In your words - Soph Jackson
If you have spent some time on the Kent coast, you could easily believe that its towns and villages are part of one shared coastal community. They have all been shaped by the same environmental and political conditions, and share a culture and history. Despite this, a person can spend their life in a village and feel utterly distinct and disconnected from the next town over. Driving through Greatstone, you’ll spot England flags flying outside the houses on most streets. Sandwich Bay is protected by a 24-hour toll for “non-residents”, in which you’ll find old, expansive homes alongside a large golf course. Throughout the past year, there was a boat docked by Folkestone’s harbour arm that collected refugees from the sea and dropped them into the local disused barracks. From appearances, Kent’s coast is not all that welcoming to strangers - sometimes not even to neighbours. But with this comes a strong sense of identity, community and pride in your hometown; people I’ve met from Kent don’t know or care that much about other parts of the coast, but can rattle off long histories and loving anecdotes about their part of it.
Every attempt I made while travelling the coast to summarise its personality has led me to another contradiction. People here love one another and dedicate their lives to bettering the community. And they hate, and they try to push out members of their community for being too poor, too foreign. The people are wildly rich, and they are deeply poor. Sometimes mere roads apart. The locals are not always local; they travel to London every day to work and seem to exist here out of obligation. Then there are those people whose families have run businesses and started families on the coast for generations. People who have found themselves here and set up home and stayed, and love it far more than some who were born here. Each place is entirely distinct, and yet undeniably part of Kent’s coast.
The best way to connect you, the reader, with these places - some of which you may never have visited - is through the honest stories of people who live there. This is a collection of stories, undoubtedly tainted by my own thoughts as I’ve travelled the coast, that try to paint a picture of what it feels like to be here in Kent. Wherever you are, you are a part of a community, and your community has a story which is being written by the people every day. These are some of Kent’s coastal stories.
FOLKESTONE
“Rugged, quaint. Plenty of local history.”
“Folkestone in its heyday, it used to have the rotunda and the market, it was a proper holiday town.”
“It’s a shitty seaside town that’s trying to reinvent itself.”
“It used to be a pleasure to come to.”
Folkestone is cocooned by hills, the Warren woods, and of course the sea. Around a century ago, it was a late-blooming holiday destination (well behind the likes of Margate and Ramsgate), and a target for air raids during the wars. You cannot ignore the military history of the place; there is Napier Barracks (now disused, and being used to detain asylum seekers), the Nepalese community that started with the Gurkhas in the 1990s, the memorials to civilians and soldiers killed in the World Wars. Folkestone had the highest civilian death toll from a single bomb dropped in 1917.
There is a strong sense in Folkestone of how important and prosperous it once was. Walking along the clifftop promenade The Leas, and away from the town centre, you will come across the Leas Cliff Hall, the Leas lift, the Grand and the Metropole - two very large and spectacular hotels built at the end of the 19th century. It is only a few streets away from the Asda, Primark and Starbucks that make up the new high street, but feels like a different world. It’s easy to imagine Victorian men, women and children strolling along the Leas and how utterly grand it would seem if you had arrived there for a seaside holiday. As you reach the end of the Leas, you walk down into Sandgate and find almost every other house displays a blue “Sandgate Society” plaque detailing someone remarkable who once lived there. H.G Wells, Robert Baden-Powell, William Wilberforce, Hattie Jacques. H.G Wells is said to have come to the area to build his dream home. It is strange to be reminded how the rich and powerful once lived and holidayed in Folkestone, even dreamed of it, when it is now talked about for being neglected, for attempting to recover from its fall from fashion. One amongst many negative reviews of Folkestone on travel websites quite simply puts it: “Not as I remember it”.
The arts are thriving in Folkestone. The Creative Quarter and Harbour Arm are home to local businesses, artworks, and creative events. Works by Tracey Emin and Yoko Ono are on display as part of Folkestone’s public artworks collection, along with dozens of others. There seem to be increasing opportunities with small arts organisations, and young creatives are drawn to the area by this, as well as Folkestone’s relatively cheap rent. This is both a saving grace, and a threat to the way of life in Folkestone. Art may bring more money and people into Folkestone, but the more the area is seen to have value, the more expensive it becomes to live here. One landlord to a block of flats in the town centre is removing its current tenants to renovate, and will be more than doubling the rent for each flat.
The best thing about living in Folkestone is the people. This is what I’ve been told by locals, and what I’ve learnt in my own time living here. Folkestone is relatively small, so you’ll find yourself bumping into friends often. There’s a lot going on for such a small place, and it’s easy to build up a community without even really trying. Folkestone has its struggles - with poverty, loss of identity - but there are a lot of people here determined to save it.
“If you are either rich or white or arty, then you’re welcomed here. If you are not any of the above, then no.”
“I think it’ll all be a dump.”
