Police are now treating the attack which resulted in the death of a man in toilets in Cliftonville on Wednesday as murder.
A post mortem revealed that the victim, who has still to be named, died of multiple injuries.
Detectives have been given a further 36 hours to question two men, aged 44 and 21, who were arrested on Wednesday night.
Thanet Police are questioning two people after the victim of Wednesday's attack in Cliftonville died in hospital.
A 44 year old Margate man and a 21-year-old of no fixed abode were arrested on Wednesday night.
The victim, said to be in his late forties, was discovered with severe head injuries by a cleaner at the toilets in Fifth Avenue on Wednesday morning.
He died in hospital on Wednesday night, a post mortem being due to have taken place yesterday.
A Kent Police spokesman said: "We urgently need to know how this man received such severe head injuries.
"I would appeal to the local community to have confidence in the police that any information provided will be treated sensitively and in confidence."
A large stretch of the Queen's Promenade was cordoned-off this afternoon after what was described by police as a "very serious assault".
A police presence was in evidence along the promenade from Third Avenue as far as the Bethesda Medical Centre, pedestrians being turned away from the area. Mobile surveillance cameras were being erected at the point where the promenade meets Third Avenue. Police were reluctant to give details, although one officer confirmed that a "very serious assault" had been committed in the public convenience attached to the Thanet Indoor Bowling Centre. The victim was said to be "somewhat poorly".
One witness reported having also seen police officers on the beach directly beneath the promenade.
Cordoned-off: The Queen's Promenade
The scene of the alleged assault
Police erect surveillance cameras at the scene
The Council's introduction, several years back, of charging for parking along the main shopping stretch of Northdown Road had obvious advantages. Much needed revenue clearly topped the list.
But the scheme has brought huge inconvenience to local residents, and particularly to those living in the roads leading directly off the main high street. The majority of the houses in these roads date back to the turn of the century, a time when vehicular storage meant nothing more than finding a wall up against which to prop the bike.
Even today, therefore, garages on these properties are the exception; residents traditionally parking their cars at the kerb side. And until the introduction of charging for parking on Northdown Road they were quite often lucky enough to find a spot within a reasonable distance of their homes.
Not now. Shoppers, staff and business proprietors quite understandably seek to avoid the charges by parking their vehicles in the adjacent residential roads. And, let's face it, who can blame them?
But the problem then steps up a level. Having failed to fully consider the possible ramifications of the pay-to-park scheme, thereby inconveniencing those living nearby, the Council continues to exacerbate the problem by granting applications, seemingly willy-nilly, from desperate Cliftonville residents wishing to install dropped kerbs and hard-standing in front of their properties.
Last Orders from Ezekiel, Sullivan, Wise, Hart, Clark and Aldred?
For the past four years The Cliftonville Six have served as councillors on Thanet District Council. But now is the time to reflect on their performances, for elections loom (on 3rd May). Indeed, the dog has already feasted with relish on at least one piece of party propaganda before it had even hit the doormat.
But what do we actually know of our councillors' records in office? Will we bother to find out, and will that make a difference? Or will we treat the ballot paper in much the same way as we treat the weekly Lotto ticket? If so, why not just make the election a Lucky Dip?
So many people fail to grasp the fact that in District Council Elections just a few votes cast either way can be decisive. In Cliftonville West, for example, just 136 votes separated the top six candidates in the last election. The bottom Labour candidate, Linda Aldred, won her seat by a mere 16 votes!
Full 2003 results in the Cliftonville West ward (where the turnout was just 23.9%) were:
Anyone wishing to stand can find out more by contacting Thanet District Council’s Electoral helpline on 01843 577500 or by e-mailing electoral.services@thanet.gov.uk
Candidates must be at least 18 years old and must be either a British citizen or a citizen of the Commonwealth, the Irish Republic or another member state of the European Union. They must also meet one of the following four criteria on both the day of nomination and election day:
1. They are a registered local government elector
2. They have occupied, as owner or tenant, any land or premises in the local authority area during the whole of the proceeding 12 months
3. They have had their principal or only place of work in the local authority area during the whole of the proceeding 12 months
4. They have lived in the local authority area during the whole of the preceeding 12 months
Candidates must be proposed and seconded by two electors and eight assentors, all of whom must be on the Electoral Register for the Ward where the candidate plans to stand. There is no deposit payable for standing as a candidate in the District Council elections. Nomination papers must be submitted by candidates by noon on Wednesday 4 April.
