Hell's Grannies

News that a 107 year old woman from Tunbridge Wells has done the ton around Brands Hatch in a Beemer won't surprise us Thanetians. The number of superannuated old nannas you see whizzing around like decapitated daleks in these parts beggars belief. And that's just in the aisles at Waitrose!

It reminds me of a story my Ramsgate optician told me the other day when I went to get the old glass eye checked out. Apparently he'd recently attended to a wizened crone who'd never had an eye test before. Gobsmacked that she could even see her way into the shop, let alone pilot a vehicle on Her Majesty's highways, he tentatively asked her if she drove. 'Oh yes, I have done for years,' came the response. 'Well, how on earth can you see the other vehicles and pedestrians?' asked the eye quack, jaw by now on terra firma. 'Oh, I can't,' said the old gipper. 'The Lord Jesus Christ is my guide.'

I can tell you that if it had been me, I would have reached for the wooden stake and mallet there and then!

When The Boot Goes In

In my capacity as Chief Churner Out of Crap at the Ministry of Misinformation, I'm duty bound to report the latest rumour regarding the East Kent Maritime Trust, the charity that used to run our lovely museums (RIP).

If you recall, our beloved council stopped all their divvies and scuppered them after they failed to produce accounts for three years, and the question of what to do with all the artifacts, and who technically owns them, has been doing the rounds for several months, including a threat from the Preston Steam Museum to sue for the dreadful neglect to the steam tug Cervix, er, Cervia which the steam museum had placed in EKMT's 'care'. Now reader Walter of Ramsgate reports:

The rumour is EKMT has now given up and handed over all their assets to the Preston Steam Museum lot including the Sundowner (one of the Dunkirk little ships moored in the inner basin). If this is true we should be told. I have been reliably informed that a TDC solicitor was present when the dirty deed was done in London this week.

If the Preston lot take over they have not got Charity status, but I bet negotiations are taking place with TDC and the Charity Commission to apply for it. I hear that a sum of £80k goes with the settlement to the Preston three. Let's hope whatever happens that the Museum stays and the Cervia is removed, so the lock gate can be put back on Smeatons dry dock and it can be used again for what it was built for, 'repairing and building ships'.

My feelings are that the EKMT trustees knew from the start what way this was going and that they were personally liable, so did TDC.

Hmmm. Curiouser and curiouser. We await the full SP with bated breath. In the meantime, here's an example of how not to preserve a piece of maritime heritage:

Something Fishy Down At The Museum?

Smoking kippers! I see today's Isle of Thanet Gazunder is reporting rumours that Ramsgate's Maritime Museum may become a fish market and fish restaurant. I wonder if my old culinary chum Rick Stein has seen the Cannes of Kent's potential at last? It would be a shame, though, if all the shenanigans that have gone on between our council and the East Kent Maritime Trust, who run the museum, were to deprive us of a spot of heritage. After all, the whiff of rotting buildings that the council have neglected already pervades Ramsgate. Why not let the fishy folk have a go at tarting them up first?

Meanwhile as you can see from my fabby new sidebar feed, Thanet Coast Life is running the story of the Cervia, the old steam tug next to the museum, which was in fact tarted up with public funds not so long ago but has since been allowed to fall into a most parlous condition. I first reported on the state of this once proud piece of maritime machinery back in October last year. Now you apparently can't even board her without doing a risk assessment first. Shameful.

Click here to read museum story in the Isle of Thanet Gazunder
Click here to read October's post on the Cervia
Click here to read the amazing history of the Cervia

Mocking The Afflicted

A reader from Westgate-On-Sea writes:

I must object to the distasteful trivialisation of hip replacement operations in your recent post Cheap As Hips. Many of my friends are elderly people who fought for your freedom in the war. I think I can speak for both of them when I say that I find you a living, gloating metaphor of all that's wrong with our society. Given the regularity of your postings, I can only assume that you are one more welfare sponger with an axe to grind.

Sorry old bean. I won't do it again. Promise.

Click on image to enlarge

Tug Toff

I felt about as spruce as this old rustbucket outside the Maritime Museum as I walked around our Royal Harbour yesterday afternoon, in a vain attempt to blow the cobwebs away from the old Eastcliff attic, ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix. You see, I'd made the mistake of consuming several bottles of commiserative Krug after England's defeat in the rugby final.

Still, at least all I needed was six paracetamol and a good night's sleep to feel right as rain again. I suspect the Cervia will need more than this tub of Jizer to get her gleaming like a new pin:

Update: According to the Steam Museum, the Cervia is on long term loan to our Maritime Museum, and is 'a remarkably important ship, still in her original configuration'. Oh yes, they certainly knew how to configure a ship in them days. Upturned table, weeds growing out of the deck. All essential nautical equipment!

For lovers of old tugs, here's the 1927 steam tug Portwey making its way last month from Canary Wharf to Ramsgate. Not a drop of Jizer in sight!