“More new housing, out of town shopping centres and...sadly...a fair bit of coastal erosion.”
“DOWN THE QUIET ROAD, AWAY, AWAY, TOWARDS
THE DYING TIME”
- Carol Ann Duffy
DOVER
“Although it has a storied history, Dover is a town mired in stasis, unable to progress for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to the people who live there or those who have left. Dover has not yet managed to reinvent itself like the nearby towns of Folkestone and Margate. Its purpose, for now, is a simple one, a place which people merely pass through.”
“Dover seems to be trying to throw money at their problems but it doesn't feel that it is working all that well.”
“Much more than an area people pass through on the way to/from the continent.”
Most of the people I spoke to about Dover seemed at least a little embarrassed to have to properly think about the place. Dover was readily described as a dump, a shithole, a misery. The town is said to be a disappointment because of its run-down high street, lack of local pride, poor quality of life and anti-immigrant prejudice.
With as much fervour as people criticised Dover, they were also able to talk about what once made Dover great (its astonishing history), what makes it visually beautiful (the Cliffs, the sea), and what it had given them (family, a home, a community). We can understand how a town can be both so loved and hated, because it is a place that has suffered a fall from prosperity. Those who love it either remember better times, or have found something to love in the people and the community.
Dover is the way it is because of its position on the coast. Dover is said to be the “Lock and Key of England” because of its connection to the English Channel, and its harbour is amongst the busiest in the world. Because of this, it is a recognised name. The problem is, plenty of people pass through for practical reasons rather than an interest in Dover itself. It’s a useful place, but not a very beautiful one - except for the Cliffs, which stand out strangely as a backdrop to a town that looks more than a little unloved.
Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler all wanted to land at Dover to begin an invasion of England. In the 21st century, Dover’s frightening history of foreign threat to England’s borders has manifested as a seething hatred of refugees. It’s one of the first things that young people bring up when they’re asked about Dover - the people’s sense that their town is being burdened by the arrival of refugees. It’s easy to understand, considering Dover’s precarious place on the coast and its appeal to both well and ill-intentioned strangers, why it does not feel like a joyful or hopeful town. It is a town stuck in survival mode; it is serving its purpose, and not a lot more.
“When I moved to Dover in 1981, the houses contained families. Over the years, the houses in my street have come up for sale and have been bought by property developers who convert them to bedsits...The beauty on the coast will continue to be here, but my local area will be very different.”
“It’s a town stuck in time. A place with great history but currently no future.”
“the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand”
- Matthew Arnold
ISLE OF SHEPPEY
“Over the years it has suffered from lack of investment but it still remains a thriving diverse community. Most importantly though Sheppey has a soul and a unique character.”
“It’s a place stuck in time. Everything there looks like it did ten years ago.”
“I love the communities that reside on Sheppey. Each feels like it's own village even though it's one island the areas are very separate.”
“You feel as if you can almost travel back in time to a gentler less hectic world.”
In the same way that Kent is sometimes referred to - largely in tourist advertising - as “The Garden of England”, some call the Isle of Sheppey “Treasure Island”. Sheppey is advertised as “serene” and “wild”, in stark contrast to how it is described by people from other areas of Kent. Then the picture that’s painted of Sheppey is a place that is stuck twenty years in the past, obscene and immoral, with its people living in the shadow of prisons. One Guardian property writer, tasked with pitching Sheppey as a worthy place to live, went for “odd”, “apart”, and “peculiar”. The Isle was once unpopularly described by an unpopular man as “a caravan site”.
More than any other part of Kent, everyone seems to have a strong opinion about Sheppey. Even those who do not and have never lived there have a certain fixed idea of what it’s like. The truth of it is - as is almost always the case - somewhere in between the best and worst stories you’ll hear. I visited Sheppey, and then set out to get to know some of Sheppey’s locals. I found a group online dedicated to sharing and preserving the history of Sheppey. Little did I know, I had stumbled across a treasure - dozens of people, some having lived in Sheppey for more than eighty years, offered up their stories and their families’ stories to help me understand more about the Isle.
Sheppey’s people describe it as a place with haunting beauty, home to a close-knit community, cut off from the wider world. The only thing most wanted to change was the perception of Sheppey. Cumulatively centuries’ worth of lives spent on Sheppey, and their feeling about their hometown was overwhelmingly positive.
The history of Sheppey is a little strange and surreal, which perhaps is why outsiders either dislike or avoid the place entirely. War and invasion have been part of Sheppey’s history, the same as the rest of the Kent coast. Sheppey is one of the most recent parts of the UK to have been invaded by another country, when the Dutch took it 354 years ago. The dockyard, originally set up by Samuel Pepys, kept Sheppey busy and prosperous for hundreds of years till it closed in 1960. Though much of it was destroyed, what remains is considered “endangered” history that must be preserved. Sheppey’s economy still now relies heavily on its port at Sheerness, through which cars, food, and products from across the world are imported - even so, unemployment is far higher than the national average.
