Mostly archive Thanet photos with some thoughts on the elections

Update from Michael Cates I was fascinated by the view of Thanet College in this post.

It is, of course, what became Draper's Mills junior school - and the original house "Retreat Villa" is still there as the 'hub' of the school, between the assembly hall and the old wing which was remodeled into classrooms.

The private villa had become a Ladies College "Thanet Hall" by the 1880s but was rebranded as a boys college by 1911. My dad attended the nearby Central School in the 1920s and told me that the boys at Thanet College were mocked because they wore pink caps!

 Says 1916

Another rather bizarre caption on this one, John Lewis sometime vicar of Margate and Minster writing in 1723 says both Northwood and Southwood were cut down beyond living memory and I guess viable photography dates from about 1850.

Here in the bookshop a quieter day than expected, I managed to get very near to the end of sorting out and repricing country craft books. I have pretty much decided it's the end of the road for books about farming. I think there are issues there because of the age of the people interested in subjects like thatching and in a general sense the social history of the countryside.

here is the link to the books we put out today


Understanding the elections held this month, in between work in the bookshop I am periodically trying to grasp the impacts of both the council elections that we have just had and European elections that we are just about to have.

I had a sort of notion that with the European elections the most useful thing would be to try and use them to convey to the government what we want the government to do about BREXIT.

For me I suppose this could be to fulfil the wishes of the people who voted in the Leave or Remain referendum. This isn't as easy as it sounds because while back in 2016 we voted Leave, with the result being tight and the Leave voters being mostly older and the Remain mostly younger, sometime late last year or early this year we reached a point where enough Leave voters had died to change the result. There are various news articles about this, here is the link to one   Google will help you find the others.

It could also be to indicate whether you want to Leave or Remain. In this area electors, if they want to leave and live in this area they can, for instance, vote for Nigel Farage or they can vote for UKIP, but not both as he isn't standing for UKIP this time. If you want to leave and like Theresa May's deal well I guess you vote Conservative. I don't really understand who you would vote for if you want to signal to the government you want to remain.

I think it would be Change UK – The Independent Group, ironic really as The Independent Group seemed to mean UKIP in the local council elections that we have just voted in, with people who voted for them saying that they thought they were voting for independent councillors and not a party.

There is also who would you vote for if you wanted to signal to the government that you wanted a further referendum?

Here in the bookshop today several people have asked me what happened in the Thanet District Council elections.

Election summary for Wards

Wards	Elected candidates	Elected party or parties
Beacon Road Ward	Paul Moore	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Aram Ahmed Rawf	Labour Party
Birchington North Ward	Keith Coleman-Cooke	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Simon Day	The Conservative Party Candidate
Birchington South Ward	Phil Fellows	The Conservative Party Candidate
	George Lawrence Kup	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Linda Wright	The Conservative Party Candidate
Bradstowe Ward	Jill Louise Bayford	The Conservative Party Candidate
	David Andrew Parsons	The Conservative Party Candidate
Central Harbour Ward	Raushan Ara	Labour Party
	Peter Alan Campbell	Labour Party
	Becky Wing	Green Party
Cliffsend and Pegwell Ward	Brenda Marilyn Rogers	The Conservative Party Candidate
	David Stevens	The Conservative Party Candidate
Cliftonville East Ward	Lesley Ann Game	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Horace Shrubb	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Cedric Leslie Towning	The Conservative Party Candidate
Cliftonville West Ward	Alan Robert Currie	Labour Party
	Heather Keen	Labour Party
	Harry William Scobie	Labour Party
Dane Valley Ward	Ruth Duckworth	Labour Party
	Linda Doris Potts	Thanet Independents
	Gary James Taylor	Thanet Independents
Eastcliff Ward	Stephen Albon	Labour Party
	Helen Brenda Crittenden	Labour Party
	Corinna Frances Huxley	Labour Party
Garlinge Ward	Kerry Jane Boyd	The Conservative Party Candidate
	John Dennis	Thanet Independents
Kingsgate Ward	Bob Bayford	The Conservative Party Candidate
Margate Central Ward	Helen Elizabeth Whitehead	Labour Party
	Rob Yates	Labour Party
Nethercourt Ward	Elizabeth Green	Labour Party
	Anthony John Ovenden	Labour Party
Newington Ward	Karen Mary Constantine	Labour Party
	Rick Everitt	Labour Party
Northwood Ward	Lynda Jane Piper	Thanet Independents
	Stuart Piper	Thanet Independents
	George Henry Rusiecki	Thanet Independents
Salmestone Ward	Pauline Farrance	Labour Party
	Candy Gregory	Labour Party
Sir Moses Montefiore Ward	Mark Benjamin Hopkinson	Labour Party
	Pat Moore	Labour Party
St Peters Ward	Roy Christopher Dexter	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Mike Garner	Green Party
	Jason Savage	The Conservative Party Candidate
Thanet Villages Ward	David Andrew William Hart	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Reece Glenn Patrick Pugh	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Trevor Burnell Roper	Green Party
Viking Ward	Ruth Angela Brackstone Bailey	Independent
	David William Harry Saunders	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Mave Saunders	The Conservative Party Candidate
Westbrook Ward	Ash Ashbee	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Mick Tomlinson	The Conservative Party Candidate
Westgate-on-Sea Ward	Sam Bambridge	The Conservative Party Candidate
	Bertie James Braidwood	Thanet Independents
	Matthew Anthony Frederick Scott	The Conservative Party Candidate

