Childhood

A Memory of Deal.

Concerning Ricemans fire in Deal, Kent - Sunday 6th October 1963. Nightfall; I remember the incredible display windows, they were smashed and collapsing, a few people (including a guy who did some plumbing for my mum) managed to get some prime clothing out and scarpered. The local law and firemen were busy trying to secure the bank on the corner! The next day that was all that was standing. Deal wasn’t the only Ricemens shop to go up in flames in the area at that period! I do remember passing through the Deal shop as a 8-9 year old to put our feet in a machine where you could see the bones, it was supposed to tell you what size shoes you should buy! That 1962- 1964 was full of supposed arsonists / insurance jobs, impresive indeed were the farms, Sandwich Wood depot, garages and house fires, even cars (Rolls Royce) over the cliff edge! All I was interested with was cycling at low tide to go lugging in Sandwich Bay and go night fishing off the pier with Martin Libby and other ’experts’. Playing with the first engines! At that time I thought I could make a Harley with a lawn mower, but Graham Banks and father taught me better. After a few years, and ‘quick trips’ to Dover with my British Rail school-pass, I’d be back on the slag heap, heaving a BSA C15, M21 or horendous Matchless etc until they ‘dropped’. Mind you we started them on petrol and then poured in the ‘findable’ parafin, not surprising the engines glowed red at night! I regularly replaced the copper gaskets, took a bit of finding to ‘grab’ the sheets! Who was the young man, a fisherman’s son, who mended boats measuring with a packet of Woobines’ or Player N°6, that unfortunately drowned whilst working at the Dover Docks between a ferry and the dock...sad. But in general... what a happy childhood. Remember the Dive Bar? That was a bit later...