A short walk along the pier...

Did I ever mention that I used to have a kiosk on Bangor Pier? I did. I had it for three and a half years up until this April when I had to give it up.

A kiosk on Bangor pier - why? What did you do there? Why did you do it? Was it worth it?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm? All good questions.

My kiosk on Bangor Pier… now, what should I call it? A dream, a folly, a game, an indulgence, a learning opportunity, a millstone, a joy, a disappointment, a creative journey? Yes, all of those and a lot more as well.

When I saw the sign ‘Kiosk for rent – call Bangor Town Clerk’ on that warm June, Sunday afternoon, I just couldn’t resist it. Curiosity immediately got the better of me and I could hardly wait until the following morning to call the number displayed on the card. I had to know what it would cost to rent one of these Victorian kiosks surrounded by mountains and sea with views of the Great Orme, Britannia Bridge, Anglesey, Snowdonia, Beaumaris and Bangor town – after all - I wasn’t really going to do it, there was no way I was really going to rent a kiosk on Bangor Pier. After all, what would I do with it?

Except, when I rang the Town Clerk and discovered just what it was going to cost, just how little it was going to cost, I changed my mind. How could I not rent this kiosk? After all, it would have cost me more to rent a garage and I was sure that it would be profitable, and what a great opportunity to learn about the retail gift trade, and I was sure that I could sell crafts out of it (what crafts? No idea.), and I’d always wanted a Victorian conservatory with a lead roof - I just hadn’t expected it to be a quarter of a mile along a wooden pier above the Menai Straights.

Garth pier is a traditional Victorian promenade pier. Construction began in the mid-1890s just as the pier fad was coming to an end, and it cost £14,475 to complete. At a little under a third of a mile long the pier was opened on 14th May 1896 by Lord Penrhyn. It was made largely from steel, with cast iron columns and screw piles. A hardwood wooden deck, punctuated with a series of elegant polygonal kiosks with steeply pitched roofs, ornamental lamps and handrails, were positioned along the piers length. It was one of these kiosks that I would be renting, well a descendant of one of the original kiosks actually, the original kiosks were gone – but more of that later.

A pontoon landing stage was built at the pier head where ferry steamers from Douglas, Liverpool and Blackpool operated, and a thirty-six inch gauge miniature railway for carrying baggage was initially installed, but was removed in 1914. I often wonder why it was removed and I sometimes try and imagine what the pier must have looked like with the railway running along it, taking excited, baggage laden, passengers, out to the waiting steamer at the pier’s end - off to Blackpool or Douglas for a holiday, or along to Liverpool to get the boat to America. It must have been magical. What a sight!

When I opened ‘Splash’, my gift and craft kiosk, on Bangor Pier in October 2005, the railway was long gone, there were no steamers, the pier head sign declared ‘DANGER - closed to the public – Nobody to go past this point’, and the pier was badly in need of painting. Even so, I had high hopes for my little experiment, kitting out my little kiosk with pine shelving, a workbench bought from B and Q, and fine voile curtains in all the shades of the sea from dark purple and various blues, right through to white.

It took a couple of weekends to get it just right and through the week I read everything I could find about the history of the pier. In 1914 a coaster, the 'SS Christiana', had broken free of her moorings and collided with the neck of the pier causing considerable damage. This event had begun a long, slow, and humiliating decline for Bangor’s once magnificent pier. Piece by piece it rotted and fell into the sea until finally in 1974 it was finally closed to the public for safety reasons and was due for demolition the following year. It was only saved from the scrap yard when Bangor City Council managed to get it listed as a Grade II building and purchased it from the owners, Arfon Council, for a token payment of a penny.

The next seven years were spent raising the money to restore the pier, and the next six undertaking the work. The fully restored Bangor Pier was reopened by the Marquis of Anglesey on 7th May 1988. What an eventful life the pier had lived since it first opened, and here was I almost one hundred and ten years later about to open my little shop.

As opening day approached I scoured the country and the internet for things to sell. I’d decided to go for tasteful, inexpensive, stuff – I found, tasteful, inexpensive stuff – vases, glassware, lighthouses, candles, candle holders, carved wooden boxes – all manner of bric-a-brac, and arranged it on the white wooden shelves of my little shop. It looked great, I was ready to go.

It was only later that I started my glass painting, and even later when I happened upon the idea of wind-chimes.

Looking back - my dreams a little faded, my hopes stored away for another time - I have mixed feelings about my kiosk. I have fond memories of afternoons of peace and tranquillity, the sale of my first self-made, hand-crafted wind chime, the shoals of Red Mullet that swam in the waters beneath the world that was my kiosk .

Fond memories, so many of them that I’m sure that I’ll be coming back for another short walk along the pier at some point. Maybe you would like to walk with me?