Margate memories brought to life in restored film

Memories of 1970s Margate have been brought back to life in a restored documentary that shows visitors enjoying the seaside town.

The film, called Man Alive: The Day Trip, was released on the BBC Archive YouTube channel on Saturday.

Visitors to the Kent coast are seen enjoying the amusement park Dreamland and Margate's pier, which closed down in 1976 before being demolished.

Thanet District Council's cabinet member for tourism, Kristian Bright, said the film was a "quintessential part of our history".

BBC archivists have restored and scanned film reels of the programme and made digital corrections to improve its quality.

Margate local John Cripps was 19 and a DJ at Dreamland's Galleon Tavern when the film was broadcast in 1974.

He watched the film and said it brought back "so many memories of Saturday lunchtime", when coaches of visitors would arrive.

"We would be the first pub you came to as you were coming through Dreamland," he told the BBC.

Cripps said: "I think for me that was my era.

"Things have gone downhill over the years and we're coming back up again now."

Many places including nightclubs featured in the footage have since closed, explained Cripps, who is now 70.

"When you see that [you think] 'I remember that, I forgot that was there' and it just does bring it back.

"I'm glad these films exist because you wouldn't know."

Retired fisherman Steve Barrett had just left school in 1974.

He was 16 and "wanted to earn money to go out" on the town, so ran a shelfish stall at the town's now-closed lido.

He said the 70s and early 80s were "the best years" and "life was a bundle of fun".

He recalled summers when he would come home from school and head down to the beach with his family.

"There'd be a note on the table - 'tea's down the beach'.

Thanet District Council's cabinet member for tourism, Kristian Bright, said the film was "a quintessential part of our history".

"I think the coast gets ignored sometimes in our national history," the councillor added

He said the programme "really demonstrates the value of leisure time and relaxing".

"It was a simpler time but people are actively seeking that simplicity now," according to Bright.

He said the town was going through a "process of regeneration" that would see cultural venues like the Winter Gardens and the Theatre Royal reopen.

"You know, you don't have to fly to Spain," the councillor said. "Coming to Margate, coming to coastal towns, is a viable alternative."

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