While staying at nearby Birchington in the 1930s, John Betjeman wrote this poem about Westgate-on-Sea, which charmingly evokes the orderly, genteel holiday resort of the day.
WESTGATE-ON-SEA
Hark, I hear the bells of Westgate,
I will tell you what they sigh,
Where those minarets and steeples
Prick the open Thanet sky.
Happy bells of eighteen-ninety,
Bursting from your freestone tower!
Recalling laurel, shrubs and privet,
Red geraniums in flower.
Feet that scamper on the asphalt
Through the Borough Council grass,
Till they hide inside the shelter
Bright with ironwork and glass,
Striving chains of ordered children
Purple by the sea-breeze made,
Striving on to prunes and suet
Past the shops on the Parade.
Some with wire around their glasses,
Some with wire across their teeth,
Writhing frames for running noses
And the drooping lip beneath.
Church of England bells of Westgate!
On this balcony I stand,
White the woodwork wriggles round me,
Clock towers rise on either hand.
For me in my timber arbour
You have one more message yet,
"Plimsolls, plimsolls in the summer,
Oh goloshes in the wet!"
John Betjeman
Westgate-on-Sea is a seaside town in northeast Kent, England, with a population of 6,600.
It is within the Thanet local government district and borders the larger seaside resort of Margate.
Its two sandy beaches have remained a popular tourist attraction since the town's development in the 1860s from a small farming community.
I was brought up in Westgate
and all my life lived by the sea
but until this evening had not known
that a poet of such renown
had once been touched by my home town
to write a poem and put in verse
his regard for beauty, sand and surf.
The blog owner changed this comment on 2008-02-25 12:35:50