Monday, November 05, 2007

Those Were The Days

With the bingo gone, the amusement park gone, and now the cinema gone, time for a quick epitaph for Margate's Dreamland. And what better way to mourn its passing than with this splendid poster, sent in by regular reader Milllicent?

The poster's being offered as part of a set of ten via nostalgia mag Bygone Kent, whose editor Nick Evans has also just published a 160-page picture book about Broadstairs.

Just imagine - 3,000 catered for at one sitting! I mean, just how big a spotted dick does it take to serve 3,000?

Update: For those of you asking you can contact Bygone Kent at bygonekent@btinternet.com. The posters have been reproduced postcard size, and are £2.50.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our Lord would only have required three such spotted dicks. Amen.

Michael Child said...

We have a bit of a tradition in the large scale catering field here in Thanet one of the more unusual detailed in Mockett,s journal. When the peace was celebrated at St. Peters in 1814, 436 poor persons and stewards were seated at a table 132 feet long, with about 8 inches of table each it must have been a bit cramped, admission was by ticket all had to bring their own knives and forks.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Yikes! The plates must have been tiny!

Tony Flaig said...

Well once all the tears have subsided at least we will have the new multiplex to help us get over the demise of ancient cinemas.

Convenient & well lit parking, nearby eateries, comfortable seating and one assumes a functioning heating system just how can we ever forget the Dreamland cinema experience!

Anonymous said...

Margate must have been very progressive even in those days, catering for 'outing parties'.

Anonymous said...

Dreamland cinema smelt of wee.

Richard Eastcliff said...

You're forgetting the four hour drive to get to the new facilities, Tony!

Anonymous said...

So when will 'Escape' move as well? With 3 more 'seasons' to go before the Turner thingee comes in at £17.4million (+ £6 million wasted)(wasn't the first quoute for Chipperfield's Coastal battery £15 million) and before anything happens on Dreamland/ Arlington site how are busimesses in Margate going to survive? Does any-one really believe that an average of 3,000 visitors EVERY WEEK, week in week out, will poddle into Margate to visit the Thingee and thus save the 'cafe society'? Anyone heard yet when Argos will close in Margate; present betting is jan 2008.

Anonymous said...

Isnt Argos in that square with Somerfield where the only people milling about are the tracksuits swilling 1664 and watching their pitbulls crap on the pavement? The sooner that's concreted over the better.

Anonymous said...

Who said anything about plates, ECR?

Anonymous said...

Don't think Argos will shut in 2008.Pizza Hut I hear is closing down, and with the New weekly market selling the same goods as the remaining shops in the High St, that will surely force the remaining brave traders out of business in the long term. The RAF Club has closed, Council owns the building. Thanet Council appears to have no imagination to revive the High St and the surrounding Shops. Free parking would be a start, but that would only take up the Council worker's coveted free car parking spaces and inconvenience them....
Margate to survive needs a vibrant shopping High St to bring poeple back to Margate not a ghost town with empty shops!

Millicent said...

Why don't they move the council offices to Westwood if they love it so much? Then that site could become a car park (landscaped of course)