The weather is glorious again, with bright sunshine and a very slight breeze—just right for a trip into Margate, and a visit to the Turner Centre. The Centre is a very impressive modern gallery right beside Margate Harbour. Apparently Turner had a mistress who lived in Margate, so there is actually a connection between Turner and the town. Whilst the gallery itself is very impressive, I am afraid that the current exhibition was a great disappointment. Works by Tracy Emin, England’s most well-known artist, could only be described as rubbish. Emin made her name with a piece of ‘installation art’ comprising an un-made bed strewn with various pieces of un-washed underwear. From there she moved to a tent on which was written the names of all the men she had slept with. This current exhibition is a collection of some thirty large blue drawings of (presumably) herself reclining naked, much like the sort of thing that a schoolboy might draw on the toilet walls, and just as poorly and unskilfully executed. Her latest piece of installation art, also on show at the gallery, comprised a urine-stained mattress on which was laid a metal (perhaps bronze) representation of a branch of a tree. I would put her into the category of ‘one to whom fame came so easily, but for so very little reason’. Most of the comments one could hear in and around the gallery were variations on the theme of ‘absolute rubbish’. I hope it does not damage the reputation of this fledgling, but expensive, attempt to raise the cultural profile of Margate.
For the most part, Margate is looking sad, falling victim to the law of entropy. Arlington Arcade at the station end of the sea front is derelict, with the shops boarded up with corrugated iron shutters covered in graffiti. About a third of the seafront shops, which used to be cafes selling ice creams and ‘trays for the beach’ are shuttered; and Dreamland, once a thriving fun park, is a derelict waste-land. The clock on the tower built in 1887 for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria stopped one day at 1.25, and hasn’t gone since. Further toward the harbour, the shopfronts are mostly boarded up, with only one or two trying to carry on the business of selling ice cream, toys, and buckets and spades for the beach. The bottom half of the High Street is a wasteland of closed shops, and the top half is not much better. It is a sad reality that they simply could not compete with the huge shopping centre built at Westwood, just outside the town toward Ramsgate.
But around the harbour area, and just behind that, in the old market place, things are vibrantly thriving with very nice cafes, bars, and tables with umbrellas in the cobbled courtyards, and hanging baskets containing flourishing bright flowers. If the Turner Centre can continue to attract people who are looking for something a bit different to the traditional day trippers in ‘kiss-me-quick hats’ who only wanted to sit on the beach and eat hot-dogs and candy floss, then maybe there is a brighter future for Margate.
Going the other way, walking toward Westbrook, there is a very successful ‘crazy golf’ course, in which many families were enjoying themselves. The beach huts along the esplanade were mostly occupied, with families sitting around—the children playing on the beach whilst the oldies read the paper and drank tea. This part of Margate, like the clock on the tower, seems to have stood still, with very little change either way.
Whilst cooking dinner on Saturday evening, Pat’s oven blew up, so as it was not possible to cook the Sunday Roast at home, we went to Sandwich for lunch. The drive there took us through the heart of the Pfizer plant at Richborough, which has more than quadrupled in size since we worked there 40 years ago, but which is now closing down. As the largest employer in the Thanet area, its closing came as a great shock to many and as the facilities were largely custom-built for the specific purpose of manufacturing antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, it is very unlikely that there will be a purchaser for the plant in the foreseeable future. But Sandwich was looking great. The restaurant was an inn dating back to the 15th century, but even this is modern when compared to the Fisher Gate through which we walked to get there. Fisher Gate was built in 1348, and was one of the few entrances to the town through the old wall. Another, the Barbican, still serves as a road entrance as one crosses the river, but the tolls we had to pay 40 years ago when we worked at Pfizer are no longer collected as the traffic jams became too long. The lunch was very good, and we have been very impressed with the quality of pub food generally.
One more day in Margate, during which we caught up with friend from the past, and we left to spend the next few days at Herne Bay
Slingsby's Miscellany 