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theartsdesk in Folkestone: Art Echoes by the Seaside

Ghosts feature large among the 250 snippets of information alongside memories of childhood games, frequently involving dens built from rubbish dumped in wasteland. For the visitor they bring the town to life. We learn about the house on the Bayle left to two sisters who then fell out and divided it in half, which explains the cheek-by-jowl front doors, and about a horse and cart that fell into one of the piers of the Foord railway viaduct while it was under construction in 1843; beyond rescue, the unfortunate animal had to be bricked into the structure. In WWII, Christchurch on Sandgate Road was bombed leaving only the tower standing; the railings surrounding the tower are hollow and on windy days, we discover, air reverberating in the tubes makes them sing.

A picture of car park signs by Ben Hills, who took all the photographs in this delightful little book, accompanies an entry about a message left on a classic burgundy-and-cream PA Cresta, asking if it was for sale. “That evening the owner popped round," we are told. “I fell in love with him instantly too! We have been married now for 17 years... and I never paid for the car!"

Many memories hark back to more prosperous days. We learn, for instance, that there was a Rolls Royce showroom on Sandgate Road at a time when, supposedly, there were more Rolls Royces in Folkestone than anywhere else. Huge hotels like the Metropole and gracious terraces like the Marine Crescent, whose Neo-Classical façade was cast from concrete mixed with shingle from the beach, attest to a time when Folkestone was an upmarket resort attracting royalty and celebrities with its pier, pleasure gardens, helter skelter, boating lake, swimming pool and zoo.

The pier burned down in 1945, but the Rotunda Amusement Park survived until 2003, when it was sold for redevelopment since package holidays had put paid to the local tourist industry. Hills’s photograph shows two bare feet standing on what remains of the open-air swimming pool – a small patch of concrete. “I clearly remember the rough texture of the concrete underfoot as I ran around the edge of the pool as a child,” recalls a resident. "It seemed to sting your feet. The pool was seawater and when you jumped in, an odd smell of cabbage water went right up your nose.

Simplify: Summer DayZ

Yesterday I went to Walmart to get a little plastic molded pool for the kids to play in on the days that Gamma doesn't exactly want to be IN the big pool with them.  So off we went, with our swimsuits on underneath, sunscreen at the ready.  We walked into the garden section first, and found the pools.  Two sizes, little for 10 dollars and big for 15 dollars.  Uh oh...then I realized.  I can't get this in my car.  Even with the seats folded down, and Noah scrunched in the back seat underneath it.  No how, no way!  What's a Gamma to do.  Now I have an excited little boy who wants a play pool and no way to get it home!  So we shopped on the summer pool aisle and I wound up putting a snap set pool in a box into my cart.  I showed him the photo on the box.  See Noah, this is a pool too, it is just folded up small to fit into your car!  He saw the picture of the kids playing on the outside of the box, and it was 3 girls and one boy.  What did he say?  "NO GAMMA...this is a GIRL pool."   He did NOT want it.  I hid it on the bottom of our cart and picked up a couple of other things, then made our exit.  When it came time to pay, he saw it again saying  "STOP!!!  Put it back!!!"  But I bought it anyway.   We got home and I took it out of the box, and set it on the grass, and turned on the hose, and he soon forgot that he didn't like it.  I know these kinds of pools ruin your grass.  My backyard is more a mixture of thatch and weeds, riddled with gopher hole courses!!!  I try to beat those nasty buggers, but they are winning!  Ducey is a pitiful help with keeping them at bay, and Maui doesn't seem too interested in them in the back.  She only hunts the front and the grove!  I eyed the slide in the grove and drug it out to the pool, gave it a good spraying with the hose, and put it into the pool with the hose angled down the slide to keep filling er up, and lo and behold, HE LOVED THE POOL!!!

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