After a three-year wait Ramsgate’s Addington Street Revival Fair is set to return.
The Addington Street Community Group (ASCG) is working hard to organise the 2022 event but say costs involved have spiralled.
The event is due to take place on Sunday, September 4 between 10am and 5pm.
As usual the event will spread out along Addington Street and the Broadway at the bottom, requiring a road closure, as well as in Spencer Square and Nelson Crescent.
The aim is to have stalls selling a wide variety of goods and promoting good causes. A number of regular entertainers have already confirmed they will be the fair, including Sabina Desire and her musicians and Screaming Alley. Gilbert Giggles ‘master of disaster’ children’s entertainer is a new addition to the event.
Vintage cars, the Good Karma Ladies, singer Steve Gifford and of course Looping the Loop, will also be there.
Becky Wing, Chair of ASCG and Event Lead, said: “It’s really good to get going again after the last two-years, but it takes a great deal of effort and stress to put these things on and we are all unpaid volunteers.
“We have also had to make some changes to our stall booking system due to volunteer illness and we have made some changes to the stalls on Addington Street to make it safer for visitors.
“We are also finding that the cost of everything has risen drastically, so without income from stall bookings and grants from KCC and RTC we simply would not be able to run the event, our insurance alone is just over £700, but we think the effort is worth it.”
Stall bookings are being taken via an online system that will enable the group to provide the Events Team at TDC with all the information they need to approve the event.
No booking can be taken after August 14 and all stalls must have PLI and a current Health & Hygiene certificate if they are selling and/or handling food. Organisers are also trying to encourage stalls to ‘ditch the plastic’ and become more environmentally friendly.
For stall bookings email: ascgbookings@gmail.com
Why is it a “Revival Fair”? In the 1990s it was the Victorian Fair with the appropriate fancy dress for the era. This, in turn, became the Historical Fair (some dubbed it the hysterical fair) but Revival Fair does not seem appropriate.
Addington Street was the main shopping thoroughfare many years ago and signs of the old shops are still apparent. You are not going to revive those days with a few shops selling second-hand clothes by a handful of DFLs. I live in Addington Street but I shall not be in attendance. A load of old tat.
I’ve seen old photos when all the shops were there, very sad to see how it is these days.
I remember a butcher’s shop, a hardware shop, a barber’s, an Indian takeaway, places you could have breakfast and so on. It is all gone, never to return. Go into the town and you would think it a ghost town.
“Revival” is a bad joke. Clear off and keep your trestle tables and the junk that is sold on them.
Our “ghost town” features … a butchers (Taylors) at least two hardware shops (Wilkos and the Lock Shop), at least half a dozen barbers, an Indian take-a- way (Ramsgate Tandoori) and places you can get breakfast (Spoons, Village Grill, Ship Shape cafe)
I don’t know what town you’re talking about, but it’s certainly not the one I live in.
Phyllis,you forgot to mention the centre has no public toilets
We are discussing Addington Street and what it was.
Same old rubbish I expect,it was good years ago ,but it’s had its day ,
Yes indeed and well said.
Robert Edwards in his 7.50pm comment said that “(You) would think(Ramsgate) a ghost town”.
Marva Rees, compared to what it was then, yes, it is like a ghost town. Walk through the town and you get this feeling of despair and hopelessness. Most of the people there are what I call the depressed underclass. Drugs and booze abound. Do we need all these barber shops, charity shops and estate agents?
I was born in Ramsgate 74 years ago so you can only imagine what I have witnessed … the long, gradual decline of a once vibrant resort.
I personally don’t get a feeling of despair and hopelessness when I am in Ramsgate town centre. The town near which I grew up has also declined considerably, but as I haven’t been there for years I simply don’t think about it. And unless you’re prepared to do something to improve the place you live in , I think there’s little point in bewailing what’s happened to it during the past several decades, and even less point in criticizing people who are now sincerely trying to improve things in it.
Marva Rees, I am not criticizing people, even those fictional people you claim are “sincerely trying to improve things”. I am simply making observations regarding Ramsgate’s decline and state of decay.
