A quick Visit to St Margarets Bay
Spent the weekend visiting family on the East Kent Coast and decided we would pop over to St Margarets Bay as we had not been for some time.
As a kid I was over here often and my dad used to run the GPO Repeater Station on the top of the hill - great views over the channel from there and there are secret tunnels underneath - I understand they once filmed an episode Dr Who in there.
We walked along the front to the four houses at the end that Noel Coward rebuilt after WW2 and entertained Holywood stars there. In the end he left for Jamaica and his friend Ian Fleming moved in and wrote his third James Bond book, Moonraker, there.
The shoreline at the north end is mainly huge flint pebbles scoured round and grey by the sea. Every bit of metal is suffering from the eternal ravages of rust giving that faded seaside glamour look.
We then walked south to the other end of the bay with the pub and the brightly coloured beach huts. There were plenty of people about, though not that many, including several converted vans with their rear doors lifted up showing off the crafted interiors. A large group of people were in the sea enjoying a swim - not sure I'd go in these days amongst all the sewage.
One of the oddities of St Margarets Bay is that there is no UK phone signal when you get to the bottom of the cliff. I understand the phone companies are not allowed to put a mast in the vicinity because it will interrupt the French mobile signals. We parked up and did notice that we were getting a French Orange signal so we switched our phones to Airplane mode to ensure we didn't get hit with any roaming charges.
After the walk we popped into the Coastguard pub for a refresher and sat out in the beer garden overlooking the sea.
At that point I thought I would record my pint in my Untapped beer app and turned off the Airplane mode on my phone hoping to get a Wifi signal, but no - untapped would not connect. What did happen though is my iphone, and my watch , switched themselves to French time - an hour ahead! Oh how we laughed.
Then I heard the unmistakeable sound of a Merlin Rolls Royce engine and two Spitfires flew out from the cliffs over the sea banking around south toward Dover in close formation. Quite the sight!
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