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Memories of Kent

Gads Hill

I can vividly remember this was a school, back in the 1960s, Gads Hill Place, used to fit the children for their uniforms! I was told that there was a tunnel under the road to the other side.. would have to have been deep, as the main road goes past!

Gads Hill Place School

Adele you are correct, there was (still is?) a tunnel from the main house under the main road to the garden where the "Swiss Chalet" used to be in the garden there. I believe the chalet has long-sice been moved to Rochester Museum as I believe Charles Dickens used it as a summer house writing room. We used to be taken through the tunnel on Nature Study lessons. My memory is of it being quite deep with rusty old iron gates that had to be creaked open to let our crocodile of two's hand in hand to pass through.

Being just post-war, boy's prep schools were few and far between and as a concession, boys with elder sisters attending the school were allowed to attend up until they were about seven years old and could transfer to a big school. Miss Burt was the headmistress and my class teacher was a Miss Hewlitt.

My academic life started as a single lad in a class of 24 girls which... Read more

Gadshill Place

I lived in Higham for 2 years before moving to Canada. I had 4 children who attended a school in Vancouver BC named Charles Dickens School. After 6 years I took a trip back to the UK with my wife and kids. I went to Higham and we were kindly invited to Gashill Place where of course Charles Dickens did most of his writing. We found it quite enjoyable. Thanks for the memory, Higham. Clive Jeffrey

National Sea Training College at Gravesend

The Thames From Pilot Station c1965
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I spent the academic year 1987/88 in Kent training to become a Careers Adviser on a post-graduate course run by Kent College for the Careers Service.

During my course I had to visit businesses, universities, schools and colleges all around the county (and beyond) but the visit that sticks in my memory more than any other is the day I visited the National Sea Training College at Gravesend.

Along with a handful of other students I spent a well organised day in Gravesend carefully taking notes from the instructors in Seamanship, Engineering and Catering. We watched Physical Education drills and inspected the premises and interviewed some of the college's young students. However, what we were really looking forward to was the final activity offered on our one day inspection - this was to be a practical experience of going out on the water in one of the college boats.

However, it was late afternoon and we were mystified to be told by the Seamanship... Read more

The Tilbury Ferry

The Tilbury Ferry 1961
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As the daughter of a Tilbury docker who married a girl from Gravesend, the ferry between Tilbury and Gravesend forms one of my earliest and strongest childhood memories. Every Saturday my sister and I would make the journey with my mum across the Thames to visit her mother (my Nanna Smith). I can still recall the pontoon, how the level changed with the tide and my fear of the murky water that lurked below. Those little ferries called Edith, Elizabeth and Mary that bobbed between Tilbury and Gravesend formed part of my psyche and I have fallen overboard hundreds and hundreds of times in my dreams. My mum's explanation that the varnished wooden slatted seats that we sat on were actually life rafts, didn't give me comfort. Mostly we travelled on the upper deck but if it was raining we would go downstairs and look our of the misty portholes and the 'humm' of the engines would make me nauseous. ... Read more

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