EXTRACTS FROM
BI-MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
No 141 April to May 2008
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SOCIETY ANNOUNCEMENTS.
PATRON OF HYTHE CIVIC SOCIETY
Following the recent death of former Patron,
Lord Deedes, after many years of distinguished service to the town, we are
pleased and proud to announce that Admiral the Lord Boyce GCB OBE DL, Lord
Warden and Admiral of The Cinque Ports, has kindly agreed to undertake the role.
Lord Boyce joined the Royal Navy in 1961.
He qualified as a sub-mariner, and in the course of his time in that
specialisation commanded two conventional submarines, a nuclear attack submarine
and the Submarine Training Squadron. Away from the underwater world, amongst
other duties, he commanded the frigate
HMS Brilliant,
was Director of the Naval Staff and had the role of Senior Naval Officer Middle
East. He was promoted to the Flag List in 1991 eventually
becoming Commander in Chief Fleet. During this period he
also held a variety of senior NATO Commands and then became First Sea Lord in
1998, and Chief of Defence Staff at the beginning of 2001. He retired in May
2003 and is currently a Director on two PLC Boards, as well as being involved
with a number of charities.
Lord Boyce was elevated to the peerage in
June 2003; and was appointed Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports and
Constable of
Dover
Castle in July 2004.
SOCIETY SUBSCRIPTIONS
As mentioned in NL140 your subscription for
2008/9 is now due and, to help in our campaign to reduce costs, we hope that you
will give your subscription (£8.00 per household) to your newsletter deliverer.
In the event that this is not convenient please send a cheque, payable to
Hythe Civic Society,
to the Treasurer at the address given at the end. Please note: the subscription
for members receiving the newsletter by post is £10.00.
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SOCIETY EVENTS and NEWS
The Notice of our
A.G.M.
to be held on
May 13th (NOT
6th May as in the programme) is enclosed herewith. The meeting will
commence with the presentation of the Capon Shield to the developer of The Howey
Apartments, newly built in
Seabrook Road, which is pictured at the
end of this newsletter (hard copy only). We shall also be presenting a Certificate to Cllr. Chris
Capon in recognition of his outstanding service to the community.
Our Talks continue on
8th
April when Edward Carpenter will give a talk entitled “Romney Marsh:
Old Ways – Past Days”, illustrating the
slower but not always easy life on Romney Marsh from the mid 19th to
mid 20th Centuries. On 22nd April
Maureen Loveridge’s lecture has the intriguing title “Mars Bars & Ormulu”.
For a resume of the talk,
click here.
Recent
talks have been exceptionally well supported and we now often approach our
insurance limit of 100 people in the hall. To avoid having to turn members away
for this reason we shall try to find somewhere that can take a larger audience,
hopefully without sacrificing the convenience of the present venue. Surely,
though, this just underlines the fact that Hythe desperately needs a decent
community centre. Committee member
Bert Drury donated this photograph of a
fancy-dress parade collecting funds for such a project in the 1960’s – another
glorious failure to move our masters! (Photos with hard copy only).
Doug’s Summer Outing
will be a visit to
the gardens of The Salutation in
Sandwich – recently beautifully restored by Mr & Mrs
Parker – to be followed by supper at the
St.
Crispin Inn at Worth on Wednesday 25th
June. The coach will leave Lydd at
3.45 pm and
Red Lion Square at
4.15 pm. The cost is £21.00 inclusive
per person and cheques payable to D.H.Amans should be sent to him at 4, The
Maltings,
High Street,
Hythe,
CT21 5AB.
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FRIENDS OF ST. LEONARDS CHURCH
The following concerts have been arranged and will all
commence at 7.30 pm. Tickets will be available from Brandon’s in Hythe High
Street or at the door. On
12th April,
Christine Stevenson will give a piano recital and on
18th April
there is a performance by the Riding Lights Theatre Company from York in which
five multi-talented actors aim to provide you with a funny, illuminating
thought-provoking and vivacious entertainment.
On 17th May
Agnieska Orlowska and Michael Hampson from “Young Professionals” and on
7th June
the Duo Isario from Bavaria will give concerts.
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HYTHE FESTIVAL
It is
Festival Year
once more – from 4th to13th July.
