East Kent author and journalist Nick Evans has just published an expanded and updated version of his excellent book Dreamland Remembered, and has sent me a couple of photos from it. The first is from the 70s, or possibly even the 60s judging by the outfits Mum, Dad and the kids are wearing. And there's also this great photo of Norman Wisdom causing mayhem in the funpark during an episode of It's a Knockout:
The place was first called 'Dreamland Hall' in 1920, so next year will be the 90th anniversary. Nick's book, which is widely regarded as the definitive history of Dreamland, now includes a lot more colour and black and white photos (240 in all), plus more historical data, spread over 128 pages. Priced at £15.99, it's available at local bookshops (including Michael's excellent emporium here in Ramsgate) and other outlets around East Kent. Or you can get it via mail order by sending a cheque for £17, including post and packing, from Nick Evans, PO Box 201, Whitstable, Kent CT5 1WT. It can also be ordered online from Amazon and Joyland Books.Well, that's the ad over. I'm sure Nick won't mind me having a little dig now. Here's a peep into the future at the thrills and spills we can look forward to once the proposed 'heritage theme park' is up and running on the site. Enjoy! Sxx.
26 comments:
Nick has just delivered stock of the books to my bookshop in King Street, oh and yes I should remind people that the shop is closed tomorrow as it’s Thursday.
I have been comparing it with his previous book, I have only had a quick chance to look at the pictures and it looks as though about half of them weren’t in the other book.
Nice to see Tony Flaig and Lucy Mail enjoying the heritage theme park on your clip. They make a nice couple.
Has 'G' got a body double???
Dreamland, even in the early days, looked shit.
While old duffers and middle aged twats spend their time masturbating over photos of bewildered scumers visiting margate during their fixed week off from the factory, the more progressive people of Thanet are smoking crack and cooking up heroin.
Get over it and move on. It was shit mass entertainment, it got shitter and if someone didn't have the foresight to burn it to the ground it would still be shit.
Becky, you sound like the sort of scumbag that should be mounted on the rough end of a pineapple !!!!!
Get over it.
Becky sounds like someone who doesn't see the point of living. If you can get off the dope, return to the real world and see if you can't see things from a pleasanter perspective please!
I think what Becky might be trying to put over is that Margate needs to move on and not remain stuck in the 1950's. Thanet as a whole needs to grow up, it could rival any other successful south coast resort with some planning foresight, but in this day and age Dreamland is and always will be a bit of a joke.
What do you suggest 8:36, an art gallery?
Do keep up, 4:01 PM.
I'm not into cocks any more, which is going to negate most of the Northside bloggers, and probably yourself, isn't it.
Just because you cannot get laid Lucy, do not think you can join us in the sapphic sisterhood .
You have to perform a few chores first to check your worthiness, and then we will contact you .
I'm with Becky on this one. Margate needs to move on. A vintage theme park is doomed to fail. It was already vintage when it shut.
Yes. We need a "Forget Dreamland" campaign.
Forget Dreamland and you might as well forget the rest of Thanet - Ramsgate included.
Clearly, a revived Dreamland is not to everyone's taste. Done properly, it could bring back visitors to the area and has more universal appeal than a Turner gallery that will have no Turners and cost £2 million a year of TDC/taxpayers' money to run.
Besides what would you rather have in Dreamland's space given that there is already enough housing and Westwood Cross is sucking the life out of Margate High Street on a daily basis?
There are many people working hard to make a reborn Dreamland more than a dream and yet again an ambitious idea is slated by the knuckledraggers who want to see Thanet fail at every turn.
Oh yes please - can we organise a forget Norf Thanet Toilets, or is that forget the Thanet Norf toilets? On the subject of cracks and toilets there is an emerging one at TDC!!!!
Thank you Peter, good point. The traditional metal pier wot blew down in 1978 and the Lido are gems in themselves. Elsewhere, Lidos (pronounced Leedos BTW) are revered, restored and put to good use.
Now a new pier has got me interested. I am not keen on a dreamland heritage park but can see no alternative, so maybe there is a need for it as the only thing that can go there.
No point rebuilding the pier unless people are going to come to Margate by boat.
Are you actually enjoying that mutual nostalgia wank, that you're having there, fellas?
Have you ever considered something like stamp collecting or trainspotting, which could, in fact, improve your eyesight?
How about a really good park and gardens? Margate is not exactly spoiled for green space is it?
Or a swimming pool, a salt water one that's covered and heated for swimming in the winter with wave machine and water shoot.
A marine life centre? An eco friendly one that rears endangered species for release into the wild.
A cinema complex.
A comedy Club.
A decent shopping centre with good coffee bars.(not a tiny crap Tesco's for the local drunks)
I'm sure I could think of more but no let's have a remnant of a dead age that no one under 40 will be interested in. Par for the Thanet course.
I think it's obvious to everyone that Becky & Lucy are the same person.
Yaaawn!
Yeah, cos two women in a region of 150,000 both agreeing that Dreamland was shit and dated a long time ago must mean we are the same person..duh
Can you not see that it was shit. It was shit when I got dragged there when I was a child. It was shit for my mum when she came here when she was a child.
Look at what kids do - on the most basic of phones they can play games a million times more colourful and sophisticated than anything that Dreamland had to offer.
Unless you want to have a fun fair for nostalgic, demented pensioners to go on and shit themselves on you need to think beyond early 20th century mass chav entertainment.
The visionaries who came up with Dreamland back in the day would not be thinking of doing the same thing now. Have you been to Japan? Have you been to music festivals? Have you taken acid?
If not, maybe you should.
The most entertaining thing that has happened at Dreamland since I was a child was when it went up in flames.
It's certainly shit now.
As a child Dreamland seemed a magical place as my parents took me there in the evening when it was all lit up and it stayed open until 9-10pm. In the early 80s the place stopped operating in the early evening and it lost that 'magic' and I never understood why it stopped operating so early. This in my eyes assisted in its downfall.
I didn't dislike it that much, Becky.
And I've always thought it was better than nothing, which, if you're not so fussed about a nice cup of coffee or the occasional band, is pretty much all Margate has now.
That and some of the biggest wanker bloggers that you could not care to come across!
I'll bet you wank like you're holding your plectrum. One finger and one thumb.
Noone give a fuck what you call thinking.
You should go away.
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