Ramsgate model village

This is one of a series of videos taken by Harry Hickman from 1968 to 1970 his family had them converted to dvd and sent the originals of to the national archive but were kind enough to lend them to me to put on youtube to share with us all.

For those of you who haven’t been up on the westcliff for a while the model village has closed, like most of our leisure facilities gone for good.

Ramsgate hoverport in 1968

This is one of a series of videos taken by Harry Hickman from 1968 to 1970 his family had them converted to dvd and sent the originals of to the national archive but were kind enough to lend them to me to put on youtube to share with us all.

Warm Cottage

Swiss Cottage is on fire in Ramsgate, recently it’s had so many name changes and closures I am not sure if it was trading or what it is called at the moment. I am pretty sure the building value must be so high as to make it not viable as a business.

`Alpha' and Better

I have published a new book about St Nicholas at Wade By Mikal Cole called `Alpha' and Better here is a sample. .

Chapter One
BSNAW - Before St Nicholas at Wade
I was born on Saturday 24 August 1946, at about 10.30am, in The Canterbury (now Kent and Canterbury) Hospital and being a person who only complains when things are really bad was named `The Purple Terror' by the staff on the maternity wing, basically because I did not like being kept waiting for my food, (some things never change, do they?J). Saturday's child has far to go!
My parents William James Cole (born 26 April 1917) and Lilian Elsie (born 6 September 1916 (nee Pettman) were first cousins and got married in Napier Hall, Gillingham on 27 December 1939. Actually my mother was born on 7th but as Grand father left the house he turned to Granny and said `She was born on the 7th wasn't she?' `No! the sixth.' Came the reply.
When he returned with the Birth Certificate it had the wrong date on it and Granny told him off for being a `great fathead' but they didn't bother altering it and all her life my mother has had something in common with the Sovereign of this Country in that they both have `an official birthday' and an ordinary one.

Click here to read on

The cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Well it’s official this is from the TDC website.

TSR18 Museums and grant to the East Kent Maritime Trust
(Saving £100,000)
The Council currently grant aids the East Kent Maritime Trust, who provide museum services and supervise collections at Margate and Ramsgate. Sadly the council grant of around £100,000 a year supports services that are used by only around 10,000 visitors each year – equating to a subsidy of around £10 per visitor. This is not sustainable in the current financial climate and the Cabinet believes thatthis grant must cease in 2008/09. The Council will discuss with the Trust the best way forward to achieving the following objectives:-

A thorough review of the current museum exhibits, with the aim of establishing a series of high-quality themed exhibitions which can be displayed at various venues across the district and, possibly, county.
The presentation of a core, static museum display on the ground floor of Albion House, Ramsgate – in rooms not required for civic accommodation
The release of accommodation currently occupied at both Ramsgate and Margate for potential alternative commercial or community

As part of this change programme, the Council is willing to fund a post for two years to support the reconfiguration of the Museum collections.

Ed. as for tourist attractions in Thanet one thing can be said there is nothing much else to lose

Video through the eyes of a property developer.

Carnival time?

I am doing a bit of work on a new publication and would like some help dating some pictures of Ramsgate carnival, I think they are about 1968 click here to see all of them.

Going going gone?

A few bits of random news and rumour flying about in Ramsgate today one is that TDC intends to close Ramsgate and Margate museums, another that TDC is going to have to buy all of the pontoons in Ramsgate harbour under what it calls a special exemption from procedural rules.

I have been told that a start date of January 7th 2008 has been set for the repairs to the cliff façade behind the Pleasurama site in Ramsgate, when I took professional advice about this earlier in the I was told that it would take about a year and that building work on the site below wouldn’t be able to start until the repairs were finished. You can view a large sample of the engineers report on the condition of the cliff by clicking here in simple terms rain water going in from the top damages our cliffs and they collapse.
I have written to both Roger Latchford and David Green asking them if they could organise some temporary use for the Pleasurama site next summer, they were responsible for the fun fair that we all enjoyed so much this year click here to see the pictures.

Friggin in the rigging

Some of you may remember the square rigged sailing ship that was in Ramsgate Harbour beside the brick arches from about 1968 to 1973 owned by an Australian opal mining company she was called the Black Opal.

I worked on her rigging and in her engine room during my school holidays in the late 60s

I know she wasn’t originally called the Black Opal and is now called the Black Pearl, has been pulled up out of the water and is used as a restaurant in Malta.


I looked on the restaurant’s website and several others about her and a lot of the information on them I know is wrong, so I will put down what I can remember and perhaps others can add anything they can remember.

She was built I was told in the 1920s in one of the Scandinavian countries it think 112 feet long and 300 tons she was originally fitted with a 200 horse power 2 cylinder Bolinder engine with a variable pitch prop.

She was three masted, probably originally rigged as a topsail schooner, her masts had been cut off level with the deck at some time past, probably because it would have not been economic to have a crew large enough to manage her under sail, she was being used as a coaster in Jamaica when the mining company bought her, these slow running Diesel engines run well on rum which is cheap in that part of the world.

She was crewed by a group of young Australians and an older captain, Captain Keble I think. They flew from Australia to Jamaica where they picked her up and sailed to one of the Scandinavian countries, to buy the pine to make masts and spars.

When I first saw her she had the square cut pine on the deck, which we planed to eight sided the sixteen sided and so on until we were able to sand off to round masts and spars. The whole of the hull was empty and lined with oak to take dry cargoes, the only accommodation being under the wheelhouse where the portholes are in the pictures.

We removed the old engine because it was thought its exhaust would stain the new sails. It was under the accommodation we cut a hole in the engine room bulkhead, laid railway lines into the hold level with the engine bed, attached a chain block to the stump of the main mast and the engine and dragged it into the hold where it could be craned out. It was heavy, the flywheel alone weighed three tons, no one wanted to buy this dated marine engine it lay on the quay for a bit and was eventually sold to the scrap merchant for £50.

The hold was ballasted with fitted water tanks and shingle beneath a deck over which accommodation was built, two deck houses were also built over the cargo hatches.

The making of the masts and all the rigging was done by Wally the rigger, who taught us unskilled young people how to rig a square rigged ship from nothing at all.

Eventually the opal mining company went bust, probably largely due to financing the Black Opal and I believe a film company bought her eventually.

I am certain that she was renamed the Aeolus, though not sure if that was her name before being called the Black Opal. It was under the name Aeolus that she finally left Ramsgate rigged as a barquentine and I lost track of her.

Knowing the limitations of my camera at the time, click here to see the full size pictures, I think I must have taken the pictures from our dingy, one of the pictures says Ramsgate 1971 on the back in one of my brothers hand writing he was 15 and I was 18 at the time, you have to have a certain understanding of things nautical to fully appreciate what owning Heron number 19 meant in 1971.