The story began in 1992 when KCC announced a plan to pedestrianise the Hythe
High Street causing alarm and despondency among shopkeepers who feared a loss of
trade. Mayor Arthur Kensett and Deputy Mayor Maurice Maisey thought of running a
Festival in Hythe to bring in visitors and tourists and so support the Town’s
traders. The Tour de France was due to ride through Hythe in 1994 and they
suggested making this a key event in the first Hythe Festival.. A small
Committee was formed who each chipped in £50 to buy some headed paper to start
it off, and every society and organisation in the town was asked to ‘do
something’ in the first week of July. It worked, and begged the obvious next
question - should it be done again? Hythe already has one biennial showpiece
event, the Venetian Fete, so it soon fell into place that the Fete and the
Festival would alternate. (Which is just as well, as it takes two years to
organise!) Sixteen years on they have reached the
eighth,
and as always Clubs and Societies have been asked to stage events in local
venues, wherever possible with the public admitted free, or at least at
subsidised cost and paid for with sponsorship from official and private bodies,
individuals, firms and shops.
Events are planned to appeal to all ages and also to attract visitors. There are
old favourites like the Free-for-All on The Green, to be combined this year for
the first time with the new Hythe Bay School PTA Fete, the Canal Bank Concert,
the High Street Parade, a varied programme of Concerts in St Leonard’s Church,
and three appearances by the Band of the Brigade of Gurkhas. There are new
things too: especially a FHODS Gala Concert in the new Tower Theatre at
Shorncliffe, an opportunity to visit the Grand Redoubt inside the Ranges, and a
‘Napoleonic Re-enactment’ on The Green, reminding us all that just 200 years ago
they were putting the finishing touches to the Royal Military Canal which was to
give both Napoleon’s and Hitler’s planning staffs reason to pause.
The Civic Society will contribute as usual: an appropriate Exhibition, a Visit
to a place of historic interest, daily guided Town Walks, and the astonishingly
popular ‘Poetry Prom’. Details will appear in our next Newsletter and the free
Festival Brochures will be on the streets in June.
Our Exhibition will be a display of Hythe’s role in the defence of England
against foreign invaders, whether Romans, Goths, Normans or Nazis, in the Hythe
Library entrance and in part of the History Room. We would welcome any
contributions from members, particularly postcards, photos, prints etc from WW1,
or even material relating to the Napoleonic and perhaps Roman times, relevant to
Hythe. If you do have material but are reluctant to release it we can take
photographs for the display. Please contact Alan Joyce, 01303 267085, Anne
Woodward, 01303 268109, or John Keeffe, our archivist, 01303 873440 .
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TOWN AND AROUND - HYTHE IN BLOOM
Age Concern
has
just started a new service to help elderly persons ensure that they have
information on local services, options to resolve problems and meet needs and
are receiving all the benefits and allowances to which they are entitled. It is
called “Care Navigator”
and it can be accessed by contacting Mrs Louise Homewood either at the Stade
Street Centre or on 01303 269602.
Hythe in Bloom
Plans are now in place to ensure that the floral displays provided this year by
Hythe in Bloom, are as colourful as in the past.
An exciting development this summer is the grant application by Reg Belcourt and
Sally Chesters to B & Q, Folkestone to cover the cost of plants for the High
Street. They are cautiously optimistic that their application will be successful
as this would save a substantial sum which can then be used elsewhere.
HIB is again most grateful to sponsors around the town, including Lawrence and
Co, Gopak, Waitrose and Charlier Construction, who together have covered a
significant proportion of this year’s expenses. Thanks are also due to HCS
Committee members Sally and Tony for their very hard work in achieving this
excellent result for 2008.
Diana Arnold, who runs her own gardening company, has kindly agreed to take over
the work previously provided by The Hythe and District Gardeners Society, and a
very big thank you to them – especially Richard Eccles – for their help and
support over the last four years. Diana will now be responsible for planting-up
and maintaining the planters in the High Street and at The Library, so if you
see her hard at work, she would be delighted to chat about gardens to give
herself a breather. John Holliday, who watered the planters last year, has
agreed to do so again, so we are well set up for another colourful summer.
Hythe Heritage Buildings Project.
In NL 130 we announced that the Society had been invited by the then Town
Council Plans & Works Committee to assist in a project to try and identify any
currently unlisted buildings which may be appropriate for listing. This followed
concerns expressed by the Council over the controversy about the planning
application for “The Whim”. What Happened?
An inaugural sub-group meeting was held on 30th March 2006, with 3 Councillors
and 2 members of the Civic Society. There were two subsequent meetings which did
not come to any significant conclusions as to how to make progress. Alan Joyce
of the Society subsequently carried out some preliminary work and had an
unofficial meeting with the Chairman in February 2007. and in March 2007 the
sub-group invited Denise Rayner to assist.
