Some steam engineering marine engineering and model engineering books in the bookshop.

With my recent coverage of The Steam Tug Cervia, see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Steam%20Tug%20Cervia%20in%20Ramsgate%20Harbour and the Dunkirk evacuation model tug display see http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2010/05/dunkirk-evacuation-model-tug-display-at.html I have been reading up on steam and model engineering.

This means I have been reading some of the books about this in my bookshop, I have just photographed excerpts from some of them to amuse other people with this sort of interest see http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/510b/id22.htm

Looking at the post so far it does look as though it’s about building a somewhat eccentric and in some cases rather expensive gentleman’s library, so here are some pictures of other arts and crafts books on the bookshop selves today http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/610/id4.htm none should be expensive, very few over £10 per book with an average price about £6.

I hope these will have a somewhat broader appeal, selling engineering and craft books as I do it occurs to me that this is for the most part an area where sexism still flourishes, with nearly all of the books about fabric related craft being bought by females and nearly al of those about wood or metalwork being bought by males.

Staying with a craft related theme I repaired the staircase between the shop and the flat above over the bank holiday weekend. This is something that I hadn’t done before and started by trying to find out how to do this using the internet, after some exasperation going from site to site trying to sell me a new staircase, once again I resorted to the books in the bookshop for the information.

Ramsgate Maritime Museum, full steam ahead?

I was most encouraged to see in yesterday’s Isle of Thanet Gazette an article that quoted a Thanet District Council spokesperson as saying, that the council are prepared to offer The Preston Steam Trust a 25 year lease on Ramsgate Clock House.

The article hasn’t yet appeared on the Gazette’s website so I am unable to link to it.

This is the building within the harbour area that has housed the maritime museum since it first opened, and because of its proximity to Smeaton’s Dry Dock, which I believe would also be likely to be leased to the museum under the same terms, is really the only practicable building to house the museum.

I have made some enquiries and gather that a 25 year lease would be sufficient to allow the museum to obtain the grant funding that it needs for the work it intends to do to the steam tug “Cervia”, the dry dock and museum.

The steam trust has the resources to offer a considerable amount of leisure activities for Ramsgate apart from the museum and the vessels I gather that it intends to hold a series of events in Ramsgate.

For those of you that are interested in what this could mean the following links take you to some pictures and videos of past events that they have held, adjacent to the other museum they run, at Preston near the village of Wingham in Kent.

http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2009/06/preston-steam-rally-videos.html

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/psr2008/

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/prestonsteamrally/index.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/prestonsteamrally2009/

For those of you interested in the last surviving ocean going steam tug “Cervia” click on the link for some pictures video below, these were taken before the recent restoration work, I promise to get down there and take some updated ones soon.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/cervia/


For those of you who prefer something more professional, than the disorganised web publishing of a deranged shop assistant, here is the link to The Preston Steam Trust website http://www.thesteammuseum.org/

For those of you who haven’t ever visited Ramsgate Maritime Museum click on the link for some pictures of inside it.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts11/id4.htm

For those of you interested in the early history of Ramsgate harbour and Smeaton’s dry dock click on the link to read Smeaton’s report.

http://www.thanetonline.com/AnHistoricalreportonRamsgateHarbour/