Old pictures of Ramsgate, Margate and Broadstairs, perhaps a ramble.

 Click or tap on the pictures to expand them, the dates are from the postmarks, which really means before that date, so this is 1925

 1906

 1910

 1909

 1909

Shopping in Canterbury for me today

This mostly involved painting the view from Chocolate Cafe, I bought a few secondhand cds for the replacement car (the old one had a cassette player)

So I did actually manage to engage in some shopping that wasn't buying books, however I have lost all track of the price of secondhand music so I spent £20 on those and don't really know if I got a bargain or not.

Mind you I also bought some books for the bookshop and some of those I know I won't make a profit on selling them, even a couple that I will probably make a loss on, but it means that we have got them in stock.

I paid £5 for the Abbey Road cd in Canterbury, wages were about £30 per week when it came out in 1969 I think the album cost about £1.50 or £1/10- when I bought it back then so about 5% of the average weekly wage which would be about £50 today. I may have made a mistake in my calculations here, but it sounds about right.

The in car cd player means having physical music rather than virtual, like physical books rather than files and a device produces a completely different environment among the small group of people in the car and this is something I want to keep to.

On the bookshop front here is the link to the books that went out Saturday

   

Some old pictures of Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Margate, bit of a ramble.

 Click on to expand pictures, this one is Ramsgate around 1860

 Broadstairs before 1912 which is the date of the postmark

 If the sailing wind wasn't good for getting out of the harbour then they would pay to be towed out by the tug, Ramsgate had 3 tugs called Aid this is the second one.

 before 1907 and the fishing fleet is out

The last four are Margate carnival

I will endeavour to ramble on for a bit now I have had my supper. The business of buying a cheap 7-seater estate car resolved into a Vauxhall Zafira which seems to be ok and I spent much of my day driving around East Kent buying books and getting used to it. Interestingly to me the experience of buying a secondhand car highlighted problems for a whole group of small business as I now realise that the process of changing car insurance using a local insurance broker instead of the internet is basically over.

Essentially this is because there are no overlaps and periods of grace anymore, assuming you car insurance allows you to drive vehicles you don’t own or have hired, you can test drive cars that you are considering buying, but as soon as you buy the car you can’t drive it home without insuring it and possibly having to tax it too.

Of course, you can do all this online using your smartphone 24 7. You can’t of course phone the insurance broker is they are closed and for a shop assistant like me this means pretty much any time you can get out and look at cars.

Another problem is that if you are buying a car from a used car dealer the 7 days insurance with it option seems to be over, so you are still snookered.

I think if you have your car reasonably organised on your smartphone then there would be no issues.

Cinque Ports Margate and Ramsgate prints from around 1870

First this group of 5 Victorian engravings of Ramsgate these should expand if you click on them, they would be done for firms like Rock & Co in London and sold in albums or used in guides as tipped in plates.

I was inspired to take them out of an an album and photograph them for this post as we went to the Cinque Ports to eat in Margate and I photographed the ones in the gents there but my phone just wasn't up to the job.

Here are the photos from there that did come out sort of ok

Three Children's meals including ice cream I had pate on toast including drinks £22 which seemed very good value to me.

Here is the link to the books that went out in the bookshop today

Ada’s Edwardian Excursions and I seta bout buying a secondhand car

 The pictures will expand with the usual clicking or tapping dependent on your device,

 so thins first one from Ada in 1913 seems to show a partly concreted cliff face which may help with dating western undercliff photos

 No Writing on the back of this one unfortunately.

this one from Ada in 1906, probably a different Ada form the handwriting.

I have been out trying to buy books and a replacement car, preferably a seven seater automatic in which all of the 7 seats are forward facing. Changing car gets more complicated every time I do so, arranging for insurance in particular gets more difficult when changing cars, this time the old seven days insurance while you sort out your old car and get the new one insured has gone.

Then there is the getting rid of the old one, which is probably not worth the hassle of selling it privately, particularly if you don’t have much time.

My first vehicle buying experiences are with motorbikes back in the 1970s, when I ha a Norwich Union Rider Policy that covered all motorbikes up to a 1,000 cc and the tax disc came along with the bike. Much easier back in those days.   

Anyway I bought some books today and this is the link to the ones that went out in the bookshop yesterday  A fair amount of Thanet local history books which may interest readers.

Staying with Dalby Square, a couple of old Ramsgate postcards with the writing on the back and some thoughts on identity theft and malicious phone calls.

 I think Sultan House is Dalby Square, but could do with confirmation, at least is says 1872

I have to say that it’s happened again, a little while ago someone phoned up claiming to be one of our energy suppliers and then asked and identity question. “Can you give us your account number, to confirm your identity?” They then tried to take over our account and change our supplier. Well after that the penny dropped. You phone your bank, energy supplier, insurance company, etc and they ask you to confirm your identity, and yes that’s fine.

They phone you up and then ask you to confirm your identity and it is probably a malicious call. But what do you do when the genuine company phone you up and ask you an identity question? Out default position at the moment is to assume unsolicited phone calls, phone calls from companies who can’t confirm their identity, which at the moment is most of the big ones, are malicious and treat them that way.

Anyway I have just had another it was really us email.

Of course most of our phone calls are from people ordering books, asking about books and so on, so the book confirms their identity and we don’t need to confirm ours as they – having phoned us up, know that we are us.  

I have to say that it’s happened again, a little while ago someone phoned up claiming to be one of our energy suppliers and then asked and identity question. “Can you give us your account number, to confirm your identity?” They then tried to take over our account and change our supplier. Well after that the penny dropped. You phone your bank, energy supplier, insurance company, etc and they ask you to confirm your identity, and yes that’s fine.

They phone you up and then ask you to confirm your identity and it is probably a malicious call. But what do you do when the genuine company phone you up and ask you an identity question? Out default position at the moment is to assume unsolicited phone calls, phone calls from companies who can’t confirm their identity, which at the moment is most of the big ones, are malicious and treat them that way.

Anyway I have just had another it was really us email.

Of course most of our phone calls are from people ordering books, asking about books and so on, so the book confirms their identity and we don’t need to confirm ours as they – having phoned us up, know that we are us.  

The principle of you go to http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/ click on our contact details page is still holding up.

 as you can probably see posted 1905, so before then

 and posted 1912 so before then