In June 2007 Miss Rayner and Alan Joyce, jointly, approached the newly elected
Council in an effort to re-generate interest in the Project. Subsequently on
20th November 2007 the Plans & Works Committee agreed that the Working Group
should remain independent of the Committee. Both the Society and Miss Rayner
lodged concerns stressing that this was a Council initiative, and that in effect
the Working Group now only consisted the Society and Miss Rayner and thus had no
official status. We therefore decided to withdraw from the Project.
That said, however, both the Society and Miss Rayner will continue to monitor
planning applications, that concern properties of historical importance to
Hythe. A recent example of this cooperation was mentioned in NL 139 when the
Mackeson dividing weir in North Road was preserved, with the added bonus of
significant support from the Town Clerk, Judith McCormick.
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PLANNING MATTERS
Another block of flats has reared its ugly head – this time for no less than
12 units - at 102 North Road just where the road is at its narrowest. The plans
do not include any provision for visitor parking or for pedestrians and appear
to contravene provisions of the applicable planning regulations. If you would
like to add your voice to the complaint that HCS has lodged (which can be
viewed on our website)
please write individual letters of objection to: Shepway District Council,
Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone, CT20 2QY quoting the Application Number
Y08/0195/SH
The Government is introducing a Planning Bill which is intended to simplify
planning applications for major projects such as harbours and power stations.
One of the other key areas within this Bill is for planning appeals for minor
developments to be heard by a panel of local councillors, rather than a planning
inspector. Current legislation protects trees within a Conservation Area and has
more weight than Tree Preservation Orders.
The Tree Council
is keen to see further improvements to tree protection in the new Bill and they
are particularly concerned about the unnecessary felling of trees in urban
areas. They are submitting these proposals:
1. To open the way for similar protection to be given to all worthy trees as
that enjoyed by trees in the Conservation areas.
2. To make the penalty system more effective.
The Tree Council is asking for support for these amendments by constituents
writing to their MP's to stress the need for protection of important local
trees. For more information please contact Alan Joyce on 01303 267085.
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SOCIAL HISTORY
We continue to try to help correspondents from far and near to discover more
about Hythe and their links to the town. The writer of the following extract
from his memoirs of National Service (who wishes to remain anonymous) said how
grateful he was to Tony Hill and Mike Umbers for details of Hythe and its
military history.
A National Serviceman in Hythe, 1957-8
In the 1950s, the School of Infantry had two training wings: a warfare and small
arms unit based at the original 19th century barracks in Military Road and a
Signal Wing based at Turnpike Camp, a sprawling hutment draped on the slope of a
hill above London Road on the west of the town. After six months of technical
training in the Royal Signals at Catterick, I was posted to the Signal Wing in
March 1957. I spent my first evening at a demob party in a hotel in the town
centre to celebrate the departure of the man I was to replace (The Ordnance
Arms in Military Road was a more popular venue for demob parties). And so it
was that I first met the motley crew of NCOs and private soldiers of the Signal
Wing staff, some flamboyant in their Teddy Boy suits (drapes). They made me
welcome as the party gathered pace and “Spud”, the civilian medical orderly at
the Signal Wing, let rip on his accordion.
I soon settled into a leisurely routine of repairing radio sets. The airy
workshop in Turnpike Camp had a sunny, southerly aspect that lit up our work
benches and provided a glimpse of the English Channel: our sergeant presided at
a table near the door, ready to leap to his feet and call us to attention if the
adjutant dropped in unexpectedly. Among my comrades-in-arms was an avid
bibliophile whose favourite haunts were Kipps Bookshop in Hythe and the chaotic,
but richly stocked, secondhand book emporium in Tontine Street, Folkestone. Our
adjutant had a nasty turn during one of his weekly inspections when he found not
only the bibliophile’s locker stacked with books but another also crammed from
top to bottom: as the adjutant opened the door, the books cascaded out and piled
up round his knees. Cricket was also high on the bibliophile’s agenda, and he
made a reputation with Hythe cricket club as a fiendish slow bowler. As a change
from the monotony of Signal Wing cooking, the bibliophile and I dined now and
then at the Imperial Hotel, enjoying our Duck á l’Orange, but saving for weeks
to meet the cost of our dinner. Our evenings were occupied by weekly visits to
the Grove Cinema, and on a few occasions we enjoyed orchestral concerts at the
Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone. A more challenging diversion was provided by
discussion meetings at the home of the Reverend Tony Bridge, the curate at St
Leonard’s Church. He lived a bohemian life as an artist until his remarkable
conversion from atheism to Christianity, “in the back of a car on the Ashford
by-pass,” he told us one evening. His first appointment as a priest in 1955 was
to the curacy in Hythe where he ruffled a few feathers in the congregation with
his provocative sermons. Later he was promoted as vicar to a church in London,
and in 1968 he was appointed dean of the new red-brick cathedral at Guildford in
Surrey. Tony Bridge spoke fluently and with great enthusiasm at his weekly
meetings about a new interpretation of the gospels of the New Testament. I
enjoyed his hospitality and stimulating conversation, but I saw no more of him
after I left Hythe: he died in April 2007 at the age of ninety-two.