I still think all of this translates into a mixture of those who were UKIP councillors and stood as Independent Party candidates will support the Conservatives, so things stay pretty much the same.

Here in Ramsgate the town council have put up a page showing the new councillors

here is the link

Coming back to the European elections and trying to work out how to vote, particularly working on the assumption that there is a chance we may stay in the EU, then I have to admit to being a bit stumped when it comes to choosing who to vote for.

It's a long old list of candidates and I can't seem to even find a website saying who promotes what, here is the list.

Change UK
Richard Ashworth

Victoria Groulef

Warren Morgan

Eleanor Fuller

Robin Bextor

Nicholas Mazzei

Suzana Carp

Phil Murphy

Heather Allen

Diane Yeo

Conservative
Daniel Hannan

Nirj Deva

Richard Robinson

Mike Whiting

Juliette Ash

Anna Firth

Adrian Pepper

Clarence Mitchell

Neva Sadikoglu-Novaky

Caroline Newton

Green
Alexandra Phillips

Elise Benjamin

Vix Lowthion

Leslie Groves Williams

Phelim Mac Cafferty

Jan Doerfel

Larry Sanders

Isabella Moir

Oliver Sykes

Jonathan Essex

Labour
John Howarth

Cathy Shutt

Arran Neathey

Emma Turnbull

Rohit Dasgupta

Amy Fowler

Duncan Enright

Lubna Arshad

Simon Burgess

Rachael Ward

Liberal Democrats
Catherine Bearder

Antony Hook

Judith Bunting

Martin Tod

Liz Leffman

Chris Bowers

Giles Goodall

Ruvi Ziegler

Nick Perry

John Vincent

The Brexit Party
Nigel Farage

Alex Phillips

Robert Rowland

Belinda De Camborne Lucy

James Bartholomew

Christopher Ellis

John Kennedy

Matthew Taylor

George Farmer

Peter Wiltshire

The Socialist Party of Great Britain
Mandy Bruce

Raymond Carr

David Chesham

Robert Cox

Michael Foster

Stephen Harper

Neil Kirk

Anton Pruden

Andrew Thomas-Emans

Darren Williams

UK European Union Party
Pacelli Ndikumana

Clinton Powell

UKIP
Piers Wauchope

Liz Philips

Daryll Pitcher

Martin Brothers

Tony Gould

Clive Egan

Troy De Leon

Alan Stone

Judy Moore

Patricia Mountain

Independent
Jason McMahon

David Round

Michael Turberville

Old Ramsgate and Margate photos starting with Timothy Whites in Ramsgate High Street I think most will expand if clicked on

I was mostly out buying books for Michael's bookshop in Ramsgate, which is where I work, the pictures of the books we put out on Saturday are fairly representative of this activity here is the link  I expect tomorrow to be a fairly busy day in the bookshop, because of having been closed for the Bank Holiday today.

A lot of our business is with fiction, we buy a lot over the counter in the shop as well as going out hunting for it. We sell a lot of it in the shop the key factor to this is we read a lot of fiction. Otherwise it would a bit like finding the butcher is a vegetarian.

 After I have been shopping you sometimes get a few pictures of shops, as most of the bookshopping was Canterbury so are the photos on my camera card here is the link

Colgate's King St Ben Colgate and his father??

