Aylesham, Kent

Lamberts Laundry

I called on many customers in Adisham village before the popularity of the automatic washing machine affected the laundry trade. I served all the main traders: Hosking Post Office, Best Bakery, Colmans Farm, and numerous private households. The generosity of the customers in providing tea and cakes added pleasant hours to my journey and I sometimes took the Sunday service at... [more]

Great grand parents lived in Barhamn "Black" Mill

my ancestoers richard walter and family lived in Barham mill. The mill is also the "location" for the movie Raising a Riot.

Through the Kitchen window

I was born in my Grandparents house - "Wimbourne" - in the valley below the Mill. Many pleasant hours have I spent sitting in the kitchen with my grandmother shelling peas that granddad had grown in the garden. The Mill could be seen from the kitchen window high on the downs. When travelling through Bridge on the Canterbury Road, we would... [more]

Family History

My family history reveals that the name of Piddock was once known in Knowlton and the family name linked with the Church. Piddocks were also to be found at Nortbourne in the 1500s - do such facts have interest for anyone?

The Pantomime at the Welfare Hall

My mum was called Jill Drake and my dad was Bob Drake and he worked down the pit.  We lived in St Johns Road and I remember that I was about 7 when the Elvington Players was first launched.  The Pantomime was Mother Goose and somewhere I have a photo of it which I will try and find it. It was... [more]

Living in The Rectory

I lived in the Rectory for the whole Universty year 1968-1969. There were four of us - male students from the University of Kent. A fantastic place to live. I have revisited the place - now an old people's home, still just about the same. The pub was a pub in the 60s - it is now a posh restaurant.
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School holidays

I used to spend all my summer school holidays with Mr and Mrs Curtis who used to live in the school house in Ickham. He used to play the organ in Wickhambreux church. I was adopted in London, and Mr Curtis was a good friend of my birth mother(I will leave it at that). I always remember the awful day that... [more]

Seaton Mill, Ickham

My great uncle Henry Charles Rudd was an India Rubber Manufacturer at Seaton Mill, Ickham, in 1891. He is on the 1891 census. He died there the following year, in 1892. I believe my grandmother, Margaret Hagar Rudd also worked at the Mill. She was married to my grandfather Herbert Edwin Rudd, Henry Charles' brother. They... [more]