'It All Began With Richard Burton', by Mark Gubb
It all began with Richard Burton. Not 'actually' Richard Burton, but the kid who was playing his character in a flashback in, the film, 'The Medusa Touch'. In this scene, we saw Richard Burton Junior coming out of a big house on Herne Bay seafront and getting in the car with his Mum and Dad. They drove up to Reculver towers, just outside Herne Bay, and were sat on the ruins enjoying the views out to sea. Richard Burton Junior then used the powers of his mind to drive the, now empty, car in to his parents and over the edge of the cliff.
Reculver towers were also, famously, in 'The Dam Busters'. They actually used this stretch of water to test the bouncing bombs and used Reculver towers to test the special device they'd come up with to judge what distance they needed to drop the bomb from. The device looked like a catapult with two sticks sticking up from the ends where the elastic should be attached and when those sticks lined up exactly with the two towers at Reculver, that's when they needed to drop the bomb. Or something like that. Even now, the sand there occasionally spits out an old bomb and the MoD have to come down and blow it up. The last one was as recent as 1997.
A couple of scenes for 'Some Mother Do 'Ave 'Em' were filmed in Herne Bay too. One scene had Frank Spencer wandering down the High Street and the other had him walking up to the train station, about 500 yards away from a house I used to live in (Frank Spencer got there first).
They once filmed an entire TV series in Herne Bay. It was all quite exciting. The series was called 'Cockles', a comedy series about a bloke who moves to a run down seaside resort to try and restore it to the glory of his childhood memories. The most famous person in it was Joan Sims (of Carry On fame) and it only ran for one series. There used to be a fishing tackle shop on the High Street called Ron Edwards and I went in there once as a kid and a, soon to be, fisherman and practically got laughed out of the shop by the middle-aged sea-dog type serving behind the counter (not Ron himself), because I was asking for some sort of lead weight that they didn't make anymore. I wasn't to know any better as I'd got my information from a book I'd been given for Christmas. Anyway, he turned up as an extra in one episode of 'Cockles'.
One of the (temporary) legacies of the filming was that they built a paddling pool on the grass verge, in front of the Kings Hall. It soon fell in to disrepair though, once filming was over. The most incredible thing that ever happened to the Kings Hall (maybe even Herne Bay) was that on September 20 th , 1990, Fugazi played there. Quite how that happened, I don't think we'll ever know. The Kings Hall always was, and always has been since, a place where scones get eaten, ballroom dancing happens, plays get performed by local people and things like that.
In the 80's you'd occasionally see Nick Cotton from Eastenders walking up the High Street as his Mum lived in Herne Bay. It got mentioned once by Lorraine Chase in an episode of 'Lame Ducks' too. She was saying something about being away on holiday and made it sound quite nice, as I remember, and the bloke she was telling the story too said something like 'where were you, in Spain?', to which she replied 'No, we was in 'erne Bay'. Much to the amusement of my flatmates at university, the character of Martin from 'Game On' was supposed to be from Herne Bay too. 'Game On' was really popular when I was at university and he mentioned Herne Bay in it once and they all came running down the corridor to knock on my door and tell me.
I once saw a picture in a magazine of Paula Yates stood on Herne Bay seafront. There's a space on the front, right next to 'Sand Dancers' arcade where, I think, some buildings used to be but were knocked down and concreted over. Sometimes it got used as a bit of a car park and sometimes they'd set up a bouncy castle there, but one year a little girl bounced off the bouncy castle and landed on her head and died, so they didn't do it anymore and it never got used for anything else. A few people did dome graffiti on the walls and then one day I saw this picture of Paula Yates in a magazine, by this time she was famous from the telly but still did a bit of modelling, and she was stood in this space (I recognised it by the graffiti).
Herne Bay used to have one of the longest piers in Britain, but a boat sailed in to it and knocked it down and they never rebuilt it. You can still see the end of the pier right out at sea. Apparently, that bit used to be a bandstand and tea shop sort of place. My Mum saw Mike and Bernie Winters perform there when she was a little girl (Bernie Winters of Schnorbitz fame). I was in a charity shop in Nottingham about three years ago and I found a Mike and Bernie Winters record, autographed by the pair of them, so I bought it for her for Mothers Day.
Marcel Duchamp spent some time there too, right before he made 'The Large Glass' and about the same time he was working on his 'Green Box', arguably the most famous stuff he ever did.
