Margate in lockdown but not quite lockdown.

Margate in lockdown but not quite lockdown.

Margate is heading for a full recovery although the wounds and scars of its now distant past can still be seen, heard, touched and felt. It felt good to be beside the seaside yesterday if only because the bracing, invigorating sea air seemed to be coursing through the veins of those who have struggled desperately to find anything to cheer about these last couple of months. Just to smell the salty brine of the sea and watch delightedly as the gulls swooped and wheeled in their customary ballet formation was a sight to lift the heart once again and make you feel that life is for the living and therefore precious.

After years of horrid neglect and wretched indifference, Margate is once again breathing, functioning in the way it used to and now will always be. All those decades of shabby dowdiness and ghastly dereliction are now simply bad memories from a bygone age. Although not quite as full to bursting point as it perhaps should be - and these are unfortunate circumstances-  Margate was still at its gleaming and glistening best.

Down by the Kentish riviera things are beginning to look up for this humble and unassuming seaside magnet where thousands and millions of families once converged for a good, old fashioned day of pleasurable sunbathing. Then there was the eager consumption of fish and chips by the seafront, running into the sea breathlessly, building sandcastles and then wallowing in the inevitable sea-weed. Things though have remained largely unchanged and you can still indulge at great length in  99 ice- creams with a flake because that has to be the naughtiest of indulgences regardless if you happen to be watching your waistline. Still, who cares?

But here we were once again for our first visit to the seaside of the year because the government have told us we can go to the beach without feeling as though we shouldn't be anywhere near a seaside. At long last one of the Covid 19 laws have finally been relaxed and yesterday in bright, breezy and beautifully warm Margate the good folk from the Garden of England were finally allowed to break free of the stranglehold that coronavirus had threatened to cut off Margate's everyday life indefinitely.

According to all the latest news sources most of England's bustlingly energetic coastal resorts were heaving with activity. In Southend people were happily strolling up and down the front as if the last couple of months had just been some nasty horror film that had simply been erased from their minds altogether. It is safe to assume that the promenades and esplanades of both Brighton, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Great Yarmouth and Skegness were also benefitting from a huge influx of excited kids, carefree teenagers and adults with shameless bare chests and tattoos on every part of their body.

My wife, daughter and yours truly were just delighted to be in a place where we could let our hair down and enjoy the simple pleasures of summer's traditional getaway treats. All exotic holidays have of course been cancelled, scrubbed out completely never to show their face again. We all know why but still Margate had the feel of a redeeming feature to our scheduled plans. There were no rows of palm trees, jars of sangria, fleet- footed flamenco dancers or endless drinks by Mediterranean pools but yesterday represented consolation, a domestic break in your country. Now who could possibly have said any fairer than that?

On arrival at Margate we were confronted by all of those wondrously jolly seaside distractions and attractions that may have slipped under the radar of our consciousness. We knew that at some point we would see the British seaside again in all its glory and splendour but we could have never known that we would see it in quite the most extraordinary light. Normally our holiday to some far off land would have been arranged and confirmed online ages ago but this time it was strangely different.

Still, here we were in Margate and look at what we could see again. You felt a warm glow of  reassurance and comfort because it just happened to be there unscathed by war or any other outside force. The clock tower in Margate is one of those delightful throwbacks to a time when the early 20th century was at peace with itself, women held parasols to cover themselves from the intense heat, men wore natty boaters, waistcoats and buttoned suits and then the kids scampered around feverishly as they always had and still do.

How good it was to see the Margate clock tower, a marvellous piece of engineering and architecture, tall, lofty and timeless. If you go to Margate, you have to witness the majestically old fashioned timepiece that looks as good as it did in 1889, the year it was built. Perhaps Queen Victoria might have popped along for a flying visit, grabbing hold of a beach hut and then paddling in its salubrious waters for a while.

And then you were shocked to see something you would rather not have seen because there it was rather like some grotesque eye-sore, still an annoying, dated anachronism that shouldn't be there but still is because nobody has shown any desire to get rid of it. It's the Lido sign, once a glorious outside swimming pool, the place where untold numbers of families would bring their kids for the day for a splendid splashfest. You can still see the tattered remnants of the old cafe, the ice cream parlour and those lazy, crazy days in the eternal sun. But now time stopped in the late 1920s, 30s,40s,50s and 60s and since then nothing but tumbleweed and dust has blown over the Lido.

As you approach the Lido you're reminded of the way things that were but could never quite believe would still be the case in the present day. The tall tower cum obelisk shaped Lido is still there but there is nobody around, the lights are off, the atmosphere probably went when Ena Sharples was still arguing with Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street and all that's left is some wartime memorial, a sad, forlorn monument that now looks like a dirty alleyway. Oh how our heart grieves and weeps. There remains the lettering but it does look as though somebody has ripped out the back of it and stolen the batteries.

Now it is that you return back to the wide, sandy expanses of the beach and the buzzing esplanade full of childish screams and yells of jubilation, your faith in human nature restored. The cafes may be shut and bed and breakfast hotels still darkened but you can still hear the fun, the boundless laughter, the bubbling vitality of the kids who never complain because although things are not the way they should be they can still be in the moment, enjoying the here and now, letting go and being joyful.

This is still part of chocolate box England, a country now torn and traumatised by something that goes much deeper than it should but is nonetheless undaunted, unscathed and just getting on with it. Margate, in a sense, was more or less going about its business as usual. The souvenir shops have still retained their cheekiness, their gentle innocence, their harmless postcard vulgarity. It was hard to tell whether any of them were open or not but it didn't seem to matter because Margate was oblivious to global pandemics, its gloom and doom narratives.

Margate will never be driven into the ground, beaten convincingly because Margate just loves the summer warmth, its cultural inclusiveness, its open door policy to all classes, religions, belief systems, its boyfriends and girlfriends, mothers and fathers, daughters and brothers, brother in laws and sister in laws, cousins, uncles, aunties, its ever pleasing democracy and willingness to change. The seaside always had that and much more regardless of the current events.

In the distance you can see the magnificently revitalised Dreamland, the once colossally brilliant amusement arcade empire with its astonishing variety of one armed bandits, fruit and slot machines, the one and two pence cliff hanging machines, the gaming arcades flashing, noisy, thrilling and challenging, electrifying, beeping, buzzing, electrical and electronic. Dreamland was always a children's paradise and the adults who also loved them are back again. You could once again revert to your childhood because that's acceptable and nobody can take that away from you.

And so it was that we slowly walked back to the car for the drive home. We were exhilarated, feeling good, in fact really good, fantastic, fulfilled, knowing that the day had been enormously rewarding. Of course Margate had not disappointed since nobody had thought it would for a moment. Covid 19 may be here for a while and the air of resignation is still there but just for a day and, quite possibly, more of the same, England and the Garden of England was still pretty, still vibrant, still at one with itself, content with its sense of stubborn individuality and then its collective defiance against the odds. Oh we do like to be beside the seaside? Now we've all heard that quaint little ditty before. Sing up everyone.