Margate

Two weeks before the winter solstice is not a conventional time for a trip to the seaside, but a TV programme about David Chippendale’s architecture inspired me to visit Margate to see the Turner Contemporary museum.

I was early for my train from Lewisham and watched the construction activity on a new apartment building.  The concrete skeleton was finished and the block was in various stages of completion.  At the bottom, the exterior cladding was attached and windows were in place.  Higher up, the flesh was visible: insulation panels, the manufacturer’s name printed in capitals, would be concealed until the block is demolished and the faded insignia becomes an echo of some long forgotten enterprise.  Wide platforms bearing building materials crept up tracks attached to the naked building, making a chirruping sound as they ascended.  Post-war Lewisham is being comprehensively redeveloped.  The street market persists but everything else has been swept aside.   When I was 13, I saw a poster on Blackheath station advertising My Fair Lady and announced to my parents that I wanted to see it.  It was the first and last time we went to the cinema as a family.  The venue, the Rex cinema, vanished in 1988.

The view from the train between Margate and Broadstairs, which paralleled St Peter’s footpath which I’d intended to walk, was flat featureless farmland.  I decided instead to try the coast path.  Further, but likely to be more interesting: at least there would be the sea to enjoy.

Living in the metropolis, everywhere else seems redolent of the 1950s.  Broadstairs was no exception.  Teashops with names like The Cat’s Whiskers harbouring elderly gentry clustered around small tables; second hand shops, masquerading as antique dealers, whose stock in trade is the meagre assets of the unmourned deceased.  I lost count of the fish and chip shops eagerly patronised by school children on their lunch break.

Broadstairs’ claim to a Dickens connection is tenuous: the person on whom the character of Betsy Trotwood is based lived in a house overlooking the harbour.  It is now a museum but was closed when I visited.  While I was wondering how annoyed I should be, I was accosted by an old man tottering with a walking stick.

‘Very mild weather,’ he opined, ‘flowers think it’s spring.’  I nodded.  His teeth could have passed for an art installation, a multitude of colours at every possible angle.

‘Having a walk round, are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to Margate,’ I declared.

‘On the Esplanade? You’ll be passing Botany Bay Hotel then.’

‘Oh, well I might pop in for coffee.’

‘You’d better throw your wallet through the door,’ he advised, gnomically.  ‘All that rubbish up there, they keep having collisions, you know,’ he added.  That sounded like a warning to be heeded; high prices I could cope with, but violence was best avoided.  I must have looked nervous.  He waved his stick at the sky. 

‘It’ll damage the satellites.’

I realised the conversation had changed course abruptly and he was referring to space debris.   Time to move on.

Any rural path worth protecting needs a catchy name and on the cliffs north of Broadstairs I found myself on the Viking Coastal Trail.  It dodges in and out of housing, with rambling mansions occupying the best spots.  Without visible signs of life, I could only speculate who occupied them and why they chose to live there.  From the commercial activity I had seen in the town, fish and chip shop proprietors seemed the most likely candidates.  A dusty sky-blue Rolls-Royce crouched in front of one sprawling edifice.  Nearby a skip overflowed.  The building was dilapidated and it was impossible to tell whether it was being demolished or refurbished.

Further along architecture lost its coherence.  Nineteenth century confections, tricked out with frivolous turrets and set in generous grounds, were interspersed with mock-Tudor family homes, Modernist houses with flat roofs and wide windows as though they had been squeezed by large weights, and architect designed new-builds with flamboyant picture windows and plentiful aluminium and wood.  Model sailing boats were framed in upstairs windows; from indoors, imagination would have them tossing on the waves.  Some were converted to doleful guesthouses, all with vacancies advertised.   Older properties had first floor verandas with wooden balustrades and scalloped canopies, making the most of the sea views.  A few were painted in pastel shades in a valiant attempt to regenerate the seaside spirit.  Clinging to the edge was a castle with full castellation, converted to private apartments.  But North Foreland lighthouse, usurped of a prime spot on the cliff, presided over a field of cabbages.

This is island country, the very jut of England, and I felt at home: the Isle of Thanet leverages the same topographical conceit as the Isle of Dogs.  At the tip sits a waste-water pumping station, playing a small part in the earth’s rotation by discharging effluent at the easternmost edge of the land mass.  I encountered several dog-walkers, but none of them greeted me.  Despite its isolation, metropolitan etiquette prevails.  More forgotten than neglected, the general atmosphere was reminiscent of Thoreau’s quiet desperation.

On the approach to Margate, I left the coast road and made my way down to the broad sea wall.  As I descended, tall cliffs muffled the ambient sounds of town and traffic.  On reaching the concrete plinth, protecting the crumbly chalk buttresses, the buffeting wind died.  There was an eerie stillness.  Wavelets tickled the seaweed-encrusted beach, intensifying the silence.  I sat on the edge of the wall inhaling the sweet, rank scent of seaweed and conjured memories of walks with my mother by the sea in Norfolk.  She loved she tumult of blustery east winds and bemoaned the sedate weather of the south coast where she retired.  A thicket of offshore wind turbines drifted in and out of focus as the mist swirled.  Brightly coloured tankers were painted on to the grey sea, awaiting their turn to enter the port.  I lingered long, finding it hard to tear myself away from this unexpected tranquillity.

Margate wears the defeated look characteristic of English coastal resorts.  Nevertheless it is extraordinary that a town boasting such a spectacular location should be so terminally depressed.  Grand four storey Victorian terraces with sea views have been converted to shabby multiple occupancy flats from which fetid smells emerged.  Even the crazy golf course, usually the last bastion of declining seaside towns, was overgrown, its concrete channels and indistinct tumescences shrouded in blowing weeds.

A couple of tourists, warmly wrapped against the blustery weather, asked me to take their picture.  They’d come down from London for an overnight break.  I asked them what they’d found to do.

‘Not much, it’s just a seaside town, isn’t it,’ they replied, ungrudgingly.

Turner Contemporary, my destination, is strikingly plain.  Aptly, the locals dismiss it as ‘the shed’.  Opaque sandblasted recycled glass panels line the exterior and there are few windows except in the café, which faces the town.  The seaward side is a high blank wall; it wouldn’t shame a prison.  Inside, the theme continues: plain concrete floors, neutral décor and windows set into the roof.  This austerity forms the perfect setting for the display of art works: unobtrusive, airy and light.  Despite its name, there is no permanent collection of Turner’s work on display, although he features frequently each season.  The exhibition I saw, ‘Risk’, was challenging and well-curated.  An attendant, friendly and informative, clearly had a genuine interest in and knowledge of the exhibits.  She finished by recommending the Old Town, so I left enough time before my train for a quick recce.   It didn’t take long; a few galleries, the obligatory coffee shops and some sad charity outlets.

On the way to the station, a new brick built casino, contrasting painfully with the stuccoed villas, showed the only sign of activity.  Nearby, an illuminated vertical sign dominated the seafront parade: Dreamland.  An ironic epitaph for my visit to east Kent.

© David Thompson 2015