Then and now

I ran across the above old public domain photo of the (military?) road in Ramsgate (Kent), taken in probably the early 1890s. A friend of this blog lives not too far from there, on a big yacht (kidding) and had taken some pictures of the same scene, from the other side of the corner of the quay there, (though from the lower level) and I was startled at how you can still recognize the arches under the road. On the lower level they are apparently store fronts or warehouses now. In the above old picture, it never would occur to me to think there is something under the road through those arches on the lower level. But then, a LOT of things never occur to me.

A few of A.'s copyrighted photos, taken a few days ago, appear below with permission. Thank you very much, A. Click on any picture to enlarge, including the old one above.

There is apparently a large problem in Ramsgate of youth using Heroin (which is called smack in the vernacular) and the above picture shows the humane treatment the young men receive from the Ramgate citizenry. Apparently the smack problem has been ongoing for over a century in this area. At least I THINK that is the explanation A. gave me. Perhaps not.