I suspect that they will see the small port of Ramsgate with its restricted access, either through the tunnel or along Military Parade as a softer target.

One is inclined to wonder what motivated the council to repeal such a useful bylaw.     

Photography Diving Security and Ramsgate Harbour

Today when I went for my lunchtime walk, I was accosted by the harbour security staff about taking pictures of them and their beach hut, they didn’t seem to pleased about it, this was fairly difficult as I had my children in tow.

You have to appreciate that with a couple of eight year olds in tow one has to be careful not to get into a situation where one can't look after them properly.

I have to admit that now I know that the council are paying a private security firm to engage in the pointless farce with the beach hut, my attitude is somewhat different.

This is made very much more difficult by the security guards evident lack of understanding about photography in public places, although I suppose as the majority of the harbour belongs to the council they could theoretically ban photography there.

I was really quite surprised, first I was blamed for putting the photograph in the local paper, as I am not a journalist and there hasn’t been a local paper come out since I took it this seemed a bit unlikely.

Then of putting the photograph on facebook, I pointed out that I hadn’t but that anyone could have taken a picture of them and put it on there.

I pointed out that I had taken about 1,000 photographs this weekend that I had published on the internet.

When I go out taking pictures I always use a large professional camera, there are various reasons for this, the main one being that it means people can see quite clearly that they are being photographed.

It also means that it is pretty obvious that I could be taking the pictures for publication somewhere, this means that it gives people who don’t want their photograph taken to get out of the way.

I am pretty sure that they were talking about the one on Saturday’s post see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/07/thanet-district-council-dont-jump.html

The security guard would certainly have been aware of me taking it, particularly as I stopped to ask her what she was doing there.

I pointed out that I had taken about 1,000 photographs this weekend that I had published on the internet.

After Saturday’s post about the crazy way the council have approached the problem of people diving into the harbour from the fish quay, I have had quite a bit of response about this from councillors and some comment on the blog, so I have been looking at both the problem, possible solutions and of course the historical aspect.

One concern here is that the council doesn’t seem to have grasped that wasting money in this way just isn’t on anymore, they just don’t have it to waste.

The solution that they sought was no more effective than a sign saying “don’t Jump Here” just ludicrously more expensive. I suppose had the hut been facing in the right direction the council officer in it could have at least seen what was going on and reported to the harbour authorities or the police, although I don’t see that this could have been any more effective than a cctv camera pointing at the fish quay.

The proper solution here of course is a safe place to dive, something that Ramsgate had and was lost, all the information that I can find points to this being due to incompetence at local government level.

I have had a quick look of the history of the situation here in Ramsgate and it is rather tied up with propriety.

In pre Victorian times the people here who wanted to go in the sea stripped off and did so, the picture above is of the main sands area in 1788, I would imagine that those who wished to jumped from the harbour wall. This issue became progressively more complicated as people were forced to swim from bathing machines. Such early swimming costumes that I can find seem to be designed to prevent swimming much, and diving altogether.

During Victorian times various swimming baths were built in Ramsgate and swimming in the sea was conducted from bathing machines, modesty was for the most part preserved, the sessions were not mixed and over a period of time more practical swimming costumes developed.

The first references I have found of diving into the sea in Ramsgate were from the iron pier, construction started on this in 1879, full details of this can be found in the book I publish about the pier, see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/catalogue/id122.htm and I would imagine that this was the main place that people dived from until it was demolished in 1930.
After the First World War people’s considerations about modesty and propriety were understandably diminished and by the 1930s the bikini had appeared on Ramsgate sands, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2007/10/1939-ramsgate-new-holiday-recipe-book.html

Diving became a popular sport in our coastal towns and most councils erected various structures to help people throw them selves in the sea in different and exiting ways, the picture shows one at Here Bay in 1936

By 1935 Ramsgate’s Marina Swimming Pool was nearing completion and had been in use for some time, as you can see the sport of diving was encouraged.

Talking to older people in the town, those who could afford it obviously used the diving board as it was better, those who couldn’t dived from the fish quay.

At some time in the 1960s or 70s, I will have to check on this, council incompetence, poor maintenance and an attitude to Ramsgate’s leisure facilities caused the pool to be closed permanently and anyone who wanted to dive had to use the fish Quay

In the early 2000s one of the Pleasurama developers that wanted to incorporate an Olympic swimming pool that was to be a gift to the town in their design, the council turned this down.

When funding was available for a new swimming pool in the town I and many others suggested that this be built on the Marina Swimming pool site.

We have a situation where we had a council actively promoting Ramsgate people taking part in this healthy and invigorating sport and now have one spending a great deal of our money trying to stop them.


