Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Near as I can figure it, through the possibly flawed perceptual filters of my own reality tunnel, the most likely answers, this week, seem to me to be:

Q1. Trevor Howard

Q2. Margate

The initial huge giveaway clue (might as well just have written the actor's name as write 'Brief Encounter'), places us in Cliftonville, which according to some of the biographies of the famous old British actor who starred in Noel Coward's film, was where Trevor Wallace Howard Smith (aka Trevor Howard), was born, circa 29th of September 1913. His acting debut appears to have been in a play called, 'Revolt in a Reformatory'. Mr Howard liked a good bucket and was on one occasion lifted by the Russians in Vienna, for impersonating an officer.

The second actor was a little harder to track down, a lot of the players in the cast of 'You Know What Sailors Are', seem to have been born abroad but I did eventually track one down who was born in Margate c 1929, one Peter Barkworth. Barkworth starred as one of the traitors ( Berkley, who got his
comeuppance after upsetting Richard Burton in a cable car) in 'Where Eagles Dare', a film which reminds the Eastender of his last skiing holiday.

Margate did have a jetty/pier, which seems to have been closed c 1978. There is a gallery there called the Turner Contemporary Gallery (built by architect David Chipprfield c 2011). JWM Turner used the alias Admiral Booth as he was having a fling with a landlady in the town, called Sophia Booth. On one occasion, after smoking a bit of skunkweed, he declared that "the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe"

The town does seem to have had a lido and the Phoenix that the puzzle author is referring to, is probably the grade II (star) listed , Dreamland scenic wooden rollercoaster, which was such a popular attraction, that people tried to burn it down in 1949, 1957 and as recently as 2008.


NB Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a  non abusive posting that relates to solving the puzzle, he will endeavour to publish it.