War Memorial at The Cross Roads

When I was a young lad in Wateringbury, the War Memorial was situated at the cross roads as shown here but this was moved to a new position in the Church grounds when the cross roads were widened. The sign post was moved to the opposite side of the road and is still there today.

Glebe Meadow

I moved out of New Cottages when I was seven after my Grandad died as the cottage we lived in was owned by Whitbread’s brewery where his father worked until he retired,  the cottage went with the job for him and his children for life.  We moved to a council house across the road in Glebe Meadow No 30 Glebe Meadow which was a relatively newly built and was directly on the opposite side of Bow Road. No 30 was a downstairs flat with a small garden at the front and back, my dad loved the garden and upstairs didn't so we had the entire garden allocated to both flats.

Above us was Mrs Irvine and her daughter Ann, next door was Mr and Mrs Dalby next to them were Mr and Mrs Seamark with their family of Diane, Angela, John, Ian and Garry,

At no 34 lived Bill Sharpe and his wife Dorothy. Their children were Monty and Jimmy. Mr Sharp was the local chimney sweep and vet as he would neuter the local tom cats! When he swept the chimney he would ask the kids to go outside and tell him when the brush came out of the top of the chimney. In about 1969 Bill and his wife moved next door to no 35  a new bungalow for the elderly. When the Sharpes moved Charlie and June Brotherwood moved into No 34.

Going up the road on the same side were more flats the bottom was Mr & Mrs Ken Muller who had one son Kevin, above them were the King boys John, Les and Michael who lived with their widowed mother.  In the adjoining flats were Mr & Mrs Cripps and I think Mr and Mrs Randall and their son Phillip. Next to the flats were semi detached houses the first of which was No24 where Mr & Mrs Foggin and their Son John and daughter Christine lived, the attached house (No 23) was Mr & Mrs Smith (Bunny and Dolly cousins of my Mum) and their sons Christopher, Clive and Graham, and daughter Karen.

At no 22,  lived  widow  Mrs Clark,  with children Frank the eldest and Anne.  Mrs Clark later married Mr Dunbar (a widower) who had a number of children. A couple of the eldest children were married and lived elsewhere. The children at home were Frank and Anne Clark, and Bobby, Maureen, Rosie, and Valerie Dunbar.  The Dunbar children often stayed with their sister June in Farleigh.

At No 21 were Mr & Mrs Jones and their two sons Nigel and Brian. That was the end of the road then with a small plot of grass where we would play football etc. I have been told that there was a story teller that would visit this piece of grass in the summer - do you remember? Across the grass and facing the main road (No 1) was Mrs Fisher and her son John who married and went on living in the house. Mrs Fisher was a piano teacher.

No 2 were Mr & Mrs Newick (Joan & Tom) with their sons Michael, David, Nigel, John and daughter Patricia. Before them in No2 were Tom and Eileen Shippey who later moved to No 17.

Across the footpath were Mrs Chapman and her daughters Jeanette, Christine and Jane and Louise in No 3 (thanks to Christine Chapman for her input on some names I had forgotten). Later in the same house was Delia Brooks and her family.

Initially the Petrie family lived at no 4. They included Mr Petrie who was an officer in the navy his wife, then children,  George, Doris,  Brenda, Pauline and Eleanor. Soon after Doris married Arthur Brotherwood the Petrie’s moved and Doris and Arthur took over the house.  Their children were, David, the eldest, then Valerie, and  Joan. Later Maureen and Jill were born, but I think the family were then living on Bow Road and the Adams family (Brenda and Les with children Paul and Amanda (twins) Diane, Gary, Roland and Shane moved into No4 Glebe Meadow.

At no 5 lived the senior family of Newick.

At no 6 lived the Foster family Mr and Mrs with children, Beryl, Raymond, Janise, Pat, Barbara, and Christine who I remember getting knocked over after getting off the bus outside the Handy Stores one day.

Then coming back towards my house there was a gap and No 20 with Mr & Mrs Clarke (George & Joan) with their son John and two daughters Kay and Dail (Dail has kindly contributed a great deal to this site and is an expert on the village history writing several books on it).

 Living at No 19 were Mr & Mrs Sellman with their children Pamela, the eldest, Brenda, Sylvia, Roger, twins Keith and Sandra, then Andrew, and Paul. 

The next house was an end of four terraced houses out side which the Fish and Chip van and Ice cream van always stopped. This was No 18.

At no 18 in the early days lived Mr and Mrs Fleming with daughter Jackie.  Jackie was a Tiller Girl.  When the Flemings moved out the Crayford’s moved in from next door from  no 17. ...The Shippey’s  then moved from no 2,  to the Crayford’s house at 17, and one of the younger Newick’s moved into the Shippeys old house at no 2. 

At No 17 Tom and Eileen Shippey now lived (formerly lived at no 2)  with their children Diane, Anthea, Valerie, Dawn, Paul, Denise and Corrine.

