Hardboard Holiday Home.

A Memory of Swalecliffe.

You'll all go "Oh yes", when I jog your memory that Seaview was formerly named 'Kite Farm Camp'. It changed its name to Seaview around '61/62 when Arthur Fitt the garage owner on the other side of the station bought it from Old Mr Prout. I was born in 1955 and my mum and her step father (Oscar French from Chatham) had a caravan each. They were both of treated hardboard and were wonderful to us kids (the caravans ,that is, not mum and Grand Pop French hah!) . Unfortunately they didn't come up to standard (caravans, that is :-) )as far as the new owner was concerned and if we didn't buy one of his posh new types we were off, and as it so happened.
My last birthday there was my 9th and it had a profound effect on my that we would no longer return after that summer of '64. No more Del Shannon on the juke box in in the Bingo /amusements hall. Cockle and muscle gathering on the beach. Fish 'n' Chips from across the road to the wooden decked station, coastal walks to Hernbay to watch the Punch and Judy and the Guinnes clock.
My father went two years before and my earliest memories, for the short time he was around, were walking with the pushchair that contained my baby brother and our suitcase to start the first part of our journey from Dagenham Dock station to Tilbury Riverside. I'd join the ferry holding my mums hand so tight as we walked the gangway and then we would cross the sea (as I thought the Thames was) to Gravesend. From there we would walk among the old timber buildings from the Pier Head to Gravesend station to catch the steam breathing train to Swalecliffe and Chestfield Halt (as it was in them days).
My dad loved the pubs; The Wheat sheath and the Plough, and taught me all about proper beer that was pulled up with a stick, as I called it, and not gas. I still only drink proper beer to this day and a lot of it Kent Ales as my wife and I sold up our Ilford home to move to Kent,just five miles away from Swalecliffe to start our own family and to share with them my past. Crabbing off the groins on the beach, picking cockles and muscles and skimming stones, blackberrying and wayside fruit picking,as that's all we lived on when we spent all summer long in our caravan.
I made some good chums on Seaview who I looked forward to seeing every summer. Henry and his mum, Irish Patrick who shared my love of Horliks tablets (or Hoyliks as he said in his accent) Little Ronnie and his"Farvy" (grandpa). Kim in her lovely red velvet dress and a guy named Martin who may have been the same author of the letter on this site.
I also remember a lovely old couple from Erith, Grand Pop Bill and auntie Palmer.Grand Pop Bill had a Kentish accent which changed my name 'Stuart' into Stirred.
Our Caravan was located between the western end w.c./washroom block and the road. The hard sea defence has replaced the grassy, clay links that hid the skylarks nest. There was a little wooden bridge just between the camp and shore line and it crossed a little creek on the way to Tankerton. I would try to catch fish from the little creek while the skylark twittered above me reading my thoughts. My younger brother and I had great fun playing soldiers and cowboys with our mates in the long grass and stoney beach. And when the tide came in the sea was warmed by the shallow stoney flats and we swam all day.
"Ship Ahoy" was the show on at Herne Bay Peir and I first saw 'The First Men in the Moon' at Herne Bay and 633 Squadron at Faversham. At 63 it still seems like yesterday but it was nearly 60 ago I sat on my dads knee and sipped on his pint of Rigdens (or was it Fremlins) on the dwarf wall just outside The Wheat Sheath. The morning air was filled with smell of egg and bacon as I dashed to the bakers opposite the station to get a dozen cobb rolls or hufkins.
Sadly, the only photos we had were thrown out by an older half brother who was cherry picking my mothers processions prior to her death in 2000.
I remember our baking paper kites flying between the caravans and the tears when they tangled in the wires that crossed the camp midway. Does anyone remember the vendor who would walk his bike through the site calling, "roast peanuts and toffee apples"? Other days he would bring his donkey in and we would pay tuppence for a ride on the back... Magic days eh?
My own family now live in France but have our holidays in Kent every year.One by one we dip our grand children in the waters off Tankerton as my dad first did to me and as I did to my own children.
Magic isn't something that changes or disappears, but it doesn't always look the same or can't always be seen.But It is always there in a memory that creates a feeling that gets bigger when it shared with , then felt by and finally seen by others.

Stuart Roberts