~ Chapter Eight ~
The Margate Years

Charlie and Amy’s first son, George Stephen Gisby, was born in September 1892 in their house at 9 Market Street in the heart of Old Margate.  Charlie was still a fisherman at the time, while Amy had begun to run her poultry and greengrocery shop from the house.

            In the year of George’s birth, William Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth and final time at the age of eighty-two, so renewing the troubled relationship with his sovereign, Queen Victoria, now halfway through the sixth decade of her reign.  With some thirty wherries, or pleasure boats, operating from its beaches, Margate was still enjoying its heyday as a leading Victorian seaside resort.  And in the north-west of the country, an area in which George was destined to spend most of his life, the Manchester Ship Canal, in its day the largest navigation canal in the world, was nearing completion.

            At the turn of the century, when the streets of Margate were ringing with news of the daring exploits of Lord Kitchener and his troops during the Boer War, there’s little doubt that the eight year-old George would have been caught up in the excitement and romance of that far-off conflict.  There’s little doubt, too, that the thirteen year-old schoolboy would have been devastated by the sudden death of his mother in 1906.  We know that he disapproved of his father’s subsequent association with Elizabeth Holmes.  Nevertheless, he moved with Charlie and his brothers to the new address at Addington Street to share their home with Elizabeth and her two girls.

            In 1911, at the age of nineteen, George was still living at Addington Street.  He was in employment by that time, his occupation being that of a pastry cook, or pâtissier, a delicate and skilled job which he probably carried out in one of the grand hotels dominating Margate’s seafront.  He may well have worked in the Nayland Rock Hotel or even the grandest of them all, the Cliftonville Hotel, both of which are mentioned in the following extract from the book, Abroad And At Home: Practical Hints For Tourists, which was written by New York writer and traveller, Morris Phillips, and published in 1893:
             Like Brighton and some other seaside resorts, Margate is democratic in the height of summer, but select in the autumn.  In olden times the season commenced in June and continued until October.  Margate offers every inducement to a prolonged season.  While London is miserable under November fogs and humid atmosphere, Margate is brilliant with glorious days and bright skies; fine weather from August until Christmas.

             Americans, of course, must flock to the largest hotel.  They like size, and many of them patronize the Cliftonville Hotel, which, to be sure, is a large establishment in the most fashionable, and certainly the most attractive part of the town, near the grand cliffs, and overlooking the sea – a splendid site and a beautiful house exteriorly, but not as well kept as an American host might care for it.

             The White Hart Hotel, on the principal street, is a commercial house, and has a comfortable appearance from the outside, but the Nayland Rock Hotel, not far from the two railway stations, yet overlooking the sea, and from the windows of which you may toss a biscuit into the water (provided you have the biscuit), is to my knowledge a well-appointed hotel, with bedrooms as clean and comfortable and dining-room as cheerful as any hotel in the world.  The cuisine is of the best.  If great variety be absent, quality is present.  The food is choice, and served in a neat, tempting and scrupulously clean manner.

             European hotels, as a rule, are kept on the European plan; at the Nayland rock you have your choice.  If you choose the American plan, the terms are very low for the accommodation afforded.  Two dollars and a half a day secures you pleasant room, three good meals, lights and service.  There are no extras.  The wines are of first quality.

             But I almost forgot an important item.  I went to Margate for health and rest; I found both there.  After one week I returned to London “like a lion refreshed”, and I shall always say, as everybody in London says, “there’s a beautiful air at Margate.”
            Whichever of Margate’s hotels young George was employed in, he would not enjoy that “beautiful air” for much longer; the declaration of war on Germany in August 1914 would mark the end of his years in Margate and the beginning of a new life as a soldier.