Category: Medway, Swale and the Kent coast

Medway, Swale and the Kent coast

A midwinter harbour walk at Broadstairs in the company of Charles Dickens

Broadstairs Dickens plaque

Broadstairs look out and Bleak House 2 Broadstairs look out Broadstairs look out and Bleak House

Broadstairs Hercules Broadstairs The Scotsman Broadstairs 2

Broadstairs North Foreland lighthouse 2 Broadstairs North Foreland lighthouse

Broadstairs features, including the harbour and the old harbourmaster’s look out. I remember a moderate-sized traditional boat that was beside the look out for many years. Does anyone know what it was?

This splendid plaque above is found on the side of Bleak House at Broadstairs, one of the many houses in the town where Charles Dickens is recorded as living – he spent many summers here with his family, and while in the town worked on some of his famous novels.

Built early in the 19th century Bleak House had previously been used by officials observing marine movements, and it certainly has a commanding view of the sea all around including the famous Goodwin Sands. I’ve read that witnessing shipwrecks on the sands contributed to Dickens’s gloomy outlook on life – which is one of the things that can make his books hard going for modern readers.

Nevertheless, Dickens’s association with Broadstairs is a matter of great pride for the locals, who celebrate it in various ways including ‘Dickens lived here’ plaques and an annual festival in which the locals dress in 19th century costume. However, it can also be the subject of some waggish humour, as the small marble plaque pictured below clearly shows: it reads ‘Charles Dickens did not live here’.

The following non-gloomy description of the town is taken from: The Letters of Charles Dickens from 1833 to 1870.

This is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff whereon – in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay – our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. Seven miles out are Goodwin Sands (you’ve heard of the Goodwin Sands!) whence floating lights perpectually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is a big lighthouse called the North Foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. Under the cliffs are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high water. Old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. Other old gentlemen look through telescopes and never see anything…

Broadstairs plaque 2

Red Sails DVD is a cracker… get it for Christmas!

Stills from the film Red Sails about the working boats we call sailing barges Stills from the film Red Sails about the working boats we call sailing barges

Stills from the film Red Sails about the working boats we call sailing barges

Stills from the film Red Sails

Last night Julie and I finally grabbed some time to watch Mike Maloney’s splendid Red Sails film on DVD. I can report that it’s a cracker.

The new footage is wonderful, but the old footage Mike found is really something, not least because it reveals so much. I thought I’d read enough to know a little about these old working boats but had no idea, for example, that when they were loaded with bricks they were brought on board by hand, in small numbers by each man.

Again, I hadn’t realised that Conyer and Halstow had been such busy centres for the brick trade, and I’d forgotten if I ever knew it that the ‘rough stuff’ hearth ash brought down the estuary by the barges was mixed with clay to make the bricks. Presumably that’s what makes the dark markings that make the characteristic London brick so handsome.

The footage also of the old barge skippers Jimmy Lawrence and Don Satin adds to the value of the film – we’re so lucky it has been made at a time when there are still old barge skippers around to be interviewed. Needless to say, they’re both excellent value in this film – having seem Jimmy Lawrence telling his stories before I knew what to expect, but Don Satin’s a great find, for me at least.

I’d like also to thank Mike Maloney for taking the trouble to include some good, useful stuff about the last of the barge skippers Bob Roberts, including his role as a singer of old and traditional songs. This aspect of Roberts seems often to be neglected by enthusiasts for these old boats, and I think it’s a great shame. I remember him singing years ago, and it will probably surprise some readers that I sometimes take singer friends over to Faversham to show them the Cambria, as a kind of pilgrimage.

Red Sails, the new film about the story of the sailing barges, is available on DVD from the Countrywide Productions website.

Mike Maloney’s Red Sails sailing barge film now available

Red Sails A4 free screening poster

Red Sails, the new film about the story of the sailing barges made by Mike Maloney, is now available on DVD from the Countrywide Productions website following a public screening last week.

I’m looking forward to receiving my copy and will write about it shortly – but I’m expecting a lot, given the welcome it has received:

  • Many congratulations on the magnificent film. I think the applause at the end expressed everybody’s sentiment – William Collard – project manager, Cambria Trust
  • Bob and I – and many other people I talked to afterwards – thoroughly enjoyed Red Sails. It was well researched, beautifully filmed and put together. The film is a valuable contribution to the understanding of the Thames Barge – Lena Reekie
  • I was very impressed by the film and treatment of the subject. It ‘reached’ me and I thought that the treatment of Jimmy Lawrence and Bill Collard was very effective in binding the film sections together – Phil Latham, ex-mate of the Cambria