Chilham memories
Here are memories of Chilham and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Chilham or a Chilham photo.
Praise The Lord
I remember singing in church choir and getting paid for it - the princely sum of 6 pence a week. We used to play in the church yard, climbing trees was a favourite pastime.
Ready Steady Goooooo
My family used to live in a flat above a cobblers. I can remember using an old pram as a go-cart to ride down the high street. Those were the days. Ha Ha.
Oh Happy Days
1st white house on left was the 2nd post office where I had to go every morning to collect and deliver all the Chilham newspapers around the village for the grand sum of £2 per week. Post master then was a Ken Parker, I had to finish by 8am to catch Herbi Arnold's school bus to get to Chartham Secondary School.
My First Flat
No I'm not joking, when we first got married we lived in a flat in Chilham Castle which was at the time above the Battle of Britain museum at the rear of the castle, yes it was cold there in the winter. We were allowed to walk around the lakes and gardens, whenever we wished. My father was the local village policeman, PC Bill Bishop. who managed to persuade a certain Lord Mazzerin to rent it out to us. Mice, yes, they were in abundance, the record then was 21 in two days, what did I do with them all you may ask? My wife would throw them out of the window in disgust of condition of the castle. Just beneath our flat there was also a small cafe, they sweep up all the bodies and wonder where they kept coming from!
Many A Beer Here
Many a beer here I have downed, served by the landlady who was then locally known as Brandy Lil, I can't imagine why though?
Don't Get Caught!
The Rev Lawson caught three of us smoking in the graveyard here, he then said he would tell my dad unless we all swept up the leaves around the main church door, which we all did. My dad was the local copper then, and a clout round the ear I would have got!!
Memories of Kent
Service
In the early 1940s Mystole House was one of the first places my Regiment used as a billet for one of the Batteries of Artillery as part of the defence of the South Coast Defence scheme on stand by in the event of invasion by the German forces in the Second World War. I do in fact have a photograph of the Battery in front of the House. Memories of the area are still very vivid in my mind.
Godmersham Post Office
We visited and stayed at the Post Office, village shop and off licence in 1973. My mother Mrs Oliver had just taken over as Post Mistress. My mother had given up a teaching post in Liverpool to be nearer her own mother who lived in Westgate on Sea. She ran it until 1982 when she retired to Herne Bay and took up freelance teaching in her spare time. I would be interested to know of any history relating to the Post Office as it had a lovely garden and was an interesting building
The Old Mill
The mill bridge shown in the photograph was washed away in a flood in the 1960's. Unfortunately the mill pond was a favourite place for some children to swim in then. We lost one of the children on the hospital estate by drowning there in the pond, whose name was Billy Johnson, whose parents worked as nurses at St Augustine's in 1963. He is buried in Chartham cemetery.
Beech House
Beech House was the school attached to St. Augustines,which used to be the County Asylum. I was there from 1964-66. I always found the people of Chartham top be lovely and kind. I remember walks down to the church and mill,and waiting on the station to go home for the holidays. I have only fond memories of Chartham and it's people
Asylum
My ancestor Jecoliah Coleman (nee Roberts) was admitted to the Chartham asylum in the late 1800's, and died here in 1915. She had a husband and 2 sons still alive so I wonder why she needed to be admitted, poor woman.
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- Turgis Green, Hampshire
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