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CWS 180804D 16:16:31 — 16:18:00

This story has been added by CSV volunteer Linda Clark on behalf of the author Peter Gilson. His story was given to the Trebah Video Archive, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004. The Trebah Garden Trust understand the site’s terms and conditions.

Falmouth Docks, as you would expect were very busy. The Navy took over Falmouth as is the practise with the Navy when they establish a naval base and they gave Falmouth a naval name, HMS Forte. There were four bases, not all at the same time, but when they numbered them it all became rather awkward. As they called them Forte 1, Forte 2, Forte 3, and Forte 4 it sounded as if they had an awful lot of them. They chose to rename them Fort 1, Fort 2, Fort 3, Fort 4 which again gave a totally different impression. By calling them Fort it gave the impression that they were surrounded by barbed wire and protected by machine gun nests but there was nothing like that at all. They were all ordinary places; Membley Hall Hotel on the seafront was Fort 1, Fort 2 was the Imperial Hotel down by the Docks, Fort 3 was what is now Trago Mills and Fort 4 was The Coastlines. These were the bases frequented by the Navy and as lads growing up, we used to enjoy walking past the Membley Hall Hotel on Sunday afternoons because it was staffed by attractive WREN’s. It was a period of relative inactivity really.

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