NEROS SITE

Up until a couple of years before a fire and subsequent demolition of this building in 1997, it had been used as a dance hall and nightclub, as well as Ramsgate's first cinema. One of its more little known uses, however, is believed to be the cause of some strange happenings on the site.

During the 1970's and 1980's staff at the club, which was enjoying it's heyday during this era, staff would frequently smell Brylcream, something that had not been fashionable for a good 30 years and even then was only popular amongst the more fashionable of the time and soldiers.

The smell was most pungent in the 'Club End' (for those of you who new the place as 'First Impressions' this was the smaller, adjoining club, 'Second Thoughts') and the Bouncers were always reluctant to go in there when it was shut, while the owners dog refused to go in there at all. Things took a stranger turn on one day in the 1970's. A man, dressed in uniform, was spotted on the balcony and, as nobody was allowed in wearing uniform the bouncer assumed he had been let in by a mate, via a fire escape and went to eject him. On the way, the bouncer briefly lost site of the man as he walked past a pillar. Upon passing it, he noticed that the man had gone. He mentioned it to the manager who said that he had seen the same man, rolling a cigarette, in the club earlier that day when only administration staff were in.

A few years later, a bouncer was taking a coffee break on the balcony when he saw the whole building transform before his eyes. He described to a friend that is was decorated differently and was full of beds! An investigation revealed that during some the Dunkirk evacuation, the building was used as a first aid post for some 47,000 troops who escaped to Ramsgate in a fleet of civilian boats.

This would explain the man in uniform as well as the smell of Brylcreem.