大象传媒

My early years were spent in Folkestone and it was from here that my story relates.At the outbreak of the war my mother was toying with the idea of sending me to live with my Grand parents who lived in Monmouth in wales.She quickly forgot this idea as with my father serving in the Royal Artillery she did'nt want to be on her own.And as she said we had a shelter in the back garden,which to me was a formidable place.But it was a refuge when the bombing stated.
Folkestone was a major army garrison and above the hills we had RAF Hawkinge.The Airfield played a major part in the battle of Britain.As kids we would watch the dog fights and cheer loudly when an enemy plane got shot down.
I remember myself and my three mates used to go round the army camps listening in awe to the soldiers stories.and getting cap badges,buttons and battledress badges.
Near me was an avenue call Royal Military Avenue,and i can remember the whole length of the avenue being lined with Churchill tanks. Up at St Martins plain was a german prisoner of war camp.Not fence off and we used to wander up there to look at the krauts as we kids called them.But they seemed no different to us and we found the ones who spoke english very interestng.
The outside of their huts were a credit to them with lovely gardens and hand made ornaments adorned the area surrounding them.

Futher afield was Dibgate camp and it was here when the americans came into the war that they were put under canvas.We would go to see them and scrounge chewing gum candies and herchie bars.They all asked the same question have you got a sister.
On the whole the wartime in folkestone for me was a happy time,scarry at times,but unfortunately the beaches were out of bounds great ammounts of iron work and barbed wire.But the harbour area always held a facination for us as the were Air Sea Rescue launches there and an MTB base which did'nt last long the reason being i think was that they were moored in the inner Harbour which was tidel so if the tide was out the could'nt put to sea. as it was it was transfered to Dover.The actual harbour area was a mass of small cobbled streets with quaint little shops.But when they started bombing a lot of this was destroyed.Today its all open planned and paved,sadly the character of the old harbour is gone forever.
Later in the war when they started sending over the flying bombs we would watch the Spitfires & Hurricans trying to shoot them down.I remeber one coming down in the local Vicarage which had a walled orchard attached.The bomb destroyed the Vicarage house completly and left a gapping hole in the wall that used to surround the orchard.To us kids this was fantastic as we could go scrumping.
The Army camps themseleves were spread over a huge area and we used to spend different days at different parts.We would go to the cookhouses and see what we could get,many a time i bought home lumps of fruit cake corned beef,butter, and tins of jam.all on a promise of my sisters name,which i did'nt have but it was a ploy to get things.
Towards the end of the war in a field near the BLA camp British Liberation Army, Was one of the gliders that was like the ones used in the invasion and us kids would play for hours pretending we were on bombing missions.On visits to the BLA camp we would collect anything of value that the troops gave us and treasured it from badges currency and the odd sovenier that they had bought home and no one to give it to.
Later as the battle of Britain increase and whilst the fighter planes were doing battle in the skies we would watch closely.I remember one morning a dornier bommber was shot down the crew had bailed out and the plane crashed on the hills between Stelling minis and Lyminge.It took us three quarters of an hour to get there only to find the crash site surrounded buy troops and RAF personel.We had to stay behind the roped off area and just observe what was going on. Later a kindly sergent came up and asked us what we were doing, we said we had come hoping to get some soveniers.He went away and came back with some perspex from the cockpit and some spent cannon shell cases.This was a real treat at last we had something to show our mates at school and i still have those items today.I remember the summer of 1940 being down at Folkestone Harbour when an airaid sounded,we hid under the railway arches that led to the harbour and listened as the bombs dropped.After the all clear we started walking home along Tontine St, Half way along we saw what we thought was dead bodies all over the road.But when we got closer we realised it was models from a fashion shop that had been bombed and had been blown into the road.The gasworks had also been hit and the whole area was swarming with ARP and police and we were sent on our way via a different road. Additions to this story will be continued at a later date

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