Where Old Ghosts Meet

A biting breeze and thin drizzle denote December’s arrival as twilight descends on the narrow cobbled street that was once part of one of that prodigious walker, Charles Dickens’, favourite perambulations.

We are a long time from the heat of summer when Charivari, Folkestone’s own crazy carnival procession, had snaked up that old thoroughfare. Or the stones had groaned under the weight of red-laced “Doc” Martens, worn by pilgrims strutting towards the Grand Burstin or Gillespie’s Ska Bar for an afternoon of The Selecter, Prince Buster and Special Brew.

I turn into the quiet street where old ghosts meet as it emerges, like an intermediate ski slope, from Rendezvous Street. I long for one last lingering look at the dazzling daily alchemy conjured up in Rowland’s Rock Shop, but its physical manifestation at least has long gone. The site is now occupied by The Great British Shop Ltd, an eclectic and attractive gift store which has the added class to have hung a photograph on its wall inside commemorating its much-loved former resident.

The aroma of craft beer emanating from Kipps’ Alehouse on the corner could never compete with the sickly sweet perfume that pervaded Rowland’s, where, along with other children (of all ages), I once gaped in awe at the long sticks of rock being concocted. A bag of broken rock pieces from here was always one of the highlights of my annual holiday in the town. It was often claimed that if Rowland’s were to shut its doors permanently, Folkestone would die. Thankfully, that prediction has been proved dramatically wrong, though many share my nostalgia for its heyday.

In a predictable example of Pavlovian conditioning, I stumble into Steep Street Coffee House for tea and inspiration. Ordinarily, it might be a couple of hours before I could extract myself from here, but I want to experience the atmosphere in the harbour area before darkness fully takes hold.

The self-styled Folkestone Poet has vacated his customary sales point outside the Big Boys Fine Burger Co opposite, his heavy overcoat and leather balaclava no longer a match for the declining temperatures. I wonder whether there is anywhere he can comfortably ply his wares at this time of year.

The bitter cold slices through my flimsy jacket and hastens my progress down the hill, though not without stopping to inspect the crumbling stone steps that lead up to the Bayle, the Medieval heart of Folkestone.

Outside Bounce Vintage, the owner, spotting, or rather hearing, my battered old cowboy boots on the cobbles, accosts me and tries to interest me in an admittedly gorgeous two tone green pair. I decline his offer on the pathetically vain premise that my current pair represent the only thing I have in common with Johnny Depp, in that we wear them everywhere (well, almost everywhere).  Somehow, I suspect Johnny paid more than $50 – plus shipping and custom charges – for his.

I leave the Old High Street at Blooms 1/4, a sophisticated modern restaurant that is tonight’s venue for the second of the Folkestone Living Advent Calendar events organised by Jim Jam Arts for every night in December until Christmas Eve. I peer into the premises which look as cosy and inviting as it is possible to be.

But I must move on.

As I enter Harbour Street, I am overwhelmed by the looming presence of Parade House, better known today as Shangri-La, in the popular imagination the German Consulate and spy centre prior to World War I. This theory has been refuted by local historians and the German Embassy alike, but there is no denying, irrespective of the truth, that it is an imposing and eerie structure, with the cupola providing unsurpassable views of the harbour and Channel beyond.

As I pass the Grand Burstin, another coach party, the combined age of whom must extend to several thousand, is being disgorged. On a gloomy afternoon like this, it is hard to understand why anyone would want to visit the town at this time of year. Perhaps the hotel’s dining, entertainment and competitive prices are the attractions.

I cross to the Harbour Arm where the only activity, apart from the odd ageing romantic shambling around the deserted car park, is restoration work on both the railway bridge and the recently erected scaffolding that was wrecked by last month’s Storm Angus. No more chicken gyros to be had at the Big Greek Bus, nor Kir Royale at the Lighthouse Champagne Bar, as they are firmly locked up for the winter. Even the derelict harbour railway station is now cordoned off again, suggestive of renovation work to follow.

I walk through the low tunnel into the now closed fish market, tiptoeing my way around the puddles that congregate here. The occasional gull plods apologetically past, pining for Spring and the reopening of the seafood stalls on the Stade, where he can return to terrorising tourists for fish and chips and tubs of whelks.