Next door (No 16) was dead opposite my house where Mr & Mrs Marchant (Mick & Bella) lived with their two daughters Lavinia (Vinny) and Elizabeth and their son Michael who went on to be my lifetime best friend, I have some brilliant memories in this house which became my second home in my early years. Before I moved to the Glebe Tom & Mabel Walker (Mabel and Bella were sisters) lived with them but then moved to the Garden Shop on the Tonbridge road and later to a small holding at the top of Red Hill.

Next to Michael was (No 15) Mr & Mrs Peg & Jack Randall and their sons Bernard and Colin. At No 14 were Mr & Mrs Goodwin (Joan & Keith) and their family Ken, Mark, Philip, Wendy, Ruth and John. 

At No 13 lived Mr & Mrs Pearson (Jim and Marie) and their family Brian, Tony, Dave, Robin, Ann and Sue. Robin was a very good friend and my best man but has since moved to work in the Middle East and now has a home in The Philippines.

Then the road bends around the corner where Mr and Mrs Newbury and their son lived and I believe the Tompsets lived (No 11) next to them with their son Peter who I went to primary school with.  Previously Mr & Mrs Waghorn (Phyllis & Toni) lived with their Mum & Dad (Mr & Mrs Cyril & Elizabeth Oben) and daughters Yvonne (thanks to Yvonne for help with the names).  Later Bill and Millie Cowlard lived there until early 2005 with their son John and daughter Mary Jane (thanks to Mary Jane for reminding us).

No 12 was the Newbury's who were not there long and later Mr and Mrs Pooley moved in with their son Kevin and daughter Sharon. Before the Newburys were the Shadwell family with daughter Diane, Yvonne and twins. Before the Shadwells were the Reynolds (Dorothy).

At No 10 and opposite the police houses were Mr & Mrs (Kit & ?) Apps and their family Sherry, Lynette, Gillian and son David, then came (No 9) Mr & Mrs Driver with their daughter Jackie Lucknow and her son Richard.

In the Police houses opposite lived Sergant Sadlier and his family one of his sons, David was a play mate. Next door was the village copper Tony if I am correct. I should remember as we always watched out for him on his velocet!

Going around the corner and up the front of the estate at no 7 lived Nell Hutchins (a widow) Children Vera, Margaret and Ken. ( Older son John was in the navy and married)........At no 8,  lived  Albert and Mary Marshall with children Anne and Barry.

My brother Brian came along almost as soon as we moved into No 30 and so we put in for a swap and moved to No 22 which was a three way swap where Mr & Mrs Martin and their daughter Ella moved into No 30 and we moved into No 22, I guess the Dunebars moved into the Martins house somewhere. In the years to come Mr Martin and Mr Dunbar died and I remember being very bothered that my dad was the only surviving dad of the three way swap. My Dad died a couple of years later!

Lynn Apps reminded me that her Mum and her neighbour Mrs Driver would hold a skipping rope across the road for the kids. This reminded me how little traffic there was in the road and how we would play football and in summer we would tie a string across the road to play tennis.

Summer holidays for boys meant finding some old pram wheels to make a cart with. A length of 4 x 2 for the main part of the cart with two other pieces of wood each something like two foot six pieces of 3 x 1 to mount the front and rear axles on, a nut and bolt to fix the front axle to the main length member of the cart, leaving it free to move as a steering device. Brian Jones was great a making carts, and would burn a hole through the wood for the bolt with a red hot poker as drills were not readily available. A length of rope fixed to both sides of the front axle and a wooden apple box with one end knocked out for a seat and that was a great cart.
My Dad was a welder by trade and worked at Maidstone gasworks, he made me a metal cart out of gas pipe which was just something else.

The Old School on Red Hill

This was the painting I did in about 1963

By a strange coincidence over Christmas I was invited to a private event at the present Primary School in Bow Road Wateringbury, which I had never visited in its 40+ years of existence.

Whilst there I was very keen to see if there was anything of the old school still in use and in particular any photographs of the old school.

In the main lobby outside the Headmistress office there were several photographs on the wall. Some were of the old railway station next door but most were group pupil photos, the earliest of which was 1994. There was one line drawing of the old school which was drawn by a ‘manager’ at the school for a calendar, I have asked if I can have a photo copy and will publish it here when I get it. With one exception all the photographs were after 1994 and relevant to the new school. That one photo was stood next to the trophy cabinet and was of the Wateringbury C of E Primary School Nativity play of Christmas 1961 in which was myself; I could hardly believe that of all the years the old school stood the only photo in the new school included myself. 

 

 

 

This is the Photo taken Christmas 1961 by the Kent Messenger at Wateringbury Church.

Let me know if you are in the photo, I am the boy in the sweater with dark hair third from the left at the bottom, to the right of the girl holding the baby Jesus (Jane Chapman). Dawn Shippey is the shepherd at the very front right, only her head is visible, to Dawn immediate left is Gladys Haskett, Dawns sister Valerie is the dark haired girl in the front of the second row from the right of the choir stalls, next to Valerie is Angela Seamark. Angela's brother John Seamark is Joseph, right of the central three. Farthest right, the girl in the button up sweater is Jennifer Shrubsole. Gillian Apps is also in the photo.