I've been reading extracts from David Seabrook's book "All the Devils are Here" (published by Granta, 2002 ISBN: 1862074836 ) .
It took me some time to make any sense of the cover. (Turn your head 90 degrees!).
In one chapter Seabrook writes of the significance of Cliftonville and Margate to the great 20th century poet T.S.Eliot. Convalescing for several weeks in The Albermarle Hotel, Cliftonville (long since gone and buried somewhere in the rubble beneath new retirement homes) and spending much of that Autumn of 1921 in a shelter overlooking Margate Sands, Eliot drew inspiration for what would become his most famous, and possibly the century's most academically criticised poem, "The Waste Land".
Click here to order All the Devils are Here from the publisher.
An extract is reproduced below.
In autumn 1921 matters were serious. Eliot had been advised by a nerve specialist to leave London for three months and had duly obtained leave of absence from Lloyds Bank, his current employers. The seaside had proved therapeutic in the past. On a previous occasion Vivien had convalesced in Torquay. When Tom's turn came round they chose Margate. His intention was to move on later to rest in a cottage near Monte Carlo owned by Lady Rothermere, a friend and financer of the Criterion.
By late October 1921 the Eliots were installed at the Albermarle Hotel and breathing the perfumed air of Cliftonville, an exclusive area to the east of Margate, developed in the nineteenth century to separate the wealthy from the vulgar hordes. The Albemarle, though basically a superior guest house, nevertheless had an excellent address, for at 47 Eastern Esplanade it was close enough for reflected glory from the Grand at 43. 'This is a very nice tiny hotel, marvellously comfortable and inexpensive,' Vivien wrote to their friend Mary Hutchinson. She stayed for another week to see him settled in before returning to London.
Eliot's condition soon began to improve; he was gaining and looked younger, according to Vivien. He was certainly eating well. Lyndall Gordon reported that the first week he indulged himself in the "white" room and took all his meals. The next two weeks were spent rather more frugally in a modest room en pension.'
'Facing Sea' proclaimed proprietor Walter Beazley's advertisement, yet though the Albemarle's location was pleasant enough it can't have been particularly peaceful, especially from a convalescent's point of view. The hotel also faced, en route to the sea, the Oval bandstand on Fort Green and was flanked by Miss Courtney Page's School and Godwin Girls College, at 45 and 49 respectively.
Yet Eliot may have found the schools' proximity cheering. Prior to his clerkship at Lloyds he had been a schoolmaster for a time, a job he grew quickly to hate. Now, high on the Kent coast he was once more surrounded by pupils, though happily with none to teach.
Eliot remained at the Albemarle for several weeks and made a good recovery there. He sketched the people of Margate, practised scales on the mandolin his wife had bought him, rested for two hours every day and read nothing (or so he claimed). But he was writing. He resumed work on the projected long poem that had bothered him all year and he did this not in Cliftonville but in a shelter overlooking Margate Sands.
By early November Eliot had completed fifty lines which became, in the published version, the final section of Part III, 'The Fire Sermon'. Six of those lines concern Margate itself: 'On Margate Sands./I can connect/Nothing with nothing./The broken fingernails of dirty hands./My people humble people who expect/Nothing.'
"On Margate Sands." The eye snags on that full stop. The statement is a postcard to himself, tugging his mind back from another place. It's a postcard to us as well since it appears to be the only occasion on which he described a real scene before his eyes at the time of writing.
So what exactly did he see?
Well, in that season the most impressive sight would have been what was always known locally as the Jetty, an iron pier with a vast hexagonal head accommodating a concert hall, pavilion, bandstand and other amusements. The Jetty was one of Margate's main attractions, heaving with holidaymakers during the summer season. (A stone pier was visible further down the front, forming part of the harbour wall.)
Out of season the poor could often be seen fishing from the Jetty, for cod, maybe, or eels, to supplement their diet. They also combed the beach below for summer sovereigns, trinkets or treasure from Margate's many shipwrecks, while the less optimistic searched for lugworms and peeler crabs to use or sell as bait.
That was the typical view along the sea front in autumn, but this autumn was different. Read Eliot's lines again and you hear a king addressing his subjects: 'My people humble people who expect/Nothing.' Eliot would have noticed more and more of these people, looking humble, looking elsewhere as they dispensed paper flowers in the weeks leading up to the first National Poppy Day, 11 November 1921.
