I will miss my weekends in Ramsgate ... but not the mobility scooters

Marcus Berkmann has visted the seaside town regularly to stay with his old friend Stephen who is selling up and moving to London

Illustration by Ping Zhu

To Ramsgate for the weekend, to stay with my old friend Stephen. Four of us met on our first day at university in 1978, and we are friends still. Stephen has the freshers' photo on his wall, on which our faces and bodies have aged into premature senescence, while in the flesh we have remained young, vibrant and devilishly handsome. Stephen and his then-girlfriend bought this large, shambling house 10 years ago, and I have been coming to stay at least twice a year since then. Now he is selling up and moving in with his now-girlfriend in north London. This will be my last visit.

Ancient friendships develop their patterns and rituals, their ways of being. Our weekends proceed along well-worn tracks. I arrive by train at about 4 on Friday, and after I have settled in and had a cup of tea, we go to the Queen's Head on the seafront. Stephen's best friend here, Philip, will join us and other local faces will come and go.

We will sit outside the pub all evening in all weathers, so even though the sun is shining and the sea is calm, everyone is dressed like Roald Amundsen. One of the barmaids will bring us a complimentary plate of bar snacks, which are fried and bulky and delicious and will stave off hunger pangs until much later, when terrifying words like "curry" and "kebab" may be employed. We need no distraction from the main business of the evening, which is drinking beer and talking rubbish.

He drinks like a fish and when he wants to get home, rings for an ambulance

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Philip is the alpha male of the group, but a benign one. Everyone else here, and possibly within a 15-mile radius, has a nickname, other than Philip, because he's the one who awards them. Stephen is "Wobbly Steve", because once, years ago, for maybe half an hour, he had a bit of a balance problem. Another regular used to be called "Marxist Malcolm" because he was a socialist firebrand in his youth. One evening Marxist Malcolm said he thought that the Queen was all right and doing a good job, since when he has been "Monarchist Malcolm".

Other local characters I know of only by repute. "Jokeshop Jim" and "Jokeshop Terry" are so called because they are both in the jokeshop business. I imagine they are deadly rivals, playing extravagant jokes on each other in order to flush the other out of the market. "Rob Not Bob" drinks like a fish and when he wants to get home, rings for an ambulance. Taxis are unwilling to take him because of his habit of playing dead when asked to pay.

On Saturday morning, barely alive, I go and browse in the second-hand bookshop and wander around the town, trying to avoid all the mad fat people hurtling around on mobility scooters. Many of them, it is said, are on mobility scooters because they were injured in accidents with other mobility scooters.

In the evening Stephen and I go out again, just the two of us this time, moving from pub to pub, often ending up at the Shit & Shovel, where it is always karaoke night or Seventies disco night, and sometimes both. This is when we do our serious talking, about everything and everyone, putting the world to rights. Neither of us will remember a single syllable of what we said the following day.

Stephen has enjoyed his years in Ramsgate but is ready to go now. But I will miss these weekends terribly. As I leave the house for the last time, I have a manly tear in my eye, and thus am unable to see the mobility scooter approaching from the east at ferocious speed.