Suggested listening to accompany this travelblogue is The Enigma Elevations by your’s truly.
Steve Swindells’ Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
July the 19th, 2015
On a recent warm, sunny Sunday, Ispontaneously decided to visit a Kentish seaside resort with a bit of a dodgy reputation, both from the past and the present.
I’d heard, however, that the town’s future, if not orange, is probably bright, due to the relatively recent opening of that guaranteed saviour of any run-down town or urban area – a modern art gallery.
The Turner Contemporary turned-out to be simply magnificent.
Brilliantly cool architecture and judicious curation meld this inspired addition to the cultural cannon of Kent into a massive draw for this surprisingly alluring and aesthetically-pleasing resort.
It was formerly renowned as a tacky ‘kiss-me-quick’ destination for mostly working-class Londoners who were attracted to its golden sands and, later, for its proto-Coney Island, theme-park attraction – the recently restored and re-opened Dreamland.
Then latterly it was on the cultural map as the stomping ground of artistic icon Tracy Emin and the late, bipolar genius Hawkwind/Hawklords singer Robert Calvert (I was a member of the band in the late 70s).
Margate’s most famous son, however, is indisputably the great English artist Turner. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to have a gallery named after him.
This was to be my first-ever visit to Margate.
Crossing Hungerford Bridge On The Train
My journey… no, I really can’t use that reality-TV cliche to describe my excursion (that’s better) from the urban wilds of Willesden Junction, five minutes from where I live (in a dreamy loft apartment gifted by the gods in Central Harlesden), to Margate, by train from Charing Cross (changing at Gillingham), not realising initially that I could have travelled there direct from St Pancras on the UK’s only high-speed train.
Heaven Night Club, now a populist shadow of its former ground-breaking self (owned by supposed gay-culture-spokesperson Jeremy Joseph), still lurks in the arches beneath the station and is, regardless, a great venue that resonates with its long history of innovative and inspirational club nights in the 80s and 90s, a couple of which – Bad and Babylon – I instigated and promoted. Happy days.
The iconic Shard towers over Guy’s Hospital
The train rattled past South London’s landmarks and emerging neighbourhoods and new architecture, the views from the tracks always offering a unique visual insight into the exponential rewards (monstrous carbuncles n’ all) of London being newly-annointed ‘best city in the world’.
The train trundled through Lewisham (now there’s a property hotspot, I imagined, with its DLR terminus, fine Victorian housing stock and new-build blocks sprouting like genetically-modified concrete crops), Blackheath and Charlton (memories of living in some old queen’s little terraced house with a bunch of gay hippies in the early 70s invaded my brain) and then, after Dartford and the great arc of its crossing, at last, the big skies and verdant pastures, hop fields, oast houses and salt marshes of Kent, along with its power stations, docks, gravel pits, industrial estates, caravan-common (trailer-trash if you’re a Yank) parks, Travellers’ camps, the mega-shopping centre at Bluewater, and a seemingly randomly moored prison ship, offering no chance of escape, other than a freezing swim to freedom. Or perhaps it’s designated to be converted into a floating Travel Lodge for illegal immigrants (this being the county closest to our often xenophobic French cousins).
*2024. My famous prescience kicks-in yet again.
I caught a glimpse of the sea, a silvery sliver in the sunshine, as the train approached Whitstable, already established as Notting Hill-On-Sea, with its famous oysters, seafood restaurants and rustic, perhaps now trustifarian, half-timbered housing stock.
I was reminded of a strange period in my life in the early noughties, when X, my long-term f*ck-buddy and muse (he was the nearest thing I had to a lover for many years) revealed that he was in love with someone who shared the same birthday as me (weird), who’d invited him for a day out to Whitstable with some friends. Great – thanks for sharing.
He then revealed that he’d attacked this obsession of his, whom he told me looked like a well-known TV news-reader, in a gay bar in Clapham, because this guy was ‘with someone else’. I advised him to go and seek help at The Maudesley Hospital, South London’s premier mental health destination, whilst wondering why he felt it necessary to burden me with all these strangely disturbing details. Was he testing my jealousy threshold, or just being a bastard? The latter, I suspect.
