Margate again!

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while about Mrs. Brown more it must be said for the period insight rather than the literary merit. She was the brainchild of the journalist Arthur Sketchley (George Rose 1817-1882) and appeared first in ‘Fun’ magazine – one of the rivals of ‘Punch’ – and subsequently in a series of successful books.

Sketchley enjoyed huge success with Mrs. Brown, a working-class, vernacular Everyman figure since her first appearance in the magazine in 1865. Sketchley used her as a voice of the people commentator full of ideas on robust justice on current cases and plenty of anti-foreigner sentiment. Today, however, I want to stay in holiday vein so I want to write about Mrs. Brown and her trip to Margate.

It’s a fascinating insight into what a Londoner’s holiday must have been like. Brown and Mrs. Brown travel to Margate by boat from Blackwell Pier with the inevitable seasickness of course. Margate is packed when they arrive but they find a room albeit with a suspect bed. Mrs. Brown is deeply shocked by the indecency of the bathing, visits the caverns and then takes a seat with her friend Mrs. Yardley.

A gentleman with a telescope tries to show them sunspots – tricky for Mrs. Brown to see but Mrs. Yardley, “as has had a boardin’-school edication, she saw it all wonderful.” They go dancing at the Assembly Rooms and Mrs. Brown finishes the evening a tumbler of hot port-wine negus with lemon and nutmeg. As she says “the only pity is it can’t last for ever.”