Click here to listen to T.S.Eliot reading "The Fire Sermon", (Part III of The Waste Land).
Laleham Gap's main site in Northdown Park Road, Cliftonville.
Laleham Gap School has been rated by Ofsted as outstanding or good in every area.
The inspection was carried out three weeks ago by a team led by Mike Kell, who said "It is a hugely impressive school that enjoys the overwhelming support of parents. The whole staff team has produced an environment in which the pupils flourish. Very high expectations and a commitment to developing the pupils as young people are evident in all the school's work."
The school was formed in 2005 by the amalgamation of Laleham School in Northdown Park Road, Cliftonville, and Gap House School, Broadstairs. It now operates from both these sites, and also runs nursery classes at Newlands School, Ramsgate.
Laleham Gap School specialises in the teaching of pupils with speech, language and communication disorders. Almost two hundred pupils, aged between three and sixteen, are on roll.
Headteacher Keith Mileham said "We're delighted. It is a lot about team work and support from the parents. There are also excellent staff who go beyond their contract hours to support the children. We have a fairly small school and we know our pupils well. All of them have something extra even though they have special needs."
Click here to view or download the full inspection report.
BBC News reports that two more arrests have been made in connection with the Athelstone Road murder.
The man whose body was found in a Margate flat on Wednesday has been named by Kent Police as David Gavin.
A post mortem has shown that Mr Gavin, who was 26 and was found at his home in Athelstan Road, died of stab wounds.
A 28-year-old man arrested on Thursday remains in custody.
Police have asked that anyone with information should call them on 01303 289600. Alternatively they can contact Kent Crime Stoppers on 0800 555111.
Found it! Rarely anthologised I think, but Betjeman in his element - concerned with small-town England, English society, English quirkiness and the seaside. At the same time he addresses the fear of the time; that all this was in jeopardy.
MARGATE, 1940
From out The Queen's Highcliffe for weeks at a stretch
I watched how the mower evaded the vetch,
So that over the putting-course rashes were seen
Of pink and of yellow among the burnt green.
How restful to putt, when the strains of a band
Announced a thé dansant was on at The Grand,
While over the privet, comminglingly clear,
I heard lesser Co-Optimists down by the pier.
How lightly municipal, meltingly tarr'd,
Were the walks through the lawns by the Queen's Promenade
As soft over Cliftonville languished the light
Down Harold Road, Norfolk Road, into the night.
Oh! then what a pleasure to see the ground floor
With tables for two laid as tables for four,
And bottles of sauce and Kia-Ora and squash
Awaiting their owners who'd gone up to wash -
Who had gone up to wash the ozone from their skins
The sand from their legs and the rock from their chins,
To prepare for an evening of dancing and cards
And forget the sea-breeze on the dry promenades.
From third floor and fourth floor the children looked down
Upon ribbons of light in the salt-scented town;
And drowning the trams roared the sound of the sea
As it washed in the shingle the scraps of their tea.
Beside The Queen's Highcliffe now rank grows the vetch,
Now dark is the terrace, a storm-battered stretch;
And I think, as the fairy-lit sights I recall,
It is those we are fighting for, foremost of all.
Welcome! It couldn't really be a better day for starting something fresh and new. A glorious Spring day! And yes, there really are even parts of Cliftonville that look bright and hopeful on a day like this!
This blog concerns Cliftonville, a small residential and shopping district on the edge of Margate, Kent.
Wherever I have set up home during my life I have found something of which I can be proud. Having lived in Cliftonville since 2000, there are days when I find myself struggling in this respect. Some lovely stretches of coastline, yes, but I can't deny that I find much of the town grotty, grey and oppressive; once-proud buildings showing the unmistakable signs of years of neglect, shops that appear to be in terminal decline, streets awash with litter .
Introduced to Cliftonville by Sir John Betjeman's evocative and nostaligic poem "Margate, 1940", I want to look for the good. I'm not suggesting that time can be turned back to Cliftonville's heyday, but I wish that the people who have made their homes here would take notice, take care and then hopefully take pride in their surroundings.
This blog will be concerned with everyday life in Cliftonville. The good and the bad. On a sublime day like today I'd like to think that hope and optimism will end up as the overall tone. We'll see. Please feel most free to make suggestions and observations. Who knows, perhaps the odd seed might germinate.