If you drive about ten minutes along the coast you come to a pub called 'The Roman Galley'. It's just a big pub next to an A road that runs all the way through to Margate and Ramsgate. It's not somewhere you'd pop for a quick drink, but it was a popular place for the coaches to stop when people used to come on their beano's down from London on bank holidays. It was in the 'Jolly Boys Outing' episode of 'Only Fools and Horses'. They organised a beano to Margate and stopped there on the way down. Well researched. I remember my photography lecturer from college telling me that he used to go on dates there because 'they're not too strict on who they serve at the bar and, let's just say, that the girls I take out might not quite be old enough to drink in pubs'. He was in his forties, at least, and he used to drive the local majorettes group around in a big pink van he owned. I was only about nineteen at the time and it took me a good couple of years to figure out what he was getting at. His name was Ray Clay by the way and he lived in or around Broadstairs and was the photography lecturer at Thanet Technical College.
In the same episode, they ended up on 'Dreamland's' scenic railway. This is now a listed building; the first time a fairground ride has ever been given heritage status. It's one of those really old wooden ones and, I think, came from Coney Island or something like that. It was always terrifying as it would really throw you around and you were only held in by a thin metal bar that came down across the top of your thighs. One year a kid got thrown out of it and killed, so now they've got car seatbelt type things in there too. The final scene from 'Jolly Boys Outing' shows them all having a really good time on it.
Most of 'Dreamland' has gone now, but the guy who owns the land can't redevelop it as the Scenic Railway is there. There used to be a ride called 'The Looping Star' and at one point, in Black's 'Wonderful Life' video, you see him stood, singing, in front of it as it loops its single loop. Recently, Anthony Gormley's 'Burning Man' happened on the Dreamland site. Maybe the landlord was hoping the wind would change and set fire to the Scenic Railway.
Margate's become very arty recently, which I think is a good thing. Everyone knows Tracey Emin is from there. A lot of people also know that JMW Turner liked it too. The pub I used to go to, from when I was about 15 to 19 years old (The Ship Inn), had a heritage plaque on the wall that said 'JMW Turner lived near here'. No dates, no address, just near. I was talking to an artist friend of mine from Sheffield once and it turned out that her parents used to work as temporary landlords, looking after pubs whilst the brewery got in a new permanent landlord, and she'd spent a bit of time living there while her parents ran it. I think it would have been before I ever went there though.
Right opposite the Ship, there's a funny little clock tower called Droit House, which is now owned by Turner Contemporary (the new arts centre that's going to be built in Margate). As you drive along the seafront one way, you can only see two sides of the clock tower and if you're coming the other way along the front, you're coming down a bit of hill, so you can't see the clock tower anyway, so the council, for years and years, only ever used to paint the two sides that you could see. Now Turner Contemporary own it, they paint all four sides. That's regeneration through the arts.
My mate once saw Gilbert and George walking along Margate seafront. He was an art student so he went up and said hello and showed them his sketch book. They wrote their address in it and told him he should come and visit them in London. One day, he bought some Gin and Tonic flavoured rock and went to London to see them. When he got there, they weren't in, so he gave the rock to their butler and left.
Most famously Chas n Dave wrote 'Margate' about Margate. Everyone knows Margate because of this song. 'You can keep your Costa Brava, I'm telling you mate I'd rather have a day in Margate with all the family'. Less known is that Chas n Dave supported Led Zeppelin at their famous Knebworth gig.
Jive Bunny once filmed a video just down the road in Ramsgate. I used to go to school in Ramsgate and had heard they were filming this video, so me and a few friends bunked off the afternoon to go and have a look. The bit they were filming was kind of like a carnival procession down a little street. Lionel Blair was the star of the video and he was stood in the back of an old, open top car, waving and dancing. We kept chanting his name as he came past (they kept filming re-takes) and one of the producers came over to us and we thought he was going to have a go at us, but he asked us if we wanted to join in the procession, so we jumped in behind Lionel's car and jumped around a bit as the procession moved down the road. I've never seen the video so I don't know if we're in it, but if you ever do, me and my mates will all be wearing green blazers as I went to an all boys grammar school that was really strict with its uniform. Ted Heath went there too.
I told my wife that story one day and she told me that she knew someone that used to go out with Una Stubbs (who Lionel Blair captained a team against on 'Give Us A Clue') and this bloke had told her that Una Stubbs used to really like it if he shat on her chest. They're not together anymore though I don't think.
Just round the corner from where that video was made is a pub called Churchill's. I went inter-railing one year and me and my mate, who lived right round the corner from Churchill's, ended up in Amsterdam at the Van Gogh museum. There was a special exhibition of Van Gogh's drawings and there was one of the road that Churchill's stands on. By all accounts, a young Van Gogh spent a bit of time in Ramsgate. As did a young Karl Marx, apparently.
Just round the corner from there, even closer to my friends house, is an old monastery. It's a fine example of Pugin architecture; originally a house he built for himself to live and work in. Cher is a big fan of Pugin architecture, so she came to have a look at the monastery one day as she was thinking about buying it. She didn't buy it but it caused quite a stir. Imagine having spent your whole life living in a small seaside town then, suddenly, you've got Cher living next door to you.