h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today I learnt the first flat I moved into when I left home, was pulled down as it had become unsafe.

It was a beautiful, if an uncomfortable premises. I survived it from 1983 to 1988.

It can be viewed here:

http://www.broken-britain.com/phpBB2/index.php

My flat was the one with the stained glass windows, top mock-elizabethan bay, and also left hand frontage from the front!

http://margatearchitecture.blogspot.com/2008/02/marina-restaurant-ramsgate-rip.html

http://ramsgatemitch.blogspot.com/

I'm not really complaining, but to lose a building with such heritage through neglect, purely to make a fortune in yuppie flats!

Give the Barkers their due, they weren't shysters! £20.00 per week was very reasonable then!

Just for historical reasons, here is the letter I sent to the press, as requested...

In response to your article on Harrison's / Marina Restaurant...

"I used to live in the Marina Restaurant, from 1982 to 1985. It was when I worked at the Pleasurama Casino on the seafront. My first flat I inherited from a couple, who also worked at the Casino, who were moving to their own property. At that time Pleasurama owned both the Casino and Nero's. My flat was the top Elizabethan-style bay-windowed flat and was £20.00 per week. My wage was £60.00. Good for that period. The flat was large and roomy with a galley kitchen, and open plan. Very good for parties as their where no neighbours in the winter, and lovely to walk back to at 06.00 in the morning during the summer. I then moved to the front of the building, but that was bleak and austere, especially in the winter as there was no heating. One winter the pipes to the water tank, which were mounted on the cliff, froze, as did we, so we had no water for three days. When they thawed the water flooded the ground floor restaurant, which had a marble floor, and froze, turning it to an ice-rink. The owners, who lived in Stafford, were livid on their return, as the water was billed at business rates. They wanted to know why I hadn't phoned them until I pointed out I had no contact number.

It was a good, but cold and damp period of my life. No fun in winter, being bleak and a long way from civilisation as the whole front closed for the winter season, and no public transport for emergencies. One such occasion arose when I ran out of Calor gas for my gas fire, during the cold snap. I had no means of obtaining any as there was no local supplier. Luckily my Father visited as I was on the verge of hypothermia, took me to a friend's café to warm up while he went to refill the gas container. In the summer it couldn't be beaten for views across the Channel and close proximity to the beach.

I really do hope it can be restored to it's Victorian splendour, and that a good use can be found for it rather than yet more gentrified extortionate unaffordable flats. It is too lovely a building... and boy are those walls thick!!!"

MMF