Chummy’s, Bob’s, La’s, The Hatch, Shell Shop, Herbert’s and the Smokehouse restaurant are all now closed, leaving Rocksalt and Bob’s fresh fish shop the only, pricier, eating options. Even the pubs are empty, allowing the respective mine hosts to put up their final Christmas decorations without encumbrance from customers.  

I don’t think I’ve seen so many boats in the outer harbour as today. To my untutored, landlubber eyes, I would estimate that the ratio of seaworthy to safe vessels would be no better than 50:50.

A large gathering of gulls wait patiently for the tide to turn and the resulting rich pickings to appear. They have several hours yet to endure.

I pay a dutiful visit to the mermaid on the Sunny Sands rocks. Fading light and incessant mizzle cannot avert her gaze or disturb her poise.

I return to the Old High Street as the Christmas lights flutter into action. Most of the shops, if they opened at all during the day, have now closed their doors. The event outside Blooms 1/4 is only an hour away but the ugly weather, receding light and nagging memories, render my mood sombre rather than celebratory.

The Old High Street echoes to the solitary sound of my cowboy boots as I set off for home.

But did I hear a childlike squeal and get a whiff of granulated sugar as I passed by the top?

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Folkestone: Britain’s San Francisco

A fanciful proposition?

Maybe.

Probably.

After all, there are no breathtaking bridges (unless you count the Foord Road railway viaduct), no crippling hills (no, not even the Old High Street), no $40 million properties (how much IS the Grand worth?) and no former high security prisons once claimed for Indian land sitting off the shore in Kent’s garden resort.

But, having spent a lot of time in San Francisco over the past twenty years, and written extensively about it in the past five years, I believe there are enough similarities to entitle me to suggest that it has more in common with my childhood playground, and now home, of Folkestone than one might at first think. The only differences are ones of scale and international repute.

Before I plunge into this pool of fantasy, a brief disclaimer.

The only photographs included in this piece are those of Folkestone – for a variety of reasons: 1) Many people will already be familiar with some of the sights I refer to in San Francisco; 2) If they don’t, there are probably millions of images and billions of words on the internet to fill them in, and 3) I have posted hundreds of images elsewhere on this blog and I’d be delighted if you were inspired to go hunting for them!

Back to the proposition.

Firstly, they are both marine ports with world famous stretches of water/land on their doorstep (the Golden Gate and the White Cliffs of Dover) as well as glorious bay/sea views in all directions and weathers.

The boats in Folkestone’s pretty harbour hardly match up to the million dollar vessels you will find docked in Sausalito or Tiburon across San Francisco Bay. But the scene has a timeless charm that is endlessly captivating, whether at high or low tide.

Both places teeter on the edge of their nation. Folkestone, with its proximity to mainland Europe, cemented by the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994, has long vied with neighbouring Dover for the title of “Gateway to England” (personally, I think it’s a draw), while San Francisco is on the seismically challenged tip of a vast continent.

And because of that position, they have both served as major embarcation points for their nation’s military in time of war. In the 1914-18 conflict, it is estimated that as many as eight million soldiers marched down Folkestone’s Road of Remembrance to the Harbour Station en route to the fields of Flanders and France, while in the Second World War, more than a million and a half soldiers left for the Pacific conflict from San Francisco and its neighbour on the other side of the Bay Bridge, Oakland.

“The City” (as (we) San Franciscans call it) is consistently placed high (invariably first) on culinary surveys. The Foodie Capital of the U.S.A is no idle boast. Folkestone may not have attained that elevated status (for a start it’s not in the U.S.A. but you know what I mean), but a number of fine cafes and restaurants have sprouted in the town in recent years, a visible and tasty manifestation of the regeneration, courtesy in no small part to the beneficence of Sir Roger de Haan.

Rocksalt, the seafood restaurant perched alongside the small railway bridge that separates the inner from outer harbour, has recently been named the thirtieth best in the U.K and Googies has been adjudged Restaurant of the Year in the 2016 Taste of Kent Awards.