It is this type of thing that alienates our youth, causes them to engage antisocial behaviour, I can certainly say that it has alienated me.

In a way I suppose it is fair to say that the harbour must be a public right of way as this relates to the time that it has been open to public access, 1894 for the east pier I think, whenever the gate was removed.

And I suppose this right must extend to diving there, although I understand that the council intends to institute a bylaw to prevent people doing so, I would imagine that this will be without any public consultation in Ramsgate.

Now what we are talking about here about here is our historical rights, walking, taking photographs, diving etc things that make living in Ramsgate enjoyable.

The most normal way for extreme political regimes to justify the removal of people’s human rights, is to say it is for their own protection, reading Orwell or Huxley may help to understand this.

It is very easy for any organisation to justify this, being alive is a risky business, the only thing that totally prevents this risk is death and some of the more extreme political regimes have taken this to its logical conclusion.

The problem to solve here is what happens when an organisation that is supposed to improve peoples lives, directed by what we call democracy reaches a point where members of that organisation, forget the organisations fundamental purpose.

It is one best described as, “knowing best” so the council that was formed to be a vessel to carryout the wishes of the people, at some point collectively evolves to a point where it decides that it knows better than the people.

I am sorry if I have rambled along a bit in this post, lots of interruptions and the problem that I don’t really know the solution are part of the problem here, I have tried tackling various cabinet members about this issue, I think the problem here is that they misinterpret my intentions towards the council.

For some reason that I don’t quite follow they seem to think that I am both hostile to them and the council in general,

This is very difficult for me as the situation is much more one is that as a resident of this country, it says on the packet democracy and I want what it says on the packet.

Open government, proper representation of the people, proper consultation, proper accountability, decisions made democratically at open meetings, not rubber stamping decisions made behind closed doors.

With the harbour, in theory security has been increased there considerably over the last few years, certainly public access has been eroded without any consultation, the problem though is that the security has been implemented in an ad hoc way, without any overall plan. I suppose this applies to the whole development of the harbour during the last forty years that I have known it. What we have developed there is a bit of a mess and in terms of aspects of it being economically viable, including security, thing’s haven’t worked out too well.

I am not too keen on private police forces, nor am I keen on parts of the country that have public access, but try to operate some sort of law of there own, Westwood Cross is a case in point see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/01/photography-banned-at-westwood-cross.html

What worries me a lot more is when parts of our government try to apply this to public parts of the town where I live. I am not for one moment saying that proper law and order shouldn’t apply in all parts of the town, but fundamentally what we are talking about here is segregation implemented by an unaccountable private police force, paid for by taxation.

Thanet District Council, don’t jump! Ramsgate’s beach hut revealed.

The picture above taken today (click on it to enlarge) shows our one and only new beach hut in use, the council officer sitting in it is being paid out of our council tax to stop people from jumping from the fish quay into the harbour.

What is wrong with this?

Firstly as you can clearly see in the picture someone is jumping into the harbour, from the fish quay, behind the hut.

Secondly they have put one young female council officer on her own in the beach hut, with no authority to enforce anyone from doing anything they want, the youf don’t seem to like being told not to do what they want to do, at the moment their reaction is limited giving her verbal abuse. My own opinion is that the person in most danger here is the council officer.

Thirdly the beach hut is facing away from the fish quay, so she can’t even see what is going on properly.

The proper solution here is to encourage our youf in this healthy activity by putting up a proper diving board supervised by a lifeguard and offer them proper training in the sport.

Now I come back to the problem of what to do when the council has evidently done something completely crazy, this young women is from one of the European countries Poland of Hungary I would guess from her accent, she is sitting in this hut in the middle of Ramsgate periodically having verbal abuse shouted at her, obscenities, threats and racial abuse.

This isn’t like the Thanet Pride thing yesterday, where accusing the council of homophobia appears to have the desired result i.e. getting the event publicised on the councils homepage. I say this as I also asked them to publicise Ramsgate Carnival in the same way and as they didn’t I can only assume that it was because I couldn’t accuse them of political incorrectness.

I am afraid that this one is one of those insane actions by our council that really annoys me, my take on it is that the council at some high officer or cabinet level has identified that there could be some council liability here if someone is injured jumping in the harbour.

I don’t think there is any sense of the council wishing to protect local people or the wouldn’t have put this officer in an invidious position, much more a case of that they have given someone and impossible job to cover their own backs.

Oh and a few pictures from the camera these are yesterday afternoon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id5.htm these this morning before the fun fair had opened http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id6.htm and these this afternoon http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/Julylaptop3/id8.htm

Ramsgate Pleasurama sewage and cliff

A few pictures from yesterday, as you can see the hole where the sewage leak was has been filled in and tarmaced over.