I cut X from my life last year, after realising that he was draining the lifeblood out of me and was a waste of space; someone whom I’d wrongly thought was special to me, by default, in the absence of anyone more substantial or less disturbed. What really ‘did it’ was when he wound-up JJ, my now fifteen year-old ginger tom cat, by pretending to threaten him with violence. JJ had always hated him, and now this was compounded and X was duly excommunicated.
As the train pulled-in to Herne Bay Station, I was mentally transported back to a sunny afternoon in said seaside town back in September 2008, when I’d joined several mutual, former members of Hawkwind and The Hawklords at The Kings Hall to commemorate the 20th anniversary of former frontman Robert Calvert’s death with a rather ramshackle, unrehearsed benefit for his last wife Jill, who was very ill.
I recall it being a beautiful day, weather-wise, and ‘a jolly good time’ as erstwhile Hawkwind leader Dave Brock might have said in his favourite cod-colonel voice, had he bothered to attend.
Me on my keys at the gig
When I’d played keyboards and sung backing vocals on The Hawklords’ seminal, classic album ‘25 Years On’, and played with them on a huge, sold-out UK tour in 1978, Calvert and I had become very close, so I felt it important to attend and perform, unrehearsed, with a host of other ex-members (apart from main-men Dave Brock and Lemmy) for this anniversarygig. The venue was terrific, there was a great turn-out and the atmosphere was rocking. I immediately dubbed it ‘Hernia Bay’, which was possibly a bad thing to do karmically: I got my very own umbilical hernia about five years ago, whilst having particularly vigorous sex.
On stage with former members of Hawkwind and Hawklords at ‘Hernia Bay’
I love travelling alone on a train (I don’t drive) as it evokes memories. which can often be something of an emotional roller coaster ride.
The train arrived at Margate, but no memory buttons were pushed, as this was my first time. I was, I suppose, a Margate virgin.
I emerged from the architecturally impressive station (the facade seemed vaguely art deco and somewhat reminiscent of all those Fascistectural – I just invented that –railway stations in Italy) into glorious sunshine and immediately noted that I was a stone’s throw (not a pebble, as the beach is famously sandy, so na na na Brighton) from the seafront.
As I surveyed the scene, my eyes were immediately drawn to the right, where the town’s only tall building, the iconic (if you’re into ‘brutalist’ architecture – which I am) Arlington House, erected in 1964, dominates the town’s skyline, along with the newly-opened Turner Contemporary Gallery and the harbour’s clock tower. I realised immediately that Margate was extremely photogenic – especially on that Sunday, with dramatic cloud formations immediately evoking Turner’s vigorous and vibrant brushstrokes.
Arlington House could be described as Margate’s answer to Notting Hill’s famous Trellick Tower (designed by Erno Goldfinger), but unfortunately minus the outside spaces. Later research revealed that a small, two bed flat with a sea view (they all have sea views, although one facing West would be best) and needing total refurbishment, could be had for a mere £80K. Although, apparently the service charge is quite steep.
*2024. My mother passed away last year (she made it to 95, and I was her carer for the last four years of her life). Me and my five siblings have recently put her beautiful house by the canal in Bath (the city) on the market (with me still in situ - until it’s sold). This will enable me to buy (yes you guessed) a flat in Margate, hopefully one in the Western side of Arlington House. There’s currently a two-bedder available for £135K. Bargain!
*2015.
Facing Arlington house across a small park is a rundown terrace of houses and shabby hotels diagonal to the seafront – with views across the bay. Ripe for redevelopment, obviously. How great would it be if the terrace could be boughtby a housing association, with a good percentage devoted to social housing (funded by the other percentage of better-off buyers).
Don’t hold your breath.
Then, heading down to the promenade and looking a few hundred yards to the right, you’ll see the iconic, retro, vertical signage of Dreamland on its brick tower, which gave me a bit of a photographer’s hard-on, sorry, thrill.
Part two coming very soon.
Steve Swindells’ Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
