Want to jazz up your neglected seaside town? Try Folkestone, Kent, UK, and get them to give you some of their fantastic seaside attractions for nothing like we did. We got a historic water lift, a nice big harbour railway bridge and station complete with platforms, and loads of funfair rides for a fiver. Oh, and the bloke who makes the barrier go up and down in the car park. All we need is a bit of monkey magic and our island will be the Number One Attraction in Kent, UK. Watch this space.
Greetings monkey lovers!
We’ve just returned from a very interesting, albeit faintly disturbing, fact finding mission to Folkestone, Kent, UK.
We were invited across after some Folkestone local dignitaries contacted Sharlene on Facebook about running boat trips to the island and in turn we thought it’d be a great opportunity to get some top tips about running a successful seaside town.
We'll be happy to comply but will have to move our celebrity visitors and cash onto the dark side of the island when the boats full of tourists arrive. Anyway, we’ll cross that bridge when it comes – especially as we now have our own historic railway bridge to cross our own harbour. But more of that later!
Along with the railway bridge, we came back with a fantastic Victorian lift operated by water that the town council no longer wanted. It’s fabulous and one of just two working models in the world. Schmichael suggested we use it on the light side mountain running down to our fabulous white sandy beach. I think we could be onto a winner.
Sharlene quizzed them about the lift but they were adamant that they didn’t want to pay £300,000 on the upkeep of it, when there were more important things to spend taxpayers money on.
‘And what can be more important than a unique water lift that is a tourist attraction in its own right, let alone one that allows old people and people with disabilities to get from the top of a very high cliff to the seafront, in a town that’s supposed to be undergoing regeneration and that will soon have a fast link to London?’
They all went a bit quiet but one of them piped up something about the price of yellow paint rocketing in recent months and money being lost in a high interest savings account in Iceland.
After taking a leisurely stroll along the Leas, looking out at the beautiful sight of Quake Island in the distance, we took the lift down to the seafront. All of us were pretty excited about getting there because we’d seen the signs to the Pleasure Beach and Ramon had read about the fairground rides.
‘WHAT IS THAT?’ I said. (Reader, I had been pretty quiet before this outburst but before us lay what can only be described as a massive concrete floor littered with glass and dog shit and few desperate weeds leading onto the beach.)
‘Who’s stolen the fairground? Where’s the flippin’ rollercoaster and paddling pool?’ shouted Ramon, who had been going on and on about a special funfair treat all the way here, driving us all flippin’ mad.
The local dignitaries grew rather quiet again.
‘It’s a long story...’ one of them mumbled.
‘It’s being redeveloped...er...one day,’ said another.
‘Into airstrip!’ said Ramon excitedly. ‘You going get aliens and planes and helicopters and flying machines to land there. Where are they?’ Ramon screamed, searching the sky manically.
Sharlene had to handcuff Ramon after he bit a lady dignitary on her arm. Once Dr Ricardo's sleepy sleepy juice kicked in and the lady dignitary stopped bleeding, they explained that they got rid of the fairground two years ago and are still waiting for the redevelopment but guess what? We’ve bought the whole funfair for a fiver, so at least Ramon can play to his heart’s content once we get it set up on the island.
Anyway, we continued with our tour, growing a bit sadder with each step of glass crushing underneath our callused feet, along the concrete promenade towards the harbour (as Sharlene is most interested in recreating a traditional fishing village on the light side of the island.)
Suddenly a huge white building that vaguely resembled a ship suddenly cast its dark shadow over us. The massive monstrosity had blocked any view we may have had of the harbour from the beach, or indeed from any area west of the town. Me, Sharlene and Ramon reasoned it must be pretty hideous if they allowed a building like this to be built.
Imagine our surprise then when we rounded the corner and finally saw behind the white beast of a building – a charming old-fashioned harbour with colourful fishing boats bobbing in the beautiful turquoise water and the white cliffs of Dover hazily floating in the background. It even had its own station complete with harbour bridge.
However, our joy was taken away quickly as a sudden chill came over us though – the building which we understand to be a hotel, had now blocked out any sunlight and we were suddenly stumbling along the road in the semi-darkness.
Me, Sharlene and Ramon were pretty freaked out by this point, and couldn’t wait to return to the unspoilt beauty of Quake Island. Seems like we got a few bargains though including the railway bridge, tracks and station buildings. We even got the man who makes the car park barrier go up and down thrown in for nothing though he wasn't too pleased about it.
We have much work to do monkey lovers - lucky we have so much money and cheap labour!
PS: You may be interested in the story below I found in Shipping Today.
Rich fleeing tax hike feared drowned
Mystery surrounds the identifes of up to a dozen people feared drowned in the Channel last week.
The remains of a luxury yacht, registered in Jersey, were washed up in Ramsgate, Kent, last week, after gale force 10 winds were reported in the middle of the channel, near Quake Island.
John Henry, Dover Coastguard, said: “We had a signal that someone was in trouble but we couldn’t get to them in time. The boat capsized and we assume that all its occupants are drowned.
‘We have no idea who was on board the yacht. It seems the owner has taken a lot of trouble to hide his or her identity by registering its ownership under a fictional company based in Switzerland.
Detective Inspector Robert Nash refused to be drawn into recent speculation about the identiies of those on board, thought to be celebrities and rich businessmen fleeing the UK after recent tax rises.
‘Until people come forward to tell us their loved ones are missing, their identities will remain a mystery.’
www.shippingtoday/richbastardsfleeuktaxhike/newsstory/may2009
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