This picture also taken yesterday shows the surface of the water in the harbour adjacent, I an not saying that it is still leaking sewage, just that is what it looks like.

Oh and the bit of the repaired Pleasurama cliff facade that was recently rerepaired has now been repainted, it must be about time to weed it again, I am pretty sure there should be an annual contract to do that.

To enlarge the pictures click on them and then click on them again, perhaps not recommended for the one of the surface of the water.

The Little Ship Sundowner back in the water.

As you can see from the picture Sundowner is back in the water after the disgrace of Dynamo Day see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/dark-and-dishonourable-day-for-ramsgate.html

With our wonderful open local government of course it will only be a matter moments before the council tell us exactly what happened and why.

Perhaps it will also only be a matter of days before the maritime museum is open and the historic ships returned to The King George IV Maritime Heritage Pontoon.

A few more pictures around the harbour this lunchtime http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id19.htm

Bank Holiday Ramble

Another dull and dreary Bank Holiday on the type of weather front, we took the children to a boot fair this morning and I have just finished doing a few chores and reading the local blogs.

A few rather rambling thoughts here on this and that as I try to work out some sort of strategy to get a bit more for Ramsgate out of local government, in terms of the council owned assets in Ramsgate.

First the council leadership and cabinet reshuffle, I gather that the intention here is to reshuffle it again and that Simon Moores will probably not retain the Ramsgate Marina portfolio.

I think the intention here is to move this responsibility to the leader of the council Cllr. Bob Bayford, at the moment this presents me with something of a problem as so far he doesn’t appear to acknowledge or respond to emails.

To be fair this is just as likely to be due to some glitch in TDCIT as any intention to ignore local people. I do think however that there is some something wrong with the way that the leaders office is working when emails from local people about local issues to leader@thanet.gov.uk don’t get any response at all.

The harbour and most particularly the marina is the key to regeneration in Ramsgate and at the moment it is in a fairly rundown state, there are some fairly controversial plans for closing two of the slipways and building a leisure complex on them.

The problem here is that with competition from the ports on the coast of northern Europe it is becoming increasingly difficult to run the slipways at a profit, conversely the slipways are essential for profitable aspects of the harbour, like the expanding windfarm business.

There is also the council’s peculiar attitude to heritage, failure to grant security of tenure to the maritime museum and the reduction of the concessionary mooring fees for historic vessels, meaning that they have all left their dedicated pontoon.

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding in local government about the way the marina and royal harbour relate to the town, tourism and heritage.

The heritage aspect of the harbour, if properly managed should attract considerable grant funding, bring plenty of tourism and make the harbour more a more desirable place for people to keep their boats than other harbours without the strong heritage aspect. Driving the heritage part away, not only makes it less interesting for tourists but also is likely to mean less revenue for the council.

Partly I think the problem is that the council has got itself into a situation where it considers that the greatest return and therefore the best way out of the present financial problems, is to view every council asset as something where they are looking at the maximum return in terms of either disposal or rental return, that will produce the most overall short term return in terms of income for the council.

The Council legal bill for fighting the Montefiore Village Green Application see http://thanetpress.blogspot.com/2010/05/council-legal-bill-hits-80k-fighting.html is a case in point. Now I know this is an opposition press release and as such may have over stated the point, the problem is however one looks at it, when adding up the figures, it looks like there is an uncomfortable parity with the amount of money the council has spent so far in a legal wrangle over selling it and the amount they would ultimately realise if they sell it. I say this setting aside any thoughts about what local peoples wishes are and just looking cold and hard at the balance sheet.

I would imagine that the council’s legal and financial departments must have understood the cost that would be incurred before embarking in this procedure.

Management of council owned assets in Ramsgate seems to have gone a bit wrong, Westcliff Hall, The Café on the end of the east pier, the dry dock, slipways and winding houses, the marina, the maritime museum, Albion House, the pavilion, the Pleasurama site, well the list could go on. Perhaps one or two of these could be excused but all of them seem too much to be a coincidence.

I am hoping that the new cabinet will have a new direction when dealing with these things. Perhaps the first step should be much more openness about what they are doing and why.

To expand on this a bit more, the thing in terms of local council assets that I have the most in depth understanding of is the Pleasurama development. Information about this comes my way in dribs and drabs and frankly much more of it doesn’t make sense than does.

Now one aspect of this that is pretty much beyond me are the financial arrangements between the council and the developer, unlike the cliff façade and the flood risk problems that I understand, up until now I have had to take the councillors word that they are taking the best advise and acting in the public interest.

