1950S RAMSGATE THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD

By Juliette Baker

Thousands of babies were born during those few years after the end of World War Two - we were to become known as the ‘baby boomers’.

Ramsgate High Street 1957
(Photo: TDUBU)

To my child’s senses the shops in Ramsgate were full of wonderful sights, sounds and smells. King Street, Queen Street and High Street consisted of a medley of shops. The word supermarket was yet to be invented. My mother, aunts and neighbours shopped daily for their needs, visiting at least 3 or 4 separate shops. The butcher for meat, fishmonger for a fish day, the baker for bread and cakes; no sliced loaves, all uncut, which meant thick slices to be toasted on a long handled fork before the open hearth fire. I recall the appearance of a state-of-the-art toaster at home; tin plate with sides to be manually opened to turn the toast before it started to smoke; and of course the grocer’s shop, Vye & Sons or Liptons. Baskets, tubs, bins all overflowed with loose produce from dried rice, flour and tea leaves; from biscuits to dried currants, sultanas etc. Then there was that basket in the corner full of broken biscuits! Large pats of butter to be cut and the cheese slicing machine. Ready packeted food was unheard of in these shops. You could buy as little as an ounce of sugar or as much as 5lbs. Some grocers did have their own packaged items for foods most commonly used, all neatly wrapped in brown paper lined up on the shelves. Women walked back from the town with heavy shopping bags, some having to walk a couple of miles to their homes. This they did every day. The perishable items were put away in an outside food safe, a wooden contraption with metal mesh, similar in appearance to a rabbit hutch. Refrigerators were an expensive piece of equipment and it would be the late’ 50s before one was installed in our kitchen. For years after my mother used her safe for storing vegetables.

Then there was ‘early closing day’. Thursday afternoons you could have heard a pin drop in Ramsgate town centre; even the corner shop was closed. The housewives catered for this in their daily routines and there was Sunday closing too. Not having a garden, the roads were my playground. My friends and I played games across the road from pavement to the other side, stopping very occasionally to allow the odd car to pass by before resuming games like ‘Jack, Jack may we cross the water’? Playing in the recreation ground in Boundary Road known as ‘the Rec.’ we small children would scare ourselves silly playing on the steep grass-covered steps leading to the large looming entrance doors of the disused air raid shelter. They were suitably locked with huge metal doors and my child’s mind was horrified at the thought of people having to regularly sleep in dark tunnels under the ground. That was only 12 years earlier but might have been 112 years to me as an 8 year old. I recall the hooter of the Gas Works in St Luke’s Avenue which would sound at 12 noon every week-day and then again at 1 p.m.

Albert Foad with 'PRINCE' 1957
(Photo: TDUBU)

1950s summer evenings in Ramsgate were magical; from St Augustine’s Road at the West Cliff the promenade was lit up with coloured lights including the moving ram jumping over a gate. Continuous lights flowing down Military Road, with each archway lit depicting nursery rhymes, down to the Royal Harbour Parade, continuous moving lights along past ‘Merrie England’ and right on up and around the Marina swimming pool onto the East Cliff and the ‘Chine’. My particular favourite was Albion House showing a moving picture of the Royal Family, one by one, lit up on the side of the building. The waterfall on Madeira Walk suitably lit. Imagine all those coloured electric bulbs.

As a small child I visited Merrie England with my mother during early summer evenings. Simple games of ‘catch a duck on a hook swimming in water’ hypnotised me. Those summers were so hot the sands in front of Merrie England were too hot for my young feet. Another favourite was the visit on the West Cliff to the Model Village. I was the giant visiting another miniature country! Slightly older and Sunday mornings walking on the beach below the east cliff with my good friend Robin and his dog Toby. I was allowed to bring my auntie’s dog Paddy and we would walk over rocks and peer at the life beneath pretending it was a miniature world and we were giants.

Beside the inner harbour was a coach park where the East Kent coach excursions could be booked. These excursions seemed so popular at a time when few people owned a car. They were generally evening excursions taking holiday makers into the countryside around Thanet. Ickham, Wickham and Wickhambreaux sounded as exciting to me then as space travel may now. My father was a driver for East Kent bus Company and occasionally when he had collected the empty coach and was driving past our house on the way to the harbour to pick up his evening excursion passengers, I would see the roof of the large coach appear over the back yard wall. I was allowed to ride in the empty coach the mile or so down to the harbour from which I then walked back home! Exciting though for a 9 year old.

During summer months many housewives in Ramsgate seemed to do Bed & Breakfast or letting as it was known. My parents moved out of their bedroom at this time to allow the visitors the best bedroom in the house. With just the one bathroom and that downstairs through the kitchen, the visitors’ washing facilities consisted of a large china jug and bowl placed in their room. The china chamber pot suitably placed under the bed! My mother’s best china was laid out for breakfast and evening meal. The same visitors would return each year and enjoy their annual summer holiday in Ramsgate. I can remember the procession of holiday makers during those years walking along St Luke’s Avenue towards the sea front approximately 9 a.m. each morning and then again returning about 5 p.m. The town was popular at that time and Bed & Breakfast provided some pocket money for women who would not otherwise be working.

The 1960s arrived when I was 12 years old. Just in time for the teenage years. The town was about to change as indeed did the world. The end of childhood for one baby boomer and the end of an era for us all.

I feel particularly fortunate to have been born and brought up in Ramsgate and although I eventually moved away, re-visiting the town over the years always brought much happiness. There is not much that can compete with a brisk walk from the West Cliff down along the front and up into King George VI Park, no matter what the weather. My own children were brought up with the therapy of screaming out across the sea at the end of the pier on cold, windy, rough sea wintry days!