I will bewail what has occurred over the decades because I have every right to do so, especially as I am a genuine Ramsgateonian, born and bred. Unlike these DFLs who come down here selling second-hand clothes in vacant shops in Addington Street and then pretend they are “doing something”. I have seen Ramsgate in its heyday so I know the difference in status between then and now.
Robert you’re not really entering the positive and harmless spirit of the occasion are you. Let’s not fall out over names.
Relax. Be kind. Have a sherry and a chat to the folks that will flock to your street for the day.
We live in a tourist town, don’t be so insular.
How many tourists towns haven’t got toilets in the town centre
Penelope, we are not a tourist town. We never were. We have been a seaside resort but that is now history. We are now more of a backwater.
This is a reply to Robert Edwards.I don’t think the people who are trying to improve things are fictional.
Emmeline, I don’t drink alcohol and what should I chat about?
Tourist town? Don’t make me laugh. It used to be a seaside resort but we no longer see lots of coaches from Cockneyland lined up across the seafront nor the beaches packed with sun-worshippers. Insular? We are an isle, after all.
I’d probably pop along if it was local to me, but it’s certainly not enough to warrent me getting a train/bus from Birchington and back.
Good.
Glad you approve of something, Ms. Stein.
Lovely, hope it’s a big success.
How do you measure success? Looking at those photos, it is a shambles and will be a shambles again. People walking up and down, looking at other people’s junk.
One measure of success would be to count the number of people walking up and down looking at other people’s junk, and asking a sample of those people to complete a short questionnaire.
There is absolutely no requirement for you to emerge into the daylight and enjoy yourself
There is absolutely no requirement for me to do anything. I please myself. “Revival” is a delusion and highly pretentious. I suggest it is renamed “Addington Street Junk Fair”.
Well put.
I will visit and I feel there is a change on that street and sadly things do change sometimes that cannot be helped but moaning about it will not help.
Everything is in a state of flux and change can not be avoided. However, whether that change improves things is a matter of conjecture. The country goes to the dogs and we are told we must not moan. Addington Street fairs are now a symptom of this malaise. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Well, I do. Name some of them.
I feel very sorry for you
Don’t feel sorry for me, Ruth. I always have a whale of a time on here. Pity you can not say anything even remotely interesting.
Why are you so rude?
I still feel sorry for you!
Ruth, you have one obvious failing: you do not engage your brain before saying anything. If challenging some of your unproven claims is rudeness then I would not post on here. However, you claimed that there are people who have actually improved the condition of Ramsgate. So I challenged you to name them. You failed to do so and even removed your post along with your ridiculous claim.
You were caught out again and you do not like it. So you accuse me of rudeness, which is ridiculous.
Is it possible for a commentator to remove a comment which has already been published?
I assumed that Mr Edwards was replying to my 7.56 posting.
Give it a rest, Mr. Edwards.
This morning I walked home as usual from the town centre, admiring as I did so the beautiful shrub and flower borders which volunteers plant and maintain around the town.
I don’t know the names of any of these people, but they certainly exist.
Marva Rees, don’t make me laugh. A few flower beds do not a “revival” make. I remember Ramsgate in the 1950s, the 1960s and so on. We had several cinemas in the town, an open air swimming pool near the main sands, no charity shops but thriving shops that sold everything you needed, including Woolworths, Marks & Spencers, several butchers shops. Henekeys Wine Bar was in the High Street. The Madeira waterfall was brightly lit as were what were called The Illuminations. And much more.
And all you can come up with are a few flower beds. Perhaps you also think I am rude but I would have to deny it.
I think that you are a desperately sad and lonely old man, with no friends, no social life.
I think the only recreation you have is to post rude and provocative comments on here.
I think you should emerge, blinking, from your semi-basement flat into the sunlight and have stroll round Ramsgate.
Of course, it’s quite possible that none of what you see will impress you, because of your strange attitude of mind.
Ruth said she felt sorry for you. I’m not sure if I can echo those sentiments.
Phyllis, Ruth was being patronising.
I see I have really got under your skin, poor soul.
Or his gloomy garret!
By the way just for the record I have not removed any of my posts?????
I could come up with quite a lot more but I really can’t be bothered.
Marva Rees, you mean a lot more flower beds? Hehehe.
Certainly, and other improvements too.
Now cancelled!
Hurrah, hurrah.
Doomed from the start.