Now I have firm written confirmation that the council’s director of finance advised the cabinet not to proceed with the development and that the cabinet in a secret closed meeting decided to ignore that advice and allow the development to proceed.

It is now almost a year since that decision and still we have the situation that we have had for the last few years, when asked the council says the development will start within weeks.

No proper consultation, no accurate information for the people of Ramsgate, nothing approaching open government, but worse of all when things like this leak out and as open government becomes more widespread they surely will, no sensible explanation.

I have put this to two cabinet members, past and present, one who normally replies didn’t and the other replied with, no comment.

I should remind people that at this time the cabinet members were aware that the environment agency had strongly recommended not proceeding with the development without a flood risk assessment and emergency escapes to the cliff top.

I believed their position on this was that although they didn’t like the situation they had no alternative but to let the development go ahead even if the environment agency considered that it could be dangerous.

There is of course the issue of the cliff façade too but try as I have there doesn’t seem to be any government agency willing to comment on that one. I should point out that the various faulty bulging bits get this way because of cliff falls building up behind the concrete until there is a sufficient weight of chalk to shift and crack the concrete.

Let’s suppose that there is nothing much wrong with the cliff façade for a moment, if any of you have a few moments to spare go onto the TDC planning website http://www.ukplanning.com/thanet and look at the latest plans F/TH/03/1200 ground floor sheet 23 Jan 2009, take a kook at the lorry in the 70 foot deep 13 foot wide canyon and consider what would happen if it caught one of the protruding support pillars, for the cliff façade.

The picture is of the café on the end of the east pier, one of the long-term empty council owned assets.

Pictures of The Dunkirk Little Ships Leaving Ramsgate 27th May 2010

About 300 pictures of the little ships leaving Ramsgate this morning, it was a bit wet but at least the sea was calm for them.

Click on the links below for the pictures, they are publishing to the internet as I write, about 10 am so I would imagine it will be a couple of hours before all of them are visible.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id19.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id20.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id21.htm

I never really know which pictures to delete so once again they are all there, so I suppose you can make your own minds up about what you don’t want to look at.

Here are some of five years ago http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/done/id7.htm sorry they are pretty dreadful, the moral here is don’t by a camera without an optical viewfinder if you wear reading glasses.

Sundowner didn’t go but I am told that they have the anodes and would be happy to put them on and go at any time if only they could get permission from the East Kent Maritime Trust.

Sad really as Hitler couldn’t stop her from going, the whole situation begs some very serious questions about Ramsgate’s maritime heritage.

Much of the problem is about getting the people in charge of the harbour and the various projects there to realise that it is only by having a combination of a commercial marina, leisure and maritime businesses combined with a strong and visible local and marine historical presence that a sensible way forward can be found for the harbour.

Proper management of the museum and historical vessels, concessionary fees and rentals to things that enhance the historic atmosphere not only attracts tourism but also much needed grant funding.

Tombstoning in Thanet

The youth of Thanet has dived off of our piers for as long as anyone I know can remember and although the harbour authority here in Ramsgate are employing several security guards to try and stop this it doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Of course at one time we had the marina swimming pool with associated diving facilities, the other picture is of the diving board at Herne Bay in which is how towns that didn’t have a marina solved the problem. Well at the moment we are spending a great deal of taxpayers money inadequately policing our youth, who after all only want to engage in a healthy sporting activity.

My question here is why not pay people to operate proper diving stations instead?

The video is of Broadstairs last week.



Click here for today’s BBC news report about this.

Click here for a few pictures of Ramsgate Harbour taken today, it was far too early for the youth of today to be about, I also noticed that the BBC article seems to have changed its emphasis from Thanet to Folkestone.

Aquabelle and Ramsgate harbour in about 1970

Aquabelle was one of the Dunkirk Little ships moored in Ramsgate harbour around 1969 to 1972, there were far fewer pontoons at that time and by the brick arches the were quite a few boats moored in trots (side beside each other).

A lot of these boats had their owners living on them and many of them were undergoing repairs of one sort or another, collectively we referred to them as the inner harbour cruising club.

Life in those days was still a bit cocktails and tea on the foredeck (cucumber sandwiches without crusts).

I did quite a few electrical jobs on these boats and went on some minor voyages on some of them.

I have been looking for information about Aquabelle for some time, as I was away from Ramsgate when she left and I knew the owners who I lost touch with.

She has just appeared on the Little Ships website click here to go there.

I was surprised that she saw military service as she has welled side decks that are prone to fill with water in much of a sea, I always considered her a bit of a fair weather boat.