In almost every part of the Isle there is something strange to see. As you cross the water to the Isle, you pass over an enormous bridge, which when looking from underneath, it appears impossible that cars are able to climb it without falling backwards into the river. Standing on the Isle’s shore, you may be able to see protruding from the water some of the 200 ships that have wrecked along Sheppey’s coast. Unusual fossils, including parts of an elephant, have been discovered over the years.
Perhaps “peculiar” and “haunting” are some of the best ways to describe the Isle of Sheppey. It can’t be reduced to a place that is “good” or “bad” as much as many Kent locals would have you believe; it is a place that struggles with its economic heyday having passed, with a poor reputation brought about by its mystery and its three prisons, as well as a place with a sense of identity and community, and unique nature that is well worth exploring.
Sheppey is perhaps the place I most expected to be dismissed as unworthy or as a blight on the Kent coast; though it is divisive, it is also the most loved of any place I have learnt about so far.
“I don't think it will even resemble Sheppey that I know. Developments of housing, which is everywhere. Building on the marshlands. I hope that the majority of them stay protected. The family that I know that still live there will be gone. I probably won't have reason to visit Sheppey sadly but that’s life and it moves on.”
“Hopefully it’ll still be a haven for some although undoubtedly a blot on the landscape for others. Our local Catholic Priest Frank Morán calls Sheppey the Centre of the Universe. Long may it be so!”
“an ark of culture
saved for the nation. It was shut.”
- Simon Cockle
MARGATE
“I think the nostalgic element of Margate makes it special, from Dreamland, the skyline and the arcades. Those who remember it as a kid usually come back because it's fairly unchanged apart from a little modernising where needed.”
“I feel like anything is possible here. I want to own a queer community space and in London I would never be able to afford to. But here there are more possibilities within reach.”
There’s something mysterious about Margate. Artists are fascinated with the place, more so than most other parts of the Kent coast. There’s plenty of dark, twisted literature based in and on Margate. Perhaps it’s because the town wears a mask; a thin veneer of expensive, colourful stores that try to hide the more bleak, rundown buildings, and the people who live in them. It feels like Margate is trying to cover itself, to trick you into thinking it’s a more expensive and impressive place than it is. As one Margate local described it to me, the “front” of Margate is for tourists, and the old town is for locals.
Perhaps it’s that when I began researching Margate, it’s history was the least well-documented of any town I worked on. In fact, while searching for information about Margate history, I was presented with the article “How to make sure a person is who they claim to be in Margate”. Perhaps it’s Dreamland - not just the name, but the fact that it still exists at all. People who have hazy memories of visiting Dreamland as children decades ago can return now to an almost unchanged memory. It’s such a huge, visible part of Margate and it’s utterly strange that it’s still there, when seaside attractions of that scale are so rare now in the UK. Perhaps it’s the Shell Grotto, cave walls decorated with 4 million shells, which were discovered in 1835 and are still of entirely unknown origin. Perhaps I’m inclined to see strangeness because I don’t really know the place, other than knowing that my grandfather - who I also never really knew - was born and raised there. There’s a sense of hidden history about Margate. The fact that people were once sent there to recover from mental illness or breakdown - including T.S Eliot - gives it a sense of the unknown, or of history that some might prefer hidden.
The locals I spoke to either described Margate as unchanging or in transformation; completely opposite views of one town but both seem to be true. Margate is becoming increasingly gentrified, with expensive and luxury businesses popping up. But it’s also a place that is trying to hold onto old memories, to be a return to childhood for nostalgic visitors. It’s not clear what Margate’s identity really is, but it’s clear what it is trying to be. It wants to look good, to excite people about its growth, to entice people to move there. It doesn’t want to be looked down on or to struggle like so many Kent coastal towns are.
There’s nothing wrong with Margate. No one I have met has had anything truly bad to say about it. It’s just so different to any other town on the Kent coast. It doesn’t feel like a part of the community - it just doesn’t connect.
“I think there is a divide between the old and the new communities but I think that would happen anywhere that is undergoing a transformation and regeneration.”
“Overpriced, full, everyone will be looking for the next unfound gem. But the beach and the ocean will hopefully be the same and still give me bliss everyday.”
“It’ll probably be the same, with the donut stalls, arcades and chippy cafes. It works for the area so I think it will still be ticking away as it is!”
“On Margate sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.”
T. S Eliot
There are a thousand stories that could be told about each part of the Kent coast. Some are mundane in their familiarity. Some might force you to think about the character or personality of the place you live; like growing up and realising that your parents are individuals that had lives before you came along. There’s a lot to be gained from connection, with the people you share a town with, and the landscape itself too.
