Why Margate feels like a town full of possibilities In the latest installment of his Doing up the Dream renovation diary, Ben Alden-Falconer explores the appeal and the energy […]

In the latest installment of his Doing up the Dream renovation diary, Ben Alden-Falconer explores the appeal and the energy of his adopted home by the sea

To me, Margate feels like a town full of possibilities, a place where everyone can afford to try things. The only prerequisite is that you come with energy and a determination to do something. Am I over-egging it? Perhaps, but I’d argue that it’s a town that’s developing its own special vibe. Over the summer I was single-minded with my house renovation, locking myself away trying to get it into a vaguely livable state. But as the heat dissipates and the crowds disperse, I am avid to spend some time to exploring what remains once the season ends.

Old and new

“How did you make your first-name?”, asks Rosie, an elderly lady who has wheeled her trolley into a small art exhibition on the edge of Margate’s old town. The is directed at the artist, Chiara Williams.

“Chiara is the Italian for Claire, it’s very common in Italy. My mum is Italian.”

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“Ohhhhh it looked like you had added two halves of different names together,” says Rosie. “I did that for one of my sons. I hate my surname Williams.”

Clearly more attached to her own surname, Chiara responds: “It’s a good Welsh surname! Why don’t you change it if you don’t like it?”

“I’ve already had seven!”’ Rosie retorts.

“Seven!? Have you been married seven times?!”

“No, my mother didn’t know who my father was….”

The conversation continues like this for sometime, but alas, we never get a full explanation for the seven names.

As I talk to Chiara, other people drift through the exhibition space. There are some more artists, such as the extravagantly named Dazzling Allgood, a Margate-born creative whose last work included spray painting Louis Vuitton logos in a hotel loo.

There are the individuals and couples drifting in – the open door and Chiara’s friendly smile attract a wide audience. A shy little girl wanders in, as does a homeless pair who bring both their trolley full of stuff and their dog into the small room. Everyone engages with the work in their own way. Rosie loves “the look on ‘er face”, referring to a painting of a bathing woman looking at a naked figure facing her. Chiara talks with each of the visitors, telling them about the work, and how the paintings are based on scenes from old films.

A changing place

The interactions I see make me feel at home. Margate is a town undergoing considerable change, with art exhibitions and its hosting of the next Turner Prize. Its metamorphosis, which is still in its early stages, is familiar to me from my childhood growing up in Hackney in the 1990s and 2000s. There’s a similar influx of creativity, talent, and energy. And in Margate, it seems as though the changes this has wrought are largely positive: derelict homes, like mine, are restored, and boarded up shops brought back to life.

I’d like to think that the old and new residents don’t simply co-exist, they interact, too. Seeing the people at Chiara’s exhibition – newcomers and old hands – responding to her art and each other was heartening.

In another exhibition called Portraits of Margate, which is part of the Margate Festival that runs for the second half of September, the diverse community that now lives here is documented and celebrated in equal measure.

A familiar energy

Of course, as the transformation continues the danger is the essence of the place that came before is lost, and that those that grew up there aren’t afford to stay (like me in Hackney). I don’t think that I am the only one in Margate who experienced, and in some way misses, the energy that was bound up with East London’s changing face.

What I learnt this week Plaster has been used throughout ancient history in the Egyptian, Minoan, Greek and Roman civilisations. Stucco plasterwork was used to enhance the exterior of buildings from the 1800s, it was much cheaper than stone previously used. Interior mouldings such as plaster cornicing, coving and ceiling roses were used to enhance a room’s proportions, but also to impress guests in more public rooms. It was originally known as Plaster of Paris, as it came from gypsum deposits once found in Montmartre.

So many of the journalists, writers, artists, musicians who are moving to Margate now seem to have lived in East London at some point; and there are other, younger incomers who have found their way to the town in search of their generation’s equivalent.

Unbound by London property prices, Margate feels like a town where dreams or ideas don’t have to stay a fiction. It seems like nearly everyone is renovating a house, or opening a shop, a gallery, a restaurant or a hair salon. Maybe they’re gigging, making films or just enjoying everyone else’s efforts. And I’m looking forward to a time when I’m not spending my weekends on ladders, when I can properly join the fray.

Follow Ben’s renovation progress on Instagram @Margate_renovation_ipaper