There are a number of other quality restaurants (Copper and Spices, Blooms @1/4 and Follies are personal favourites), both in the town and dotted along the recently reopened Harbour Arm, capped by the lovely Champagne Bar at the foot of the lighthouse.

And one can’t forget, this being a seaside resort, that there are many establishments serving up fish and chips (not forgetting the mushy peas, white bread and butter and mug of tea).

Coffee culture is strong too – many shops provide coffee and cake in addition to their primary products – and there is a distinct hipster vibe about Folkestone that mirrors – on a smaller scale of course – the atmosphere in neighbourhoods like the Mission, Cole Valley and Potrero Hill on the “left coast” of America.

Any self-respecting coastal resort would not be complete without its harbourside seafood stalls selling freshly caught crab and lobster as well as cockles, whelks and prawns. Bob’s, Chummy’s and La’s are all well established and popular purveyors of the denizens of the sea. A Fisherman’s Wharf in miniature you might argue.

Home to Jack London and Dashiel Hammett, the Beat poets and the Summer of Love, inspiration for the WPA and Mission muralists, San Francisco has always had a reputation for being a town for artists, writers and musicians. After all, it provides a gorgeous natural canvas upon which to create. However, one of the consequences of astronomical rents in recent years has been to drive many artists out of the city.

In contrast, Folkestone’s star as an arts venue of international repute is rising. Every three years – the next is in 2017 – it becomes host to a prestigious arts festival (Triennial), where artists are permitted free rein about town to create public artworks (there are already twenty seven pieces on display by luminaries like Yoko Ono and Tracey Emin).

This is the most high profile manifestation of a burgeoning arts scene centred on the Creative Quarter where galleries and performance space adorn the once run down Old High Street and Tontine Street. Indeed, it is the arts that has been the fulcrum of the regeneration that has become the envy of other coastal resorts around the UK (which, admittedly, have not had the benefit of a sugar daddy like de Haan.

The City by the Bay is renowned for its year round cavalcade of neighbourhood and city wide festivals and fairs celebrating its cherished devotion to diversity, including Pride, the Haight Ashbury Street Fair, North Beach Festival, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Folsom Street Fair.

In contrast, Folkestone’s admittedly more modest, but nonetheless impressive, calendar of annual events, notably Charivari, the Harbour Festival, Leas Village Fete, Armed Forces Day, Skabour and the Folkestone Book Festival among many others.

I cannot resist including a pet (not literally) subject of mine – gulls.

Both places boast a feisty, ravenous population, hardly surprising given their coastal position, but these, reflecting their human compatriots in each town, are genuine “characters”. The giant seagull artwork, now serving on Folkestone’s Harbour Arm as an unconventional tourist information kiosk, has become an unofficial poster boy (or is that gull?) for the town. But generally, so far, I’ve found the local birdlife noisy but reasonably friendly, especially when I cross Radnor Park of a morning when they waddle up to greet me (but don’t let me get too close).

The same cannot be said for those that begin to circle San Francisco’s (base) ball park during the late innings of a Giants game in anticipation of feasting on leftover garlic fries. Fans remaining until the end of evening games have to have their wits about them.

There is one aspect of San Francisco life that I would not want to see replicated in Folkestone. San Francisco rents and the broader cost of living are the highest in the States, due largely to the influx of tech workers from Google, Facebook and Oracle to name but a few.

Now, the Alkham Valley doesn’t have quite the same cudos as Silicon Valley (pretty as it is – Alkham not Silicon), but there are other forces at play – improved accessibility to London through the high speed rail link, continued development and gentrification and relatively cheap house prices (for now) – that increase the risk of Folkestone becoming a town split between affluent “transplants” and residents who cannot afford to live in the place they were born and brought up in.

There is a more substantial analysis called for here, and I may attempt it in due course. Moreover, there are other issues I might have explored – dogs and drinking spring to mind (that’s not about the bowls left outside the Leas Cliff Hall for the delectation of our canine colleagues but rather two very distinct subjects).

But, for now, there is certainly one further similarity between the two places that I must mention – I left my heart in both, in Folkestone as a ten year old gleefully gambolling (not gambling) in the rotunda and in 1995 on a fateful West Coast tour of the U.S.A.

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