A SARABAND FOR THE SOUTH BANK – AND A MEETING PLACE IN BROADSTAIRS
This view of the 1951 Festival of Britain site appeared on an early postcard to advertise Oscar’s Festival Cafe in Broadstairs. As the months go by, my aim is to produce a changing range of these cards, all with images which either directly reference the theme of the Festival of Britain, the 60th anniversary of which is this year, or which echo the period by using images of textiles, ceramics or design elements pertinent to the time. The decision to employ the theme of the Festival- or more specifically Abram Games’ iconic symbol of the shaded compass surmounted by Britannia’s profile and with fluttering bunting- was born out of a long-term interest in the Festival of Britain, and as a former collector of Festival-related ephemera, has remained one of my abiding obsessions, born largely in childhood, with the discovery of my parent’s original South Bank Guidebook, and a brooch belonging to my mother of the symbol in faux-gold and with imitation stones, mostly now lost, but which I sometimes employ as a tie-pin in the cafe. Because the particular building in Oscar Road somehow echoed the period more eloquently than anything else I might have chosen, the Festival symbol was the obvious choice for the cafe’s look. Effectively a single-story shed, Oscar Road Cafe has enjoyed a number of manifestations since its construction in the late forties or early fifties. When the old fascia was taken down, it revealed a palimpsest of former incarnations, the most notable being the word CAFE in maroon Gill typeface, which I loved, and which I felt sad to be covering once more. It was famously, a traditional cafe which miraculously (given the limited facilities which we have inherited) offered full roast dinners and Sunday lunches to the former population of Broadstairs. Many people still recall these days, and delight in telling me of the building’s former incarnation. Latterly, it enjoyed great success as Oscar Road Cafe under the tenure of Marina Thomas. The building had been closed for a period of around eighteen months when we took it over, and it was my intention to simplify the interior somewhat, work with it’s severe limitations, and to somehow envisage what a seaside cafe would have looked like in the early fifties, without necessarily going for the obvious trappings that the period is now most associated with from the point of view of pure nostalgia for a period which, after all, witnessed austerity and renewed hope in equal measure after the privations of the recent world-war. Not for nothing was the Festival of Britain dubbed ‘A Tonic to the Nation’; let it also be remembered that there were as many detractors as there were the millions of visitors who flocked to witness the Festival’s myriad attractions, not only in London, but in events organised the length and breadth of the British Isles. Games’s famous symbol unified the celebrations, and his Festival Britannia with her optimistic air remains one of Britain’s most enduring symbols.
Oscar’s trump-card is undoubtedly the wonderful cakes and savories made by Jill Smith, and we aim to provide a daily-changing array of her wonderful creations. In addition, we aim to provide simple home-cooked food within our current limitations, but which will hopefully satisfy our many regulars and new friends. As the season approaches, we will be offering a new menu for the Spring and Summer months, and as we look forward to the town’s yearly highlights such as Dickens Week and Broadstairs Folk Week in August, our menu will hope to reflect these events.
As the year progresses, it is my aim to host a series of themed events centered around a supper club for invited guests. Please check the Forum section for information of upcoming attractions at Oscar’s.
In our first eight months of trading, we have been voted by visitors as a prime attraction in Broadstairs on Trip Advisor. My thanks to all of Oscar’s visitors for their support and encouragement.
Here is another card for the cafe. The design is taken from Robert Stewart’s iconic ‘Sun Man’ fabric of 1950, produced for Liberty and Co. Stewart was a contemporary of Lucienne Day, who produced the classic ‘Calyx’ fabric for Heal and Sons. His work has recently been reappraised in the light of interest in fabrics of the 1950s, and a recent research project spearheaded by Glasgow School of Art has seen eight of Stewart’s most iconic fabrics digitally remastered and reproduced for the emerging generation for whom the design of the 1950s holds much renewed interest.