Old caffs

Long, long, long ago, back when the Earth was young & the Old Gods still walked the land, there was a caff. A pretty rubbish caff, all of the bad connotations behind the words “greasy spoon” and, in memory, none of the good (except maybe in the amount slapped onto your plate *) if truth be told, but the only one open in this particular area, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Called the Golden Arrow, it started out as a pub we’d use towards the end of an evening, in the days when Beach Street in Dover’s Western Docks still had houses…

…and then mutated into a caff called the Seagull — which was what I first knew it as in this food incarnation — and then after the houses were pulled down and everyone was moved outside the port area, leaving the land free to build the commercial warehouse and port infrastructure buildings in the 1980s, reverted back to being called the Golden Arrow Cafe, as a short-lived commercial drivers rest-stop.

In my memory, the place was even smaller than this photo suggests, mean, grey, sad and run-down (like those few people still left behind there), surrounded by emptiness and this photo — actually from 1970s Manchester — is closer to how I remember it. You get the idea…

But after a night drinking up & down Snargate Street and all points east, this still wasn’t a bad way of soaking up the alcohol. I have zero real memory of what we ate; I assume carbs in grease were the order of the day.

* Although maybe not 17,000 calories worth. I mean I’m a big eater and all but…