Westgate-On-Sea

Read and share memories of Westgate-On-Sea and Kent inspired by Frith photos

Westgate-on-Sea Pavilion

Westgate-on-sea pavilion will soon be a cherished memory. Thanet Council are choosing to dispose of it rather than installing a disabled access and disabled toilets. If anyone out there cares about this unique part of Westgate then pelase do not let it become a memory! Help please. Contact John Bunnett at TDC and ask him who will profit for the loss of this memory, not the people of Westgate, we again will be the losers.
Contributed by Sylvia Mulley

Scout Camp

As a member of the 6th Brockley Scout Group, I visited Westgate 3 or 4 times during the early 1950s for the annual 2-week camp in August, our tents being pitched in the grounds of the then Catholic Church on the London Road.
I remember that we loved buying jam-doughnuts from the Devonshire Bakers, often burning our mouths on the hot jam, as the doughnuts were usualy just made!
I saw the film, "Reach for the Sky" at the Carlton Cinema on one visit to Westgate.
Sometimes we placed penny coins on the rails at the level-crossing to be flattened by passing steam trains!

Wonderful times!

Ken Cook
Contributed by Ken Cook

Seaside holiday at Westgate-On-Sea

My earliest memories of the seaside are from the 1950's. We lived in Bexleyheath and - like most people - did not own a car in those far off austerity years after the war. For this reason our summer holidays were always on the nearby north Kent coast and we would travel by train!

Our family had two summer holidays in Westgate-On-Sea - each of them a fortnight staying in a hotel. I remember playing on the sand in St Mildrid's Bay and West Bay, a ride on an open-top bus, an evening in "Dreamland" at nearby Margate, and seeing Reculver Tower which vividly brought to life the history lesson I had at Pelham Road School in Bexleyheath! ...read more here
Contributed by John Howard Norfolk

Scout Camp

As a member of the 6th Brockley Scout Group, I visited Westgate 3 or 4 times during the early 1950s for the annual 2-week camp in August, our tents being pitched in the grounds of the then Catholic Church on the London Road.
I remember that we loved buying jam-doughnuts from the Devonshire Bakers, often burning our mouths on the hot jam, as the doughnuts were usualy just made!
I saw the film, "Reach for the Sky" at the Carlton Cinema on one visit to Westgate.
Sometimes we placed penny coins on the rails at the level-crossing to be flattened by passing steam trains!

Wonderful times!

Ken Cook
A memory of Westgate-On-Sea contributed by Ken Cook