 This photo has a bit of a strange caption, photography hadn't been invented in 1813'

 Now Lloyds Bank and which looking in this direction the left half of the bank was built in 1895 and the right half in 1929 so the photo must have been taken before 1895

 Margate Ambulance Corps at Fort Road, followed by various Thanet entertainers

Wrapping up with some Margate Corporation horses

I managed to get the window seat in the cafe at Waterstones bookshop in Canterbury so sketched a bit of Costa 

The lines of a Policeman's Lot

something like

when the enterprising buglar’s not a-buglaring. 

when the cutthroat isn’t occupied in crime

he loves to hear the little brook a gurgling

and listen to the merry village chime.

when the coster's finished jumping on his mother

he loves to lie a basking in the sun.

take one consideration with another,

a policeman's lot is not a happy one.

A costamonger or costa for short was a type of street vending greengrocer named after a now extinct medieval apple. I think/hope I got most/some of that right. I guess the moral here may be watch out for the sellers of extinct fruit.

My excuse is that Wethespoons in Ramsgate has made me interested in sketching staircases and the way different people negotiate them. I was pleased to get the seat opposite what transpired to be a busy staircase.       

A few old Ramsgate and Margate photos and some thoughts on Wetherspoons etc

The inevitable policeman in the middle of Ramsgate

Lunch in Wetherspoons aka The Royal Victoria Pavilion Ramsgate today, a bit of painting but also a bit of consideration about the social impact of this large and functional indoor facility in Ramsgate.

An area most people in the town seem feel comfortable using and considering the size of the venue compared to the size of the population. Complicated and easy to pick holes in but none the less it seems to me to be important. I think an important factor is that the security staff produce something equivalent to the level of policing that we experienced back in the day. Pricing is also a factor especially the bottomless tea and coffee (you can keep filling it up once you have bought the first cup) but somewhere where I don't think the prices would exclude most people. 

There isn't really a great deal to do this May Day bank holiday, especially for a group of people with a broad age range, it's a bit cold to stay outside and having run the options I was interested that it was the stay in Ramsgate and spend the afternoon in Wetherspoons aka The Royal Victoria Pavilion that won through.

Here in terms of Michael's Bookshop, which is where I work, the bookshop is closed tomorrow. The bookshop closes on Sundays and Thursdays and it also closes on all Bank Holidays. There is a sense that our bookshop is becoming more of a destination for people further away and so I try to go for something consistent.

here is the link to the photos on the camera card taken yesterday and today I think

 This one says 1947 on it

 and thins one which is the same says 1956 on it

No Overall Control at TDC, Parish and Town Election result Glitches and some old local pictures for you to look at

 This one is called Aztec Fitness at Margate Carnival

 Harbour Street used to go all the way to the Sands Station so back in the day Harbour Parade was called Harbour Street

 I think this shows the demolition of The White Horse at St Lawrence, a pub with an interesting history here is the link

I have been trying to understand the local elections, the coverage of the Town/parish council elections has been minimal and there are errors in the results on the TDC website, with candidates who were obviously elected showing as "Not elected"

 As far as I can see the district elections that is Thanet District Council, effectively mean no change.

This is how the election went at TDC and I think it means that Thanet Independents, who used to be UKIP and strongly pro the airfreight hub at Manston, will go back to supporting the Conservatives.

Like happened in the past with Pleasurama, RiverOak, RSP the people behind the airfreight hub have now turned into a UK company with the major holdings in a British Virgin Islands company, so I think on the whole people in Ramsgate have reservations about their intentions.

I do have hopes that there being a much larger amount of Labour councillors at TDC there will be a bit of change there.

With Ramsgate town council which until the election was UKIP, it has now turned into a Labour council. To my mind it is much healthier to have a town council standing on the opposite side of the political fence to the district council.

Another factor with Ramsgate Council is Trevor Shonk who was our UKIP mayor up to the election has lost his seat, so we will get a new Mayor.

That said I still maintain that the only option left to Thanet voters who would like to change the situation would be a mayoral election referendum petition, this is achievable and could result in us voting for the council leader.

 Margate ambulance corps

 Margate Caves old entrance

 This is Clifton Baths which later became Cliftonville Lido

Thanet Election results

TDC Results are all in: There are 56 seats and they have been declared as follows: Conservative: 25, Labour: 20, Thanet Independents: 7, Green: 3, Independent; 1. #ThanetElection #LocalElections2019

Once again the best coverage seems to be 

Isle of Thanet News

At the moment 4.15 it looks like we may get a Labour administration at TDC based on a slight swing that way from the 2011 results the 2015 ones being no use for comparison because of the UKIP landslide. Now 4.30 perhaps going the other way towards no overall control. I expect we will soon know but I am off now and anything I do to this post will be from my phone. 

work wise 

The books we put out today