Our 'staycation' in Ramsgate by Alice Castle

"I'D rather have a day down Margate with all me family..." sang Chas and Dave in their memorable 1982 hit, immortalised in the Jolly Boys' outing from Only Fools and Horses.

I never imagined I'd think of Del Boy and the brilliant and inimitable Dulwich Divorcee in the same instance.

Here, the lovely Alice recounts how she was delighted to find a Dickens-inspired museum and "magical" shell grotto on a recent trip to the Kentish Coast...not something Boycey would have been particularly impressed with, I'm sure.

Still, it's a great piece, of course. Sounds brilliant fun. Thanks Alice!

IF staying in is the new going out, then the Kentish coast must be the new Riviera.

With this thought in mind, my two girls and I decided to visit Ramsgate for a four-day ‘staycation’ last month. We’d lived abroad for several years and I decided it was time to reconnect with our inner buckets and spades at the British seaside.

The seaside holiday was something I’d last experienced as a child myself, and the memories were still strong despite counselling – a huge number of near-relatives packed into small rooms, something otherwise only attempted at Christmas with similar results, sandwiches featuring a great deal of sand, and the heady whiff of the donkeys towards midday.

Well, dear reader, I’m very glad to say that things have changed. Not least accommodation. We found and booked a very sweet little cottage via the internet, and were able to peer into all the rooms online before we went – take a look at www.ramsgatecottage.co.uk

There were definitely no sinister aunts lurking in Harbour Cottage. In the end, we even had an entire floor to spare, as the girls elected to share a room rather than use a double each.

We weren’t able to get the full measure of the tiny, steep, windy staircase online, however. I had assumed the warning on the website was prompted by the UK’s apparent health and safety obsession, but it was, in fact, tricky to negotiate the stairs and would have been nigh on impossible for anyone with a disability or a small child in tow - worth noting.

One of the many plus points of our cottage was that it was two minutes from a Waitrose!! (our nearest one in London is a half-hour drive away) and, of course, the sea front.

The weather was resolutely English during our stay, obviously not having heard it now has to substitute for the south of France, so we gave the sea a pretty cursory inspection, put away our plastic shovels and fell back on testing out the area’s hidden charms pretty thoroughly.

Luckily, there was plenty to do. Ramsgate itself has a small but pretty town centre, with much to interest the teen and nearly-teen in the shape of shops like Boots (large make-up section) Dorothy Perkins (near-permanent sales at the moment) and, for me, the Alexon sale shop, where I picked up an Alex & Co skirt for £7.

There were restaurants aplenty, but in the interests of total authenticity (and gluttony) we chose Peter’s Fish Factory on the Parade, with a fine view of the stormy seas when we occasionally raised our heads from the delicious golden chips.

Next, it was off to nearby Margate, a short drive away (though we had a slight contretemps with my Sat Nav, which insisted we had to drive off the cliffs and plunge into the sea to get there), to visit the Dickens House Museum.

Dickens was fond of Margate and visited this pretty house in Victoria Parade frequently, writing David Copperfield here. With magnificent sea views yet the air of a typical Victorian villa, the house is a charmingly old-fashioned place, staffed by knowledgeable enthusiasts. We particularly liked the facsimile of a Victorian tangram, or geometric puzzle, which we wrestled with for ages and were defeated by.

Upstairs, there is a collection of Victorian costumes, showing the frightening waist spans of a Victorian lady.

Clearly, ice cream parlour, just down the parade, was not open one hundred years ago, or the costumes would have been many sizes larger. Even my daughters were defeated by the Banana Gondola, an enormous and super-delicious creation. Morelli’s is a large, 1950s style place, and has its only other branch inside Harrods.

Once we were able to walk again, we visited a really extraordinary place, the Shell Grotto.The story goes that this magical place, an underground system of passages and altar-like rooms, was found completely by chance by some children playing in their garden in 1835. No-one really knows who built the grotto or why, though it seems clear, from its atmosphere and the care lavished on it, that it was a place of worship.

It has even defeated carbon dating by English Heritage, as the shells are already coated in carbon, as deposits from the Victorian lamps used to light the grotto. Even the origin of the 4.6 million shells which cover the walls in beautiful, intricate patterns is mysterious.  A magical and inspiring spot.

On a less spiritual note, I’m afraid my children were equally taken with the Westwood Cross shopping centre, a comfortable drive from Ramsgate and complete with a huge Vue cinema with very comfy seats, as well as more shops than you can shake a stick at. Definitely a teenager’s shopping paradise.

Though we had had few brushes with the sea itself, my girls and I thoroughly enjoyed our seaside adventure.We shall keep our buckets and spades at the ready for more.

Comments

[English Mum]

Aw sounds like you had a wonderful time. The Shell Grotto sounds amazing (as does the banana gondola)!

[Linda]

Hi and thanks again Alice, thinking of you going to Waitrose made me laugh - especially as I see you are back at Lidl now! :)

Next time, please take a video camera and get yourself on film enjoying a cockle or two.

[Dulwich Divorcee]

Hi Linda, thanks, you've done me proud, it looks lovely! I shall have to Google 'cockle' now, won't I?

[Linda]

Nah, don't bother! Or try winkles instead...

[Richard Eastcliff]

Glad you enjoyed your stay here in Ramsgate. BTW, just a small point of order, the Dickens Museum and Morellis ice cream parlour are in Broadstairs, not Margate.

Looking forward to seeing you here in the Cannes of Kent again soon!

[Linda]

Hello Richard - thank you for setting us - and hopefully future visitors in the right direction! My own memories of Margate as a child involve bunk beds and Fuzzy Felt so best not dwell on that! Thanks for linking to us too.

[Dulwich Divorcee]

OMG, I'm so sorry, Richard - I blame the Sat Nav!Thanks for pointing that out. I'm off to Westgate this weekend - I just can't get enough of the Cannes of Kent now (love that phrase!)