Mixture

A Memory of Eastry.

The quaint older houses on the right now faced new bungalows to our left, and on our left is another walkway to the primary school. Now Jimmy came to live in one of the bungalows and then he came to our school when he was about 10. He was from Burnley, Lancashire, somewhere up north, a long way up north and his accent certainly showed itself to be different from Kentish - very different. Opposite Jimmy's house was Mr Johnston who seemed more at home and more suited to the MCC Pavilion at Lords. He often wore his MCC tie and in his expansive back lawn and at the gunpark, practised golf shots. No doubt he was a member at Royal St George's at Sandwich Bay. He was also a President of Kent County Cricket Club for a while. He lived in the white house on the right and a bit further along was the local hardware and repairs shop with men for hire. Further towards the big throbbing heartbeat of the village centre was the Post Office where people preferred Mr Clark to do the bookwork, while we were served by Mrs Bullock who was a bit of a competitor to Gina Lollabrigida. The grocer's shop, owned by the Butchers, was next and then the sweet shop and the actual butcher's shop. The Bull pub is on the left behind the tree. Mr Fleming was the landlord by this time. And so we had Ali, a Pakistani gentleman, the MCC president, Jimmy, and the landlord's family all moving in to the area. However, as ever, life went on the same. No one had yet invented the hop-picking machine and no one had yet discovered that France was accessible. France was still a million miles away far far over the ocean, even though visible to the naked eye from Dover beach. And foreigners were from a different planet. In those days a good day out at Ramsgate was better than anything France had.