When I knew her, her owner was a member of the royal engineer yacht club so he was entitled to fly the white ensign quartered with the club’s coat of arms, what with that and flying Dunkirk honours she occasionally got saluted because she was mistaken for an admiral’s yacht.

Click here for some pictures of this part of the harbour at about that time. I always find it surprising how few people seem to remember much about the boats or the harbour such a short time ago and would certainly appreciate it if anyone has any more pictures.

Commercial Appendix

Firstly for those of you who are interested in old Ramsgate businesses click here for the commercial appendix to my publication Ramsgate illustrated, I have just put it on the web.

Now a bit of a Sunday meander, first having given some thoughts to the asset sales, it does seem that the council lacks any sort of proper plan for Ramsgate.

Selling off the maritime museum seems pretty stupid, one would have thought selling off the tourist information office and relocating it to the museum site with a restructured museum, run by volunteers would be a much better option.

Losing control of a large chunk of the harbour also seems like muddled thinking, one gets the impression that instead of a proper plan for the future of the harbour and port, there is an approach of how much money can be bleed from it.

I gather that a lot of the business that could have come to the port when it left Folkestone was lost because of the council’s lack of action.

I still haven’t had any answers to my questions about the Sericol leak, but have had an answer from TDC saying that they are consulting with the environment agency and will soon produce some.

I am assuming that since there has been such a long delay getting answers to the questions, are crops being irrigated and washed with contaminated water, and are the fumes coming out of the ground at Westwood? Something is probably seriously wrong.

Having done more research on the subject I am fairly certain that Cyclohexanone would have spread to a fairly large area around the site, and that the vacuum extraction plant would be unlikely to have removed as much as half of it from the ground.

Ramsgate West Pier Lighthouse

This unusual print of the lighthouse the base of which doesn’t to my mind look quite right, I believe it is supposed to be the original lighthouse however the base doesn’t look big enough. The original lighthouse built like the harbour in the late 1700s was placed too near the end of the pier so that ships yardarms hit it when negotiating the harbour entrance. Anyone who has sailed from Ramsgate will tell you that the deep water is next to the west pier so you have to sail close to it. In 1843 this lighthouse was replaced with the one we still have now and obviously it was set well back from the end of the pier.

Is this picture of Ramsgate harbour?

Many thanks to Alan Hardcastle who sent me this picture scanned from an old glass plate that he believes to Ramsgate harbour in 1916, I am not at all certain it’s Ramsgate, anyone got any ideas.

Council makes a splash

The other day Zumi (link on sidebar) posted about the peculiar way the council polices the people who dive into the harbour, so I went and had a look.

It really is the most ridiculous waste of money presumably something to do with compensation culture although I don’t know for sure. Two security guards are employed to man a temporary barrier, the object being to prevent people passing who are likely to dive of the fish loading quay into the harbour. It is an impossible job the upshot being that the people are still diving off the quay and we are funding two security guards to ask people if they are going to dive into the harbour, the people just say no and then go and dive in full view of the guards.

Thanet Councils Battle to destroy our historic tourist attractions

Looking through this weeks Gazette I was shocked by the councils shortsighted penny pinching, they intend to take away the £5,000 a year rent subsidy to The Crampton Tower Museum in Broadstairs, this is a volunteer run museum that contributes considerably to Thanet’s tourist industry and all for less than £100 per week that means it costs us council tax payers about 4p a year each.

And in Ramsgate one of the star attractions right in the middle of the café culture The Baltic Trader Kommandoren has gone and is unlikely to return, because of the council’s unhelpful attitude. As far as I can see allowing quality historic ships to moor cheaply or for free in inner basin next to the café culture, must be one of the most cost effective methods of boosting tourism available.

This certainly must be properly managed to avoid people leaving rotting hulks there that they can’t afford to maintain, the ideal place to display those vessels that are no longer seaworthy is the first part of the old main line railway tunnel adjacent to the Pleasurama site.

German Submarine U-B. 21 in Ramsgate Harbour December 16th 1918

The inhabitants of Ramsgate, who had suffered so severely through the German raiders, had the satisfaction after the Armistice was signed of seeing one of the U-Boats brought into the Harbour.

Inside U-B. 21

A German Submarine Souvenir.
Ramsgate drifters, which have guarded the Channel and cleared it of mines during the war, have many remarkable feats to their credit. On one occasion they destroyed U-B 48, a gigantic mine-laying submarine, which was rounded up on the Goodwin Sands and blown to pieces. One gun was saved and brought to Ramsgate, where it is mounted as a souvenir on the West Cliff.

Some of this comes from, Ramsgate During the Great War 1914-1918 A Souvenir of the Most Raided Part of England by A. H. Siminson.

Larger pictures ?