Teachers at the school over the years:-

Mr Peter Reid was Head Master from 1958 ish and all the time I was at the school 1958 to 1964.
Mrs Duffy who had a large spotty dog and lived in the village next to the garden shop in Tonbridge road (her daughter also went to the school) also there 1958 to 1964.
Mrs Bennet took the infants when I was there and I think some years before.
Mrs Drake took the 6 year old's class before 1958 (her son Julian also went to the school .
Miss Kellam-Smith was the Head Mistress 1947 - 1953 and Sherry Apps remembers that she brought her 2 dogs to school with her and she smoked DuMaurier cigarettes and she used to send Sherry to the post office (run by Mr & Mrs Town) to get them for her.
Mr Robinson, Miss Simmonite.

I remember being in Mrs Bennets class when about six and sitting listening to a regular afternoon programme on the radio. The radio was obviously government issue and was about two foot square and a foot deep sloping towards the top which had a handle on it. a large round grill in the center protected the speaker. The radio was on a shelf above the heater which was a large round cast iron coke burner with a lid on the top which was opened with a metal tool and the burner was filled using a long scuttle. In the winter the milk crate (as we all had a third of a pint of milk a day) full of bottles of milk, often it would be frozen from standing outside, would be stood next to the stove to thaw out. Around the stove was a horseshoe shaped guard which had a black crossed mesh with a brass rail around the top. Often the children's wet shoes and socks would be dried around this heater.

The School on Red Hill

I have been hunting for a photograph of the school as it was in the 50's but without success, I have even written to the Wateringbury history society and the Kent Messenger but no luck.

This is the nearest that I have to date but I am convinced it has some wrong features as I painted the school when I was about 10 years old and some of the windows in my painting are a different shape and I cant think I would of changed them..

Tonbridge Road

This shows the shop I knew as Wickens Dairy but probably many years before I was born when it was an outfitters. My Mum remembers it as Amos Bakers as in the photo.
We are standing with our back to Maidstone looking towards Tonbridge. The next shop along is the Post Office which is still there today looking like this

The Cross Roads

This was the cross roads as I remember looking up Red Hill with Wickens Dairy on the Left with the warehouse just above it with its upstairs stock room and winch, on the right is the bakers shop. No traffic lights though in this picture and you can just see the Kings Head Hotel on the lower right which was pulled down in the early 50's to widen the road.

Early memories

Early memories all before I was seven years old were of Wateringbury C of E Primary School which was then a few hundred yards up Red Hill on the right, there are now three detached houses on the site but the entrance wall and lay by can still be seen where Mr Reid the headmaster parked his Rover 90, a grand car in 1958/9, Mrs Chambers also had a Rover 110 and parked in the same lay by. The playground had a circular wall with target circles in yellow painted on which I have a feeling are still there. The front of the school to the right had a lawn where we played in the summer, there was a huge oak tree which is still there some 50 year on and it looks smaller now than it did then! At the back of the grass lawn there was a row of newish buildings where the PE equipment was stored, these I believe were air raid shelters for the school during the war. There was a live-in care-taker which was Mrs Long who was also a dinner lady.

I can't find any pictures of the school, though I did paint it when I was at the school and won a prize for doing so. I will try to post a scan of the painting later.

I painted it from a Bramley apple orchard opposite which I remember being much higher than the road.

Mrs Smith lived opposite and was the school crossing lady, I remember one lunch time crossing the road without her as my mum was further down the road and beckoned me across, boy was I in trouble when I got back to school.

Even at Primary school we were made to touch our cap (which we had to wear) if we saw any teacher in the village out of school hours. Mrs Duffy was a teacher who lived in the village opposite the vicarage in a large gated detached house next to what was then the Garden shop in the Tonbridge Road. School dinner used to arrive in a canvas backed lorry driven by Alfie Brookes who my mum knew, Alfie was one of the Brookes Brothers that went on to run a local Bus company who also won various school run contracts and is still in business today. Alfie used to deliver the dinner in square aluminium thermal containers, I can picture them now beside his brown lorry, but I never had them as I went home for dinner (lunch).

On the way to and from school I would pass by several shops most of which have now gone.

From my house there was Mrs Austins Handy Shop on the right, next there was the garage on the left and then on the right was Mac the Barber who would put a board across the barbers chair for me to sit on and he would always say he wasn't cutting my hair any longer - but shorter! He also would ask if I wanted some tree wash on after to finish it off.

Next to Mac the Barbers was the Butcher and then Outrams news agent/tobacconist/general shop, across the cross roads on the left was Wickens Dairy and next to that was the post office with a general store next to that along the Tonbridge Road. On the opposite corner of the cross roads was the bakers shop. Going up Red Hill was a warehouse where the stock was stored upstairs and was winched up to large doors on the first floor that opened onto the road. The winch is still there though the warehouse has been converted into apartments.