A brief parade and inspection by the adjutant on Friday mornings and occasional
target practice on the ranges were interspersed with our day to day program in
the workshop and sporadic calls to repairs in the classrooms when junior
officers and NCOs grappled with headsets and the switches and dials on Signal
Wing radio sets. Security in signals communications was an important part of
their training, and to this end each batch of trainees had a one-off visit from
a couple of Russian army officers, ostensibly on a goodwill tour of British
military establishments. Shown round the busy classroom by the adjutant, the
Russians stopped here and there to engage a trainee officer or NCO in
conversation. Speaking English with a heavy accent but a suspicious fluency, the
Russians surprised the trainees by revealing that they knew not only their
names, but also confidential details of their military service. With a wry
smile, the Russians said “We heard your voice signals on our monitors in East
Germany.” The Russians bade the trainees farewell, leaving the class shocked and
bewildered. Whereupon the adjutant spoke sternly about the need for caution with
voice signals sent over the airwaves. Then, he explained that the “Russians”
were not from the USSR: they were personnel from Shorncliffe garrison
masquerading in uniforms borrowed from the Intelligence Corps in Maresfield,
Sussex.
Other days out on Romney Marsh or in the countryside north of Hythe were devoted
to trials of new equipment. I had an entertaining day with a platoon of Irish
guardsmen from Shorncliffe barracks. The day was memorable for their reaction as
we drove past a field of turnips. With shouts of excitement, the truck screeched
to a halt and the guardsmen piled out, gleefully gathering armfuls of turnips
before they settled by the roadside to munch their way through what they
obviously regarded as God’s gift. On our return to Turnpike Camp, the guardsmen
lined up with the rest of us to be paid (why they were not paid in Shorncliffe,
I do not know). Our adjutant was almost bounced off his chair as one after the
other they slammed their boots down onto the wooden floor with a crash as they
halted in front of his table before saluting and collecting their pay: the
adjutant soon tired of the bouncing and was moved to ask the guardsmen to crash
more gently. My posting to Hythe was benign compared with the experiences of
many National Servicemen. The sergeant and warrant officer instructors were
amiable and good natured, and I appreciated the way that our two captain
instructors who shared the job as adjutant kept a firm, but considerate eye on
the Signal Wing staff.
“Signaller”
13 March 2008
Mike Umbers adds: The Russian story is especially interesting, as in the
early 1950’s, at the height of the cold war, two Russians in full uniform were
seen walking down the High Street – no one blinked an eye, let alone “phoned the
police”. I always assumed this was a test by the Army or Police of civilian
preparedness, but now wonder if it was the two Maresfield-clad guys having a bit
of fun!
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CORRESPONDENCE
A request has come from Linda Sage, co-author with Martin
Easdown of several books about the area, who is looking for information about
The Hythe Nursing Home, 89-93, North Road, particularly about the time when it
was a private hospital offering medical, surgical and maternity services under
the care of Matron White from the ‘40’s until 1984. Any memories or photographs
would be much appreciated. Linda can be contacted on 01303 230202 or by e-mail
to
tenby1970@yahoo.co.uk.
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ARCHIVE OF PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.
We shall return to this source of material for the Newsletter
shortly but your editor wishes to apologise to Mr. and Mrs Burgess who he failed
to credit with the hard work of transcribing many of the interview tapes
concerned. Lifelong residents of Hythe their enthusiasm for this very difficult
job has provided HCS with a unique record which promises to be increasingly
valuable as the years go by.
Annual subscription for HCS membership is £8 per household .
We are on the Web : www.hythe-tourism.com/civic
You can also reach us at: www.hythe-kent.com/societies1
You can e-mail us at: hythecivicsoc@tiscali.co.uk
Secretary |
Treasurer |
Editor |
Membership & NL
Distribution
|
Mrs. Mary Hunter
47, Harpswood Lane,
Hythe, CT21 4BH
01303268423
|
Malcolm Thomson
86, Seabrook Road,
Hythe, CT21 5QA
01303260642
|
Christopher Melchers
Lucy's, Lucy's Hill,
Hythe, CT21 5ES
01303267073
|
Alan Whipp
9, North Road,
Hythe, CT21